**DISCLAIMER: Exaggeration is our spiritual gift. Liberties were taken and MANY inside jokes were used in the writing of this letter.
2011 has been a very exciting year for Kaleo. We launched for the World Race in October from Antigua, Guatemala and have since enjoyed our three months in Central America working with a variety of different ministries.
Thomas’s Spanish skills have greatly improved since he asked a woman in a wheelchair if she liked to run. Michael Jackson’s hit song, “Pretty Young Thing,” will never be the same after the terrible, freak, wheelbarrow-flipping incident of Xenacoj 2011. In addition, the amount of broken furniture has directly correlated with his ever-increasing Snickers consumption. He grew a fantastic mustache and was nicknamed Santiago (which means James), and is close enough to Thomas to work. Luckily for his future wife, Thomas daily claims that he understands menstruation, even through he has never had sisters.
Mickey has discovered a new talent of remembering names, which may have stemmed from walking directly into a window sill the first few days on the field. He proved to be quite lethal with a machete, and has proved adept at leading a long line of blind-folded people through dangerous, scorpion infested weeds. Membership to the Mickey Mouse Club continues to skyrocket despite his increasing similarity to Wolverine. He has authored a second book titled How to Marry a Third-World Woman, which has joined his best selling, self-help manual The Park Ranger’s Handbook. If you would more information on membership to the Mickey Mouse Club or on either of his books, please contact him between the hours of 12 and 7 because otherwise his already deep and masculine voice is a mere grumble.
Chrissy left a piece of her heart in Guatemala after watching the Guatemalan National Wheelchair Basketball team practice for the PanAmerican games. Her husband, #14, rolled his way into her heart forever that day. Although it was prophesied at training camp that we would throw Chrissy under a bus, we have been unable to fulfill the prophecy at this time. This is not due to a shortage of buses, but rather because she’s quick like a ninja. While visiting a local church, we were told that Christ’s bones were placed in the coffin that was on display. In order to keep the peace, Chrissy’s joking response was, “Shh! Don’t tell them that Jesus is alive!” Chrissy’s skill at washing clothes by hand is not quite up to par with the local women, but she has a newfound affinity for picking weeds in the garden, followed by eating copious amounts of not-so-freshly-caught fish and platanos.
Rachel has begun to harness her red-headed superpowers, which include but are not limited to: immunity to large swarms of mosquitoes, the ability to pickaxe with a month-old appendicitis incision, and shooting three cottonballs out of her hand every ten days. Once off the race, she has decided to open a custom-made pancake house called, “SwagCakes.” We have found, however, that Rachel sometimes walks into strange houses and asks how much the children cost when meaning to ask how many children live there. She attempted to beat the Honduran record for most Cinnabon consumed in a month period, as well as made significant progress achieving her personal goal of spending more time in a hammock than outside of it. Her kryptonite, however, appears to be beans, which is unfortunately served three times a day.
Heather keeps us all in line and organized due to her superior planning skills. Her ability to play real-life Frogger may be lacking, but she can always find good coffee if its anywhere within a three mile radius. When its light outside, she can be found speed-walking ahead of all of us, but when its dark she’ll be lagging behind calling for us to wait up. If you’re ever looking for the opposite of the IMBD movie database, Heather is your girl! If you can’t find Heather, first find the nearest dog or closest body of water and she won’t be far away. Just don’t make her mad, otherwise she might punch a baby!
Laura’s dance moves certainly came in handy during hip-hop classes in Antigua. Luckily for us, our days haven’t gone too late, since Laura turns into a sixty-five year old man named Walter at nine pm sharp. When the boys on the squad failed to make a fire, Laura’s park ranger skills made one blaze to life. Although she claims to have one bad hip, we’ve found that she’s practically Robo Cop. With a machete in her hand, an overgrown field turns into a garden, an unpavable road somehow becomes straight and a garden magically gets hoed. Orphans lives have been saved because Laura gets coffee every morning at breakfast.
Although you may be wondering what your financial donations have accomplished thus far, we promise that God is being glorified in every tractor we drive, every chicken we kill, every Coke that we drink, every cotton ball we shoot, every fish we stuff, and every mile we run. We are excited to see what 2012 brings!
Love from
Kaleo
