Projections

Erin's 10th birthday falls the week of our departure for Honduras adding to the usual messiness of scheduling time to celebrate with her friends. (We have learned to always celebrate the weekend before her birthday because the weekend after is almost always the weekend before Thanksgiving.) The idea of trying to work out those party details while preparing to leave the country seemed daunting until Little Bit saw a movie trailer for Legend of the Guardians.
The movie adaptation of Kathryn Lasky's children's series featuring valiant owls having epic adventures comes out today. We talked about the movie as a source of Birthday Entertainment, but Erin was sure all her friends would see the movie way before the arrival of her November birthday. Except that I have spoken with the other mommies in advance, and Erin has asked her friends to wait one week to see the film. We will address both our travel plans and the movie's release by having the Friend Party October 1st.
Next Friday, the girls will be retrieved from the carpool lines and delivered to our doorstep. We will load them all into the Mom Mobile and head to the theater to see the story unfold in three dimensional detail. After the movie, we will feed the assorted precious girls dinner and cake before dropping them off at their own homes. Each guest will receive her own copy of the first book in the series (There are fifteen books in paperback as of this writing.) in hopes of spurring them on to discover, "What happens next..." to the characters they will have seen on the big screen.
While squaring away the details of Erin's "Friend Party", without playing host to a herd of giggling tweens the week of our next mission trip, I have other reasons to be thinking of the planned trip to Central America today. Far from treats like parties and pleasure reading, Hurricane/Tropical Storm Matthew is headed for the region. From Puerto Lempira, Laura says, "Our weatherman friend... has let us know that if current projections are correct, we will be south of where it hits land. We should just receive lots of rain and heavy winds.

Children at home in Puerto Lempira, Honduras

Right now, we are concerned about the people who live where this will hit. We know the types of houses they live in – made of wood, built on stilts. There is no way these homes could survive a hurricane. We are praying for these people today. Please join us in lifting them up.

We ask you to join us in prayer for this entire region."