WHY ARE YOU STILL HERE?
I moved sites to the Gumbo YaYa. Come on over for a serving of word gumbo.
If you are reading this here, you are missing out. The Gumbo Pot is closing. And Gumbo Ya-Ya is the new place to find a fresh post from the Gumbo Gal. Here’s a tease of my lastest from Gumbo Ya-Ya. Now get moving!
Finally! It’s gumbo weather in Louisiana. Temperatures are mild, and the humidity is low. Time to stir up a roux in a cast iron pot and get cooking. Even better, it’s a good time to ask my mama to make a gumbo. When i…
I noticed that this site picked up a few new followers at this site.
I moved to the Gumbo Ya Ya. Follow the link and read my latest post about Nicaragua, Grace, and Smoothies. There’s also a crazy picture roll on the bottom of the last post that I need to fix. See ya there!
I’m moving on in a number of ways. First and foremost, to my dear reader or two, who have hoped for more Gumbo musings, I have moved to a new site, The Gumbo YaYa.
Here’s the premier post from the new site. If you like it, click on over there for more.
It’s me, the Gumbo Lady. I used to write as Madame Gumbeaux at the blog, Honduras Gumbo. I left Honduras over three years. I am living in Louisiana. I don’t think I will be around much longer in the area north of New Orleans. Something is stirring in the gumbo pot. I am ready for the next adventure.
This week I am in Managua, Nicaragua. I am checking out different ministries and organizations. My hosts are missionaries with i-61.org. The number and letters are taken from Isaiah 61 which talks about all sorts of good things that God promises for us now and in the Kingdom to come.
Look up Isaiah 61 when you have time. It’s crammed with revolutionary verses about beauty coming out of ashes, good news for the poor, healing for the brokenhearted and more ridiculous and wonderful stuff. Read it for yourself at Bible Gateway online, then pop back here for more from the Gumbo lady.
Gumbo is a soup full of good stuff that we Louisiana people borrowed from French, Spanish and African cultures. It’s an eclectic and delicious dish. No one makes gumbo right unless they learned it from your South Louisiana ancestors. It’s in our blood to make gumbo. Other gumbo in different parts of the US usually tastes like dish water. I have been served it like a chowder. God forbid! If you can’t make a roux, then don’t even try it.
Why Ya-ya? Well, long ago, Lyle Saxon wrote a classic compilation of Louisiana folk tales titled, Gumbo Ya-Ya. The term, Ya-Ya, has many meanings including everyone talking at the same time. My take on Ya-Ya will be to tackle a broad range of subjects, rather than simply writing solely about mission stuff, or just Louisiana tales, or my solitary musings. It’s going to be a Gumbo pot of all that’s happening in my storied life.
We’re going to have some fun around here. I can guarantee that. This post will be cross-posted under my former site, The Gumbo Pot. See ya’ll soon.
Kudos to all who helped with the shoe drive launched in December. We had an extraordinary outpouring of financial help in a brief amount of time in December. I purchased shoes as well as sent a generous offering to partnering ministry, His Eyes, that oversees my former ministry on the outskirts of Tegucigalpa, Honduras. With our gifts they can distribute shoes as well buy shoes in the capital. Thank you.
Coincidentally, I happened to be in Honduras the same week that our shoes arrived. I went to Honduras last week. It was my first trip since I moved back to the US in 2014. I literally pinched myself a few times as I met friends at the airport upon arriving last Friday. Just to be back with such dear friends in a country that I love dearly was overwhelming.
Our gifts will be distributed next week as school starts in the beginning of February. I spent a good deal of the time visiting my former ministry. It was a joy to be with the children as well as speaking with old and new staff there.
If you follow me on Facebook some of the following information will be old news. However, it bears repeating, especially since some who donated do not follow my Facebook posts.
The ministry is growing in size as well as the quality of services offered to the children. The new overseeing ministry, His Eyes, is in the process of completing a new children’s building. What a blessing it will be to have a new, larger space to help more children. In the meantime, the children’s present location has been given a facelift with renovated rooms and new paint. They have a ROOM OF COMPUTERS that have wifi! For such a poor and neglected slum area, that is a major achievement. Most homes do not have running water, just a bulb or two for lights, and no bathrooms. Yet, our building has wifi, pure water, indoor plumbing and as well as a safe place for young minds and bodies to grow.
His Eyes Ministries started many years ago as a small eye clinic. Today, the clinic has two floors, offering services such as general medicine with two full-time doctors, a pharmacy, simple medical testing, a dentist office, an optometry department with a full time optometrist and one optometrist-in-training. The roads in this community barely qualify to be called roads in most cases, so the thousands of people in this crammed mountain area of shacks are grateful to have quality, afffordable medical care in their community.
In the midst of turmoil in Honduras, I see hope. The country is still a place of tragic violence and poverty, yet I see much that speaks of hope. Thank you for being my audience for my writing though my years there, as well as partnering with Hondurans to make their lives better. I hope to find the time this week to share a few pictures from my recent trip as well as short excerpts about the lives of some of my friends from Honduras.
Where have I been? Well, most assuredly, not here at the Gumbo blog. I haven’t written a scrap on the blog in months, save for a plea for mammon yesterday for needy kids. See yesterday’s post if you care to help.
I have no excuse. Nothing. Nada.
I write. I began a journal as a Lenten exercise. I didn’t stop at the Resurrection. I have seventy odd pages in a secure place.
I am tutoring: children and adults. I teach Spanish for gringos; English for others. I have foreign students, such as Japanese, French, and Brazilians.
Bubu, my German Shepherd, died this fall. He was old. No pain.
Now, I have a foster who may be adopted tomorrow. Rosa is a mature girl, 6 1/2 years old. She’s active and happy. If the prospective family fails to take her, consider adopting Rosa.
If you don’t receive a Christmas card from me, consider this picture as your personal card.
I hope to write more about future plans in 2017. I am bored with the RWPs (rich white people) in the US. My self-imposed hermitage must end.
Helping Honduran children get shoes for school term in 2017.
Source: SHOETIME
My former ministry in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, is short on shoes for the upcoming school term in 2017. We need to buy 40 pairs of shoes minimum for our students. There are 50 students in total, but some have shoes donated thus far. Without regulation shoes such as pictured above, public school students are denied entrance into the classroom.
The new manager had a Honduran contact for shoes that fell through on their pledge to supply shoes. Therefore, I am proceeding rather quickly. There isn’t time to approach the board of my local church and wait for approval for funds to be directed there.
Donations need to be sent to me via PayPal, Facebook Messenger, or personal check. As always, I do not receive anything for my services. In fact I have purchased a few pair myself.
A gift of $20, $40, $100 or whatever you can afford helps us buy and ship shoes for the most vulnerable: children who need an education in one of the most impoverished and crime-ridden areas in Central America.
Every week, I spend an hour, or two, or twelve walking on the grounds of nearby Fountainebleau State Park in Mandeville, Louisiana. It’s a wonderful place to walk, whether on the shores of the lake or among the mossy, live oaks. The remains of an old sugar cane mill remind me that the place’s history is rooted in history, too. When the sugar planter died, he bequeathed the land as a public park.
At some point in the early 20 century, a large old-fashioned bathhouse was erected on the sandy northern shore of Lake Pontchartrain. The state of Louisiana recently renovated the place to the original floor plan, complete with row upon row of semi-private changing rooms, shower stalls, and toilets. There are 2 wings, one for each gender.
It’s almost always empty. Who changes in privacy before using a public beach? Why would men and women in our enlightened age need separate changing areas? Who cares if the family loads into the car with sand and mud clinging to their bottoms and feet?
Bathhouses are as anachronistic as the plantations themselves. I don’t know if I care about the bathhouses in particular. It’s the subject that comes to mind that I care about.
Decency.*
I am bothered by the utter lack of decency in the leader for the Republican ticket. He has no sense of decency in language, in actions, or the way he conducts the campaign. Whether it’s insulting a war veteran, speaking of a women’s menstrual cycle, laughing at a disabled person, or insulting entire ethnic and religious groups, he has no decency.
When the Israelites were a small confederation of tribes, the elders tell us that they asked God for a king. Loosely speaking, God said, ‘Let me be your king.” God wanted them to not look to one man, but to keep the older tradition of judges, elders and prophets.
The people persisted. Saul was the first king. He was tall, good-looking, and a total failure. He led Israel’s sons into battle against their enemies and finally against each other. He died in suicide on the battlefield, a tragic figure in Biblical history.
Sometimes, we get what we ask for.
*My inspiration for this post that I spent all of 15 minutes composing came after reading Pastor Max Lucado’s column, Decency for President.
If you follow the Christian calendar, then you plan on attending church today. Or not. Increasingly drive-thru ashes are offered in the parking lot for the faithful who are too inconvenienced to step out of the car and walk into the sanctuary. The devoted may be infirm, cold, or otherwise unwilling to co-mingle with the congregants as Lent begins today.
In the past, my schoolmates, all Catholics, save for me and a few black Baptists, thought long and hard on Lenten obligations, more specifically on what they would give up for the 40 days leading to Easter. Some chose chocolate, or chewing gum, or candy. The zealous chose all three. Since I was Methodist, and in those days, Methodists were more like Baptists, we were free to continue our hedonistic practices. However, my mother has informed me her church now celebrates Lent, and indeed, drive-thru ashes are available at my childhood church. I don’t think she goes in for that sort of thing, as she likes to keep up her appearance. In her mostly Protestant social circle, most would think she’s just a nice old lady with a dirty forehead.
I celebrate Lent, but not religiously. What I meant to say is that some years I practice a form of spiritual self-discipline in these 40 days, and some years, nay. Also, I don’t like the word, religion. In my childhood, good Catholic children went to “religion,” meaning catechism classes after school. That was in middle school. It sounded beastly.
Actually, catechism was taught before regular public school classes when I was in elementary school. When the priest arrived, I had to leave the building as did my black Baptist schoolmates. Heathen were not allowed even to sit on the benches in the hall, even on cold mornings. When the priest pronounced the benediction, we were permitted inside, or as sometime happened, the teachers forgot about the odd few students who had extra recess time, and we hung around until nearly lunchtime, when the lunch ladies saw us outside and scolded us to find our classes.
I suppose today I could fire up the Hyundai, find a church, and get a smear on the head. I doubt if the priest, pastor or bishop would inquire if I completed catechism or was properly confirmed. They would be happy that I joined the line.
No fries, no ketchup. Just ashes. Next please.
One day, maybe tomorrow, I will write a bit about Mardi Gras. It’s not always evil, sinful or craven. Most times, it’s just an eclectic, eccentric, celebration of life. Like any holiday, one can take it out of context or celebrate to excess. No need for that. Just enjoy a bit of life before it passes by as quickly as the parades pass along St. Charles Street.
A Gumbo Pot 