A Tour

I am so thankful for the invention of the camera. Looking back on the pictures taken in Honduras, I suddenly am there again, talking with friends, laughing at all our Spanish mistakes, worshiping side-by-side on Saturdays. One of the things I like most about photos though, is I can bring you along. You can meet some of the people I met, and see some of the things I saw. It's not much, but it's a window to my summer, and I would love it if you would peer through with me.

This is the team, minus the leaders. The friendships formed with this team (along with all the inside jokes!) made this summer something special that cannot be replaced. I'm so glad I met every single one of these jovenes (young peeps).

This is the team who went to Limon. They either helped in the day care, the nutrition center, the English classes or the computer classes. I know from what the leaders have said that they really blessed the children and the staff with their presence, smiles, and friendships. 

This is the HIV/AIDS support team. These two women are fantastic -- they pour themselves into everyone they meet -- the people they assist, and the two girls from our team that got to spend a summer with them.

And here's my homies (haha): the Casa Hogar Vida team. I love that we got to hang out every day for two whole months! We were definitely a close family by the time we left... Mrrr! Miss them!

We hosted an exercise class for the women to get a chance to meet each other in the Casa Hogar Vida neighborhood. By the end, four women were consistently showing up (unfortunately one was sick this day) -- by the end of the summer, it was a normal sight to see the four women sitting together in the park or on a porch. I loved sitting with them. So much fun. The women were excited about the class, not only to get to know each other, but also to get healthier -- the woman in the middle-left lost twelve pounds in a month! Xan (left) did a fantastic job of teaching the women exercises and really emphasizing that God loves our whole selves -- the spiritual part of us and the physical part!

Speaking of the spiritual part of us, here's the women's Bible study we had every Wednesday. We went through Acts 2:42-47, which talks about the early church community. It was so encouraging to share what we knew with them, and to have them share with us; I think we all learned a lot! I was inspired to witness their passion to know God more.

Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday were class days for the kids! Tuesday was Bible class, and the other days were English. It was challenging but awesome to see the kids grow -- a few of them were extremely dedicated and learned a ton. The girl in the pink shirt is one of them :-)

 This is Sarah -- she goes to my school too. We worked now and then in Manualidades, the craft shop. Sarah was the main girl of our team to help Manualidades -- I mostly just helped with translating and making bracelets. It was fun! Everything they sell is handmade, and gives the women a source of income, which is desperately needed. They're talented, too! The bags and jewelry are very well-made. 

One day, I had the opportunity to teach mediation to the leaders at Casa Hogar Vida. I had just taken that class in the spring, so I was able to translate my notes into Spanish and teach them the basics. As with every community, there have been relational conflicts, and I was glad I got to share what I know to help resolve them. God definitely planned that out, giving me tools at the right time to pass on to others. He's pretty cool like that!

Once I got more confident in Spanish, I spent a few mornings reading the Bible to some of the women at Casa who can't read, one of which is pictured with her family. It was wonderful to talk with them, to share what I liked about the passage and to hear their insights. After, we would just chat about life. This was my favorite part of my job :-)

We went to the malnutrition clinic at the city hospital, where six babies and their mothers were crammed in a tiny room. It was heartbreaking to see, and to hear the stories of the women. They had to stay at the hospital 24/7, even though they often had other kids at home in the more rural areas of Honduras. The hospital would take care of the symptoms of malnutrition, but then send them back once they were out of the crisis -- too often the babies would die later.

It was sad to hear, but it made me hold onto God even more. He cares about the mothers and the kids in that sweaty, dingy room. He can bring them hope and provide for them, if we would just open our mouths and tell them about Him, and open up our resources to help. That's one of the biggest things I learned this summer: Jesus, and all that he brings, is the only solution. His death and resurrection for us, to reconcile us to him, is the greatest love story of all time. And that's what these people need: LOVE.

Thank you for looking through the window to my summer with me. I'm going to leave you with a couple more quick pictures, but I wanted to end with this: The world needs Christ. If you don't know him, you should give him a chance. He will change your life in awesome ways. Ask me how he changed mine sometime :-) If you do know him, I just want to ask you, does it show? Are your actions ones of love towards others? Are you using your resources to help others and bring God's kingdom to earth?

Now I leave you with some last quick glances out the window:

These are the twins who live in the orphanage at Casa Hogar Vida

This is the tia (aunt) who works at the orphanage. She became a good friend of mine.

This woman has HIV, but she doesn't let it interfere with her friendly spirit.

This woman also has HIV -- her story is beautiful! She also became a good friend of mine

These are her two boys, who rock my world and brighten my life!

Thanks for coming!

A tiny update

Hey!

Thanks for stopping by :-)

I don't know if I'll be writing more on this blog or not. I probably will, because I get to write a bit about my experiences for a conflict management class, so I might just stick those writings on here.

Other than that, we shall save this blog for whenever I go back. I know I will, it's just a matter of when. As we made our goodbyes, everyone kept asking us if we would return. I always said I want to, if God will let me. All I gotta say is, he better let me. I still think often of the friends I have down there.


Thanks for taking a moment to look at this. Like I've said multiple times, thank you so much for all your prayers and support! I still mean it :-)

I'm going to try to post pictures on here, so we'll see how that goes. Until later then, my dear fellows!

SUMMARY: Week 5

Sunday: We rested in the afternoon (Elsa did the grocery shopping)... run and grab all the clothes as it starts sprinkling, danced in the torrential downpoar (with the wind, it stung!). We got milkshakes in the evening because it was Peggy's last day. After, some peeps hung out in our apt while Peggy packed – the highlight for me was when we were all jamming to Bohemian Rhapsody and Criz (the only Honduran) watched bemusedly :-D

Monday: Did some writing for my conflict management internship stuff... English class in the afternoon (Some of the kids are really catching on! So great!). Visited Espresso Americano (Starbucks equivalent here... good stuff!). The power went out in the afternoon because of a storm. After dinner, the storm had passed, but the electricity was still out. Since Peggy was gone, we didn't have a Bible study, so there was a worship night with ukeleles instead! Sarah and I walked around the compound and listened and talked and prayed. It was a magical night, with the lights out and the mountains and fireflies and random lightning in the far distance... Yes.

Tuesday: For Bible class, the kids memorized Ephesians 2:10 – all of us had it memorized by the end, even the non-spanish-speakers (haha!). KFC for dinner, band practice in the evening.

Wednesday: In the morning, I read my Bible and brainstormed for internship stuff. For the women's Bible study, we talked about the importance of reading the Bible. We all read a chapter in 1 John and discussed. Right as we were about to leave, it started POURING! After dinner, we had some band practice, then the monthly prayer meeting. I prayed in Spanish! Yay! One of the singers made me go with her group instead of the Gringo group :-P

Thursday: Usual day at Casa, except that Xan's mom was here! English class, hang out at the park afterwards. There was a group of women there that we chatted with. HLT session in the evening.

Friday: Criz and Nicole came along to help with evangelism. Pray for the people we met and a continued boldness to share the gospel!

Saturday: I went to band practice at 2-4, then stayed since dinner was at 5. I got to see the drama team practice and help with folding bulletins (flashbacks to when I was like, 7). After church, we had an unconventional pool party! The pool was drained so we had fun clambering around and having dance parties and eventually just laying down and stargazing... at the bottom of the pool. :-D

Sunday: went to the beach! On one side in the distance was El Salvador, and the other side was Nicaragua. Cool no? Lunch was fried fish and shrimp (fish still had the head on! :-) After lunch, I just chilled on a hammock and read and listened to music and soaked it all in. So great! Dinner was a bbq party with a bunch of church leaders. Had no idea that was happening until we showed up. Yay Honduras! Food was good.

SUMMARY: Week 5

Sunday: We rested in the afternoon (Elsa did the grocery shopping)... run and grab all the clothes as it starts sprinkling, danced in the torrential downpoar (with the wind, it stung!). We got milkshakes in the evening because it was Peggy's last day. After, some peeps hung out in our apt while Peggy packed – the highlight for me was when we were all jamming to Bohemian Rhapsody and Criz (the only Honduran) watched bemusedly :-D

Monday: Did some writing for my conflict management internship stuff... English class in the afternoon (Some of the kids are really catching on! So great!). Visited Espresso Americano (Starbucks equivalent here... good stuff!). The power went out in the afternoon because of a storm. After dinner, the storm had passed, but the electricity was still out. Since Peggy was gone, we didn't have a Bible study, so there was a worship night with ukeleles instead! Sarah and I walked around the compound and listened and talked and prayed. It was a magical night, with the lights out and the mountains and fireflies and random lightning in the far distance... Yes.

Tuesday: For Bible class, the kids memorized Ephesians 2:10 – all of us had it memorized by the end, even the non-spanish-speakers (haha!). KFC for dinner, band practice in the evening.

Wednesday: In the morning, I read my Bible and brainstormed for internship stuff. For the women's Bible study, we talked about the importance of reading the Bible. We all read a chapter in 1 John and discussed. Right as we were about to leave, it started POURING! After dinner, we had some band practice, then the monthly prayer meeting. I prayed in Spanish! Yay! One of the singers made me go with her group instead of the Gringo group :-P

Thursday: Usual day at Casa, except that Xan's mom was here! English class, hang out at the park afterwards. There was a group of women there that we chatted with. HLT session in the evening.

Friday: Criz and Nicole came along to help with evangelism. Pray for the people we met and a continued boldness to share the gospel!

Saturday: I went to band practice at 2-4, then stayed since dinner was at 5. I got to see the drama team practice and help with folding bulletins (flashbacks to when I was like, 7). After church, we had an unconventional pool party! The pool was drained so we had fun clambering around and having dance parties and eventually just laying down and stargazing... at the bottom of the pool. :-D

Sunday: went to the beach! On one side in the distance was El Salvador, and the other side was Nicaragua. Cool no? Lunch was fried fish and shrimp (fish still had the head on! :-) After lunch, I just chilled on a hammock and read and listened to music and soaked it all in. So great! Dinner was a bbq party with a bunch of church leaders. Had no idea that was happening until we showed up. Yay Honduras! Food was good.

SUMMARY: Week 4

 Week 4: SUMMARY

Saturday: Went to the mountains, very disappointing – just a resort type thing, no hiking and views like I was hoping for. However, the mayor of Choluteca was there. Church in the evening.

Sunday: Sarah was sick, so we looked for meds (no pharmacies are open on Sundays), then helped clean up the church for the event in the evening. Grocery shopping, skyping, dinner... The church put on a concert event for the youth that reminded me a lot of my own high school conferences – Jammin music, a speaker, presentation of the gospel, the usual crowd jumping to the music in the front :-)

Monday: Talked with David, English class, dinner at Toita's, Joshua study. Usual day :-)

Tuesday: Just Xan, Taylor and me. I went to Manualidades to braid bracelets in the morning, then we had Bible class in the afternoon. The kids were crazy! For dinner, Toita's husband Louis made us bbq! Hung out with Kent girls that night.

Wednesday: Hung out with Edith after exercise class (she's so super cool!), had a women's Bible study on gossip – huge problem here! Hoping they get the message :-) Hung out at the orphanage, asked the tia about how Hondurans deal with conflicts (she said they either ignore it or kill each other. Wow.). Heard about the small electrical fire at our apartment at dinner (sarah was still home sick, so it wasn't a big deal). Had Tiedown with the HLT group, just to see how our summers have gone... Princess Bride in the evening (Yessssssssssss)

Thursday: Everyone was officially back at Casa (Yay!). David had news about a cult that thought the world was going to end on Saturday (oh look... it didn't). English class was so encouraging because the kids remembered a ton of stuff! We played hot jicaro instead of hot potato (kids loved it!). HLT session in the evening with Pastor Geovany (Geovanni? Giovani? I swear they change the spelling every week). None of the usual translators were there, so we just had a willing volunteer from the audience. He made a valiant effort, but I just tried to understand Geovany because it was rough going. I got the gist though, so that's good.

Friday: Hung out at the orphanage until after the exercise class, then went to the kids school with Maura and David! So interesting to talk about the educational system with David on the way back. Make me very thankful for the education we have in the US. Even though we have our own issues, at least we do have school most of the year, with decent supplies and teachers. We evangelized in the afternoon (Rachel, me, Mandy and Michelle – only Rachel didn't know spanish, but it was still difficult!). Edith fed us baleadas (score!). Pizza in the evening, late night watching movies :-P

Saturday: Posted photos – took all day (thanks internet!) Rested. Church in the evening, gave a ride to a family who walks 30 minutes to church every week (what?!). It was cool to get to know them a bit on the way back.

Beaches, Birthdays, and Bibles (A Novel)

Okay.... So last Friday, Criz and Nicole (both Hondurans) came with us to hang out for the day. David, Criz, Taylor and I hung out and talked for a bit which was fun. I learned the word for people who have the same name. I forget it now, but I'll hopefully look it up before I post this so that you can know it too! Haha. After lunch, we did evangelism – with two groups: Criz's team and Nicole's team.

Evangelism time went well – my team visited three houses – Criz was our awesome translator :-) If you think of it, pray for Juan. His wife is a strong Christian, but he isn't. But apparently, his wife thinks it's inevitable that he is going to become a Christian – so pray that whatever is holding him back would disappear. Also pray for another house – they're Christians, but they don't go to church or lifegroups too often because of work. Pray that they can either find a different time to have some Christian community or something, because that is definitely necessary to stay strong in the faith. :-) The other team actually talked to some of the younger girls for the majority of the time. It was eye-opening how much these girls need Jesus too – just because they're growing up in Casa Hogar and go to the church does not mean they understand the gospel. It was a great experience, from what I've heard!

On Saturday, I did some laundry, then skyped the Kent h2o summer reunion party in the afternoon. Soooooo fun! I LOVED being able to see people's faces and wave hi and such. I miss all a y'all, but can't wait to have another school year with y'all in a little over a month! Exciting! After that, I went to band practice and got to hang out after to watch the drama team practice and help fold bulletins. The drama team was hilarious! My … supervisor(?), Eli, was an angry man yelling at his wife and kids. It was fun to see him jump in and out of character, especially since he's actually a super kind, more soft-spoken guy :-)

Actual church was good – the pastor talked about the lie of “that's just the way I am, and I can't change.” God is all-powerful. If we depend on Him, he can change anyone. It was good!

After church, I was just hanging out or something when Sarah runs in and says, “Come to the pool it'll be super fun!” and I'm like okay... I get there and Sarah and Elsa are walking around on the bottom of our drained pool. Immediately I'm like, where's my camera?!? If you haven't seen the pictures on facebook yet, you need to :-) It was a bunch of fun! We just hung out and read our bibles then started climbing the walls and dancing around... eventually we found out how to turn off the lights and we had a dance party with Taylor's laptop and Sarah's strobe light app on her phone. Super funn!!! So dark though, pictures don't look so great :-) Then eventually we got tired and started stargazing. At the bottom of the pool, there's no glare from any nearby lights, so the stars look a lot brighter. Another fantastic night!

Sunday: We went to the beach!!!! It was so fun!!!! I'm so glad I went!!!! We joined Ryan and Melissa and their crew (Sierra and R&M's two kids), and had a marvelous time. I'll get pictures up soon, but basically there's this mass of huts – more pavillion-like – poles with thatch or tin roofs with hammock hanging from almost every possible spot. Once you maneuver your way through all that, the horizon opens up and there's the ocean! With distant mountains interrupting the skyline on the edges – one side was Nicaragua, and one side was El Salvador. Cool, no?! We played in the shoreline for a bit, chasing bricks (or running away from them – apparently there was a big storm or something so there was a lot of debris – big rocks and bricks), building sand castles, taking pictures... For lunch, we had fried fish, chicken or shrimp. They literally just gut and fry the fish – head and bones and all – so that was a fun experience! Sarah and Elsa even ate the eyes. I didn't, once I heard they tasted super fishy. The shrimp was delicious as well. All the meals were served with plantain fries/chips, which tasted good when paired with the spicy oniony type thing they had. Descriptions are so much harder! Pics soon, I swear.

After lunch, I just wanted to sit in a hammock and read, so that's what I did! Then I listened to some praise music and just soaked in the day. It was glorious!

We had a bit of time after the beach to freshen up before dinner, then went to Toita's like usual. I was so confused though – there were a bunch of cars there and we went straight to the back, where there was a bbq party going on – surprise! It was fun, but a little unexpected, so it threw me off a bit. :-)

Back to business on Monday. Sarah and I sat at the park and read our bibles until the exercise class was done and joined us for Xan's lecture. Then Taylor told us that Eli, Maura, and Oscar wanted to talk to us – have a meeting, per se. Basically they just wanted to check up on us and see if there's stuff that we should do differently, if we're stressed or confused about anything... It was a very good meeting. I enjoyed it a lot, because it helped me feel more like the things we're doing here are intentional. Even though there's only three weeks left, it was good to remember that God's not leaving in three weeks, so we can't just slack off or be like, “well, we're almost done. No big deal if we just do what we've been doing, because changing things now wouldn't be worth much.” At the end of it, Eli also said he might have some “special missions” for me that have to do with conflict management – obviously, in any community there will conflict :-) and I may be able to help resolve some? Hopefully! We shall see!

After lunch, we tried pave at Edith's house (a kind of dessert that's really hard to explain... it was cold, and slightly jelloy but more firm... layers of different flavors with graham crumbs separating them... with whipped cream and fruit on top.) Then Sarah and I read our Bibles at the park again and invited others to join us. English class in the afternoon – we presented the bridge diagram in Spanish, but used English key words. It went well – a bit of bad behavior from some of the kids, but overall it was good :-) While the kids played at the park afterwards, I chatted with Sulema (the former tia) and Erica. I looove getting to know them better! So fun!!!

Right when we were about to leave though, a kid got Xan and April because apparently one of the women we talked to like the first week here was really sick. She had a lot of stomach pain and was crying. We took her to the hospital (Xan, Ed and April went in, the rest of us waited in the car). Pray for her, if you think of it :-) She's doing a lot better now, but she's had chronic stomach pains for a while now...

Since it was the last night Criz was going to be with us, we had a huge farewell party for him. Coffee involved, of course. A couple of games of Mafia as well. Sad to see Criz go, especially since he's had so little time with us...

Tuesday was Sarah's BIRTHDAY!! Elsa and I had a blast planning it and putting it into action. We made her breakfast and packed her lunch with the favorite foods we can get down here :-) Started a scavenger hunt that continued on to Casa Hogar... One of the presents was getting to talk to Hilda – that was so fun! It was just me and Sarah, and Hilda was excited to talk with us, as always. It worked out great because Sarah was sitting between me and Hilda, so Hilda could talk to Sarah and I could murmur the translation in her ear pretty well, so we got along well. Sarah understands a ton more Spanish than she used to, and God gave me the ability to understand Hilda and translate things decently. Today I think was the day that it just clicked and now I feel a ton more comfortable with Spanish. Crazy!!!

We had Bible class – since it was Sarah's birthday, we talked about being born again in Christ. We also reviewed the bridge diagram. It was super exciting – there were some people there that hadn't come before and the kids that had been before remembered a lot of the bridge diagram! So great!

We went to Espresso Americano for Sarah's b-day (coffee is a must! I got the caramel granita again). Since Ed was in Teguc with our cook (taking Xan's mom and Criz back and doing some stuff with the cook), we had Wendy's for dindin. :-) Had band practice soon after that with Xan. Fun times, but after it was over, we waited for Taylor to come pick us up, but after it was about time for him to be there, we called the apartments and he was swimming. Fail. So we went with Walter and the rest of the band to one of the singer's houses to visit their family, because their 1 month old baby is sick :-(

Busy day! Mrrrr!

Wednesday Sarah watched one of the mom's baby so that the mom could go to the exercise class, so I read at the park by myself until I remembered that one of the women we've talked to can't read, so I went to her house and read a bit of the Psalms to her. Then we just sat and chatted and I met her little sister who was visiting. Hey guys! I can carry on conversations in Spanish! Ahhh God is good :-)

We had coffeeeee and cookies for Sarah's b-day, since Eli was gone for the majority of the day yesterday so we couldn't have any. After lunch, we talked more as a group about the meeting on Monday and things we can improve on, etc.

Women's bible group went well – we talked about the importance of teaching your children the gospel. They all shared a good bit, so that was good – other days, the discussions haven't really taken off. And today! We got to use the meeting house instead of crowding around the tree with the hormigas (fireants) and constant distractions, so that helped a ton!

Tonight was the HLT session, for some reason. Probably just when the speaker could be here, I guess. He was from El Salvador. It was a great message – I don't know if it's because Frank was back from El Salvador as well, so the translation was actually clear or what, but I really enjoyed it. He said God is innovative (he will reveal great and mysterious things that we do not know), he's new (his mercies are new every morning), and he's absolute (he's constant and unchanging). So good to hear.... Also, I got to jam out to Eres Fiel, which was SO FUN!!!! That's all :-)

 At Casa on Thursday, I read a bit at the park, then decided to continue the trend of reading the Bible to someone who can't read, and since Maria had joined me at the park (she wanted to play with my dictionary, like always), I had her take me to her house. I read Ephesians 1 to her mom, then chatted a bit. She wasn't as chatty as the woman the day before, but it was still good to hang out for a while at least :-)

After that, I helped Sarah out with looking after the baby, and I got to meet a girl, LG, who was hanging out there too – she's had a bit of a tough life, but it's cool to see that she's hanging out at the house of one of the stronger Christians here :-) I pray she continues to get to know God and rely on Him through the trials of life.

During lunch, I asked Eli if he'd be interested in me teaching a mediation class for the leaders of Casa Hogar (well... Xan got the conversation started for me... thanks for the initiative! Haha). He said definitely, and scheduled it for next Tuesday! Praying that that goes well and I can prepare well :-) Eli and I chatted a good bit about his experiences after college, when he was the supervisor of 50 people at a factory – the patience he learned, the people skills, the ways to resolve conflicts. He learned a lot! Definitely knows more than me, I've only ever learned stuff from books and a few experiences with friends. Supervising fifty people is an entirely different matter! Haha

We got to have English class in the meeting house, which worked well since we wanted the kids to draw out the bridge diagram – in Spanish and in English. It went well, in my opinion! There were some new kids and (for the most part) everyone behaved! After class, while the kids played at the park, I sat on the fence with Faviola and talked about life. It's so much easier to talk to people now! I love it!

And then who would be in the truck to pick us up than Criz! Surprise! He left in the first place because he had school stuff to do, but now he has like a week before the next thing, so he came back! Haha. I love Honduran culture. That's how it is all the time here. It's one thing one day, then changes so quickly! (In some ways it reminds me of college life too in that way).

Band practice in the evening, and a birthday frosty celebration for Jack (Happy birthday!!!). Fun stuffs!

Friday: Nicole came along again, and we met up with Nisis (who lives in Casa). I played at the orphanage for a bit, then helped make bracelets at Manualidades with Sarah. During lunch, I wrote out everything I could remember about mediation – I think this class shouldn't be too hard!

We split into two groups again for evangelism. The other group finished up the last of the houses while my group (Sarah Xan and I [David and Ian tagged along]) went to find LG to hang out and get to know her more. She wasn't home, but her dad was, so we got to talk and pray with him. He's a sweet man. :-) We visited Senora S to see how she was doing (she's the one who went to the hospital on Monday), then chilled at the park with the kids. Soon I went to sit with four of the women who were sitting on a nearby porch, and hung out with them for the rest of the day. I enjoyed every bit of it! Even when they eventually just started talking to each other and my brain was so fried it was hard to keep up, but just sitting there, sharing company, and laughing whenever I did understand something was so great! I must be crazy. :-)

In the evening, we hung out at the pool and ate pizza and talked about life. After dinner, we had a spiderman piñata, just for fun, which also gave everybody who has ever been thrown in the pool by Taylor a chance for revenge... mwahahahahaaaa! He took Elsa with him though! Sooo funny!!!!

And today I've just been hanging out, working on mediation stuff and blogging. Yup yup yup! I'll be going to band practice in a few hours, then church tonight!

Acquaintances to Friends

Hey peoples! Thanks for stopping by... here's the past few days, in a nutshell. Now that y'all know the usual schedule, I don't feel the need to tell you every single detail, so the days' descriptions are getting shorter :-)

Tuesday: So today I read some of the Honduran newspaper, which is very interesting. It's the news, so there's a lot of bad stuff on there -- murders and strikes and how the government's not handling anything... The opinions sound a lot like American newspapers, but I'm struck by how well we actually do have it in the US. Our government isn't perfect, but at least it's not corrupt. Our education system may be relatively ineffective in certain cases, but at least our kids know how to read and are in class for the majority of the school year. Our jobs may not be as abundant as years past, but at least many can get even minimum wage jobs, which pay better than many jobs here... okay, I'm off the soapbox.  

After lunch, we had the Bible class with the kids – we had them memorize Ephesians 2:10 and we put motions to it – it seems like it went over well! They had a lot of fun and we all at it memorized by the end of the time, even those who don´t know Spanish haha. Some of us were pretty sick of it by the end actually :-) I got to chat some with Maura – she had already memorized that verse, but in a different version. I love that I´m getting to the point that I know poeple here :-) In some ways, I feel like some of the acquaintances I have here are turning into friendships. Love it! Dinner was KFC at the church, and I had band practice later. It was just me this week, which was interesting – I definitely had to put my Spanish ears on!

Wednesday: Today´s women´s group went well, I thought. We talked about reading the word, then had everyone read a chapter in 1 John and discuss it. Some of them had some really good insights and some were still new at reading, so it was cool to be able to share the Word in community :-D (Made me think a bit of Total Church!) Right when it was over, it was threatening to rain – then it started to POUR. We picked up Maura, Joana and David, and in the time it took them to run from the house to the car, they got very wet! Dinner was rice and chicken and some kinda delicious fluffy roll that made me very happy :-P Since today´s the first Wednesday of the month, they had the prayer meeting at the church. It was great, because I actually played piano this time, then prayed with a bunch of catrachos (Hondurans) in Spanish! Practice makes perfect. When we got back, I caught an episode of the Office with Taylor Jack and the Kent gals – it´s so ridiculous! But nice to have a taste of American humor :-)

Thursday: Xan´s mom is here! Also, Cindy (a gringa) and Edgar (the PK aka pastor´s kid) came as well. We hung out in the morning – stopped by manualidades, played a bit at the orphanage, chatted with David, introduced Xan´s mom to people here... After lunch we had English class. It went pretty well, even though April wasn´t there :-) Some of the kids pick it up so fast! What I´m trying to figure out now is how to stop the three kids who know all of it from yelling out the answers before the other kids have a chance. Something to think about... We hung out at the park afterwards and I got to meet a couple of the other women at Casa – I´ve decided just sitting and talking to the women is one of my favorite things to do :-) I could do it all day. I should do more of it... (cocks eyebrow). And I can tell my Spanish is improving -- it's a lot easier to understand people and have real conversations with them :-D yay!!

Now we´re just waiting for pizza (Toita is in Teguc I think, so Friday night pizza is tonight) and tonight´s HLT session. I´ll leave an edit on this post once this day is done, so check back tomorrow :-P (Hopefully the internet doesn´t go down...)

Edit:: Tonight, Edwing spoke -- he works with a lot of the youth in Tegucigalpa -- and talked about God in the family. It was cool. Apparently a lot of the headsets weren't working though, so a lot of the gringos ended up reading their Bibles instead. I taped almost the whole thing so I can listen to it over and over until I get it all :-) I think at this point, I had reached full capacity with Spanish... everything was going straight through one ear and out the other. I understood while he was talking, I knew the words he was saying, but the meaning slipped by unnoticed. It's okay though. Sleep should help with that :-)

I also found out that Criz knows 2 very important Chinese phrases, so I'm going to teach him and Slizzard more phrases -- if I can get into Chinese mode at all... Spanish is a little stronger in my mind right now for some reason :-P

Gnight yall!

(End edit)

And can I just say... You people rock my socks :-) Thanks so much for all your support and comments and updates – makes me feel more connected to home and more excited to continue sharing what God´s doing down here. Peace out! 

End of Week 4 + A Beautiful Night

Here's the rest of last week! Officially halfway through my time here... Craziness!!!

Thursday: We finally have everyone back at Casa! Yay!!! When weirst arrived, David told us about a cult that was in the newspaper – pray for them, won't ya? I feel like I'm throwin out prayer requests like crazy, but I also feel like being here is making me more conscious about all the prayer this world needs! Anyways, the end of the world was supposed to be on Saturday, June 30, but that didn't happen... so pray for them! English class at 2 – it was so encouraging, because the kids remembered stuff from Monday!! We're going through different vowels in the English language (yay Rachel for being a Speech and Hearing major!), and not only did they remember a lot of the vowels, they remembered the meanings of some of the example words we used! After class, we played hot potato with a jicaro and Xan's singing :-) After dinner at the church, Pastor Geovany spoke at an HLT session on idols. It was tough though, because our usual translators were all gone, and they literally just made someone from the audience who knew enough English translate. It was really hard to understand both Geovany and the translator. My head hurt! However, I caught enough of it to get some good things out of it! He spoke for a very long time (US time haha), even my attention span was challenged :-)

Friday: We hung out at Casa Amor for an hour until the exercise class was over, then Maura and David took us to the school! It was about a 10/15 minute walk down the road next to the office and store. In one room, there was about 20-30 kids working on math while we talked to the teacher – apparently, they received a whole bunch of laptops, but the teacher doesn't know how to use computers, much less teach it. There were also 3 that didn't work – but we didn't have any idea how to fix them :-/ In the other room, there were about 20ish kids finishing up homework (it was almost noon), and we didn't stay quite as long. David and I had a great chat on the way back about the educational system in Honduras. It's pretty awful... I'll do a post on it sometime. I'm much more determined to keep up with blogging now. I feel bad about not keeping everybody updated so much... After lunch, we evangelized as per usual. This time, however, we split into two groups because there were so many of us. April took most of the people who don't know Spanish, and Michelle, Mandy, Rachel and I went in a different group (only Rachel doesn't know much Spanish). It was hard! It wasn't even a problem of Spanish – it was an issue of knowing what to say! I didn't realize I'd have so much problems with that, but thankfully knowing Spanish wasn't the issue. We talked with Alma and her family, and Luis and hers. Two single women, both with HIV – they both talked about the discrimination they have received, both from some of the people in the community and some of the people in their church. However, they have found a home in God's family – so it was really cool to hear their stories. Pray for both – one's a new Christian and is still learning, and the other is a stronger Christian, but has received a ton of discrimination lately. After chatting with them, we had beleadas with Edith (She ROCKS! I love her beleadas!). Since it was Friday, it was pizza night, but thank goodness, it was much later than usual, because I was still very full from beleadas :-) Oh, I don't think I've told what beleadas are (probably a good thing, eh?) They are flour tortillas (Edith's are the best), beans, scrambled eggs, cheese (Honduran cheese... I don't know what it is, but it's so flavorful!), and maybe butter :-) (for more flavor haha).

The weekend was super laid back (yay!). On Saturday, I slept in super late, spent the whole day hanging out, posting photos on facebook (It was a complete day of posting photos... yay internet) Had Wendy's for lunch, chuch in the evening. We didn't get one of the headsets for the translator (the other gringos were gone, so it was back to headsets). I sorta kinda got it, but not really... Head hurt again hah. On the way home, we dropped off a man and his wife and baby. The man rode in the back of the truck with us, and we learned that they usually walk about half an hour to church every week – so crazy!

On Sunday, I rested in the morning, delicious! In the afternoon, there was a sudden scramble for laundry, because the wind was blowing it all off the lines and it was starting to sprinkle. We saved the laundry, then danced in the rain for about 5, 10 minutes. Sooooo fun! There was about 6 of us being completely ridiculous and getting SOAKED in about a minute. The wind was so awesome! :-) This has actually been a really dry rainy season. I think we may have had more days without rain than with rain. This is one of the few days that it actually rained “on schedule” aka around four or five in the evening. Weird! Colorado's been having a dry season too – Apparently there's been a lot of wildfires.... It's also been weird, a couple days, it was hotter in the US than in Honduras, and some people had power out because of a storm... sounds like we switched countries for a bit! Hahaha.

Dinner at the church, then milkshakes afterwards because it's Peggy's last night! :-( We had an impromptu party in our apartment! My favorite part is when almost all the gringos are introducing Bohemian Rhapsody to Criz and singing and dancing ong. Soooo fun! I think Criz was very confused :-P

Also, Caleb made a tumblr page! A lot of it is very accurate and made us laugh a ton! Not sure if you will, but it gives you a good idea of our time here :-P 

Monday, July 2

This morning I brought my laptop to Casa Hogar so I could write a ton for my internship... I´m planning on asking more about conflicts in Honduras and how people here view the conditions here. I´m hoping it can happen without tooooo much difficulty :-) Criz came along, which was fun! English class was good... there´s a couple kids who are super bright and willing to learn '' they´re picking it up like sponges! David, f e´s nine), came into the office earlier with his brother Ian (who is 4 and crazy), and David practiced English and Ian was crazy. David is so responsible and way super mature. Ian lives in his own world – one that I want to join! It seems so fun! My first impression of Ian was when April asked him to dance and he just stood there and pretended to fall asleep instead. Later I caught him dancing – it´s a crazy dance that reminds me a lot of Elvis :-P Half of what Ian says is just gibberish. Crazy kid! David learned the word ¨crazy¨ pretty early in our time here because of Ian haha.

On the way back to the apartment, we stopped by Espresso Americano, which is like the Starbucks here! They have great drinks for like 2 bucks – but the sizes are smaller. Okay by me. It´s just for fun, not because I need the caffeine.

It started pouring at 5ish again – it was cool when the sun was out, but then the power went out again, so no internets again. Ay, I feel like I´m living in Honduras!

Since Peggy left this morning (So glad we got to have at least one month with her!!! :-), we didn´t have Joshua Bible study tonight – plus the power was still out, so it was pitch black. Katie took her ukelele out to the pool and we all worshiped out there. Sarah and I actually paced around the complex and sang whenever we got near :-) It was just such a beautiful night!!! All the lights near us were out -- I was just sad it was cloudy -- but other than that, it was a perfect night! The temperature was balmy, I got to go barefoot through the puddles and soak in the beauty of the mountains and fireflies... Sometimes there would be lightning in the distance that would throw the mountains into sharp relief -- it was magical. Something you can't capture on film because it's so dark...  

After being here for a whole month and only having a month left, it was good to talk and pray and worship and just get ready to live this next month in anticipation of what God´s gonna do! Love it. So hey! We´ve made it halfway y´all! I´m excited to spend another month and share it with my readers :-P  

Week 4, up to "our apt burning down (not really)"

Saturday: I bailed on the band practice today in order to go to the mountains! I was so excited, but at the same time, I knew I had no idea what to expect, because it's Honduras. I was expecting hiking, you know, that kinda thing. Turns out we went to a resort which wasn't as much fun. Lots fancier than my mind was thinking. You could pay to go swimming, horseback riding (around a loop), or paddle boats. Mrrr. We just stood around and hung out, which honestly, we could have done at home a lot better. I should have just stayed home and gone to band practice, but it was too late to change now! It was a bit of a bummer, but we did get to see the mountains on the way there and back, so that was a plus. Oh, and the mayor of Choluteca (I think?) was hanging out there – took over the restaurant (so we had to eat elsewhere) – and Jack got a picture of him! (scared us doing it too – just wandered into the restaurant and disappeared haha) There were rumors that the president of Honduras was there, but apparently he was coming there later. Cool though! After that, just had a normal day of just hanging out until dinner and church. The Nicaraguan pastor spoke again, and the translator was in the back with a mic speaking to the whole room since there were so many English speakers there because of the week-ers. They're leaving on Monday.

Sunday: Everyone was supposed to go to the church in the morning to clean and stuff for the big youth outreach thing that night. However, Sarah was really sick so Elsa and I went wandering around Choluteca with Ed trying to find meds – however, no pharmacy is open on Sundays :-( So we finished up help at the church, then went grocery shopping. After a quick lunch, I skyped with the family (Got to say happy father's day to dad :-). Went to dinner, then attended the youth group thing. It was soooo cool! It reminded me a lot of High School Leadership Training – it was basically a huge concert of church songs, a skit, and Steven, one of the staff members (I'm assuming?) from the weekers came up and spoke. The songs were sooooo much fun! There was a ton of the youth jumping around in the front (yeah!!). I felt like I was 15 again (weird, that was five years ago... huh). Some other people from the HLT team (I won't name who haha) felt really old though. :-D

Monday: Usual day (Except Sarah couldn't come because she was still sick): Exercise in morning, English class in the afternoon. Before lunch, David and I chatted about conflict management – which was SO interesting! I got to brush up on some Spanish vocabulary in the conflict management department, and I got to hear a Honduran's perspective on conflict. It's super similar to what I've learned in class, but I'd love to talk more. So fascinating! We had dinner at tollita's house (I prefer it there, it feels more like home when you eat at a house [granted, on the patio] rather than at the church). Joshua bible class in the evening. It's been really cool to learn how God provided for the Israelites as they took over the promised land. He exaggerated their vulnerability in order to emphasize His power and glory through each victory. Cool stuff.

Tuesday: Sarah was still sick, but I went to manualidades anyway, to see if we could put a hole in the jicaro and make bracelets with it. Turned out I just stayed the whole afternoon and braided bracelets. It was fun! I could do that a lot :-) It was actually just Taylor, Xan and me, because Rachel was sick and April was with the support groups, so lunch was a lot quieter. They introduced me to a lot of music though! Had Bible class in the afternoon and played with the kids – they were ornery!! They got silly bandz for being good in class, but then they were trying to exchange them (my fault for agreeing!) then they were lying and trying to get two or more (shaking head).... We escaped (ahem... left) early since there was band practice that night :-) We gave Maura a ride, which was fun because she loves to tease Taylor about being one of the only guys in a sea of girls (12 of us) – sometimes Taylor can understand her, and sometimes he can't – so she takes advantage of it. Haha. Went back to the apartments and heard about the support group's drama – apparently at one of the house visits, there was an angry drunk guy and it was pretty scary – pray for safety for them! They go out a ton in the community, so it's a little more dangerous for them. Dinner was BBQ! It was pretty great... I'll have pictures. Planned women's group (we'll be talking about gossip... a problem in the community), and then hung out with the Kent gals :-) Fun stuff.

Wednesday : After exercise class, we chatted with Edith – one of my favorite women at Casa (we now call her our Honduran mom :-). Had our women's bible study... It was pretty interesting... we did a skit at first of two women gossiping about someone who hadn't been at church in a while – and when we asked them if that conversation was glorifying to God, they said no, because the person hadn't been at church in a while – that's the issue. So we talked about the different kinds of gossip, and how we need to honor God and each other with our words. I pray that they start getting the message and understanding when gossip is happening. After, we went to the orphanage (Casa Amor) and I talked to the tia (Sulema) about conflict in Honduras. Interesting as well!! I like this :-) David mostly talked about the peace-maker's side of it, Sulema and I mostly talked about the conflict side of it... … Pizza at Toita's (I don't know how to spell her name... considering it's Spanish, you'd think it would be easier... haha). We had a meeting, just HLT people, to talk about how LT is going so far – it was so great to hear the perspective of some of the other people on the team – some people seem to have had it rough so far, and others have been super encouraged – interesting how God can bring people to the same place and teach them different things in different ways :-) After the meeting, we watched Princess Bride (soooo happy!!!).

Oh, and we don't have air conditioning, because while Sarah was at home, the whole electrical outlet came out of the wall in our bedroom (Venice), and whenever you moved it, it sparked. By the time she got the landlady or whoever was in charge and came back, there was a small electrical fire! The lady knew exactly what breaker to flip to stop it, but it was a little scary. No damage done, but the air conditioning is in the same breaker as the outlet, so we had to make do with fans. It was actually okay though :-)

I'll stop there. More to come! :-) Thanks so much for taking the time to read this, your support is always encouraging!

SUMMARY Week 3

 Sunday (June 17) we planned to have pancakes and bananagrams – however, the power was out, so we didn't have very many pancakes, but we played a LOT of bananagrams :-) Ate lunch at KFC, did the grocery shopping, skyped with the family, attended youth group at the church, had dinner at the church afterwards. The youth group was fun – they did a combined event (usually, they have 4ish different groups) – there were about 100 of us there! It was cool because several of them had just been baptized that morning. It's so cool to see how strong the youth group is there! They definitely have a presence at church – so encouraging, for sure!

Monday, we didn't have internet at all (I had thought it was because the electricity was out, but apparently there was something wrong with the router). At Casa Hogar Vida, we had our exercise class (it was rainy, but only Erica and her kids came – a little discouraging), English class at 11, lunch in the office, planning at the orphanage for the next few days' classes. Around 3, an invasion of gringos! The week-long mission team was taking the tour of Limon and Casa – it was definitely interesting to see it from the other side. While we drove back after it was over, we had an interesting conversation of the benefits of long term and short term missions trips. Ask me about it sometime! I may do a post about it, I don't know... After dinner (“Chop suey” aka anything remotely Chinese), we had our bible study on Joshua. Good stuff!

Tuesday: Still no internet. Exercise class (more people came! There were clouds! Nice...). We attempted to have Bible class for the kids at 11, but the week-ers came around then, and the kids were too distracted. We chatted with the week-ers, and got to see Criz again! He was translating for the week-ers, then he'll be working with us after :-) The week-ers got the office, so we took over the store next door – just a small vending place with some tables under a roof. I should take a picture sometime... We had bible class later with the kids and the other gringos, and it went a lot better :-) After playing with the kids and chatting with the tia, we had dinner and band practice.

Quick thing about band practice: it's one of the few places that I have to remind myself that we're in Honduras, a different country, with a different culture. In America, band practice is straight to the point – we sing our songs, we fix anything that needs fixed, we try new things if necessary, we're done. Here, there's hanging out before, oh I guess we'll play a song, talk about the song, practice harmonies (granted, there are a lot more singers here), play the same song again, chat some more, maybe even play the same song a third time... after 2 hours, we've practiced two songs. It's teaching me a lot about patience and Honduran culture :-)

Wednesday: Usual day at casa – we had women's bible study for our class today, had lunch outside again because the week-ers had the office :-), nothing new... dinner was crispy (fried?) tortilla with shredded chicken... we had milkshakes (yay!!) and I posted a blog post while sitting right outside the office, because I finally heard that the office had internet.

Thursday: The weekers were at the Casa Hogar hotel all day – we didn't see them except right when we got there, which was weird... English class was on the schedule, but no kids came in the morning. We tried again after lunch, and there were a lot more kids. Lunch was fun, because David joined us – he works at Casa and is related to about half the people at the church (not really). He's super cool – he knows a bit of English, and a lot of us know enough Spanish that it all worked out nicely. So many laughs! Taylor got the brunt of the teasing though, since he's the only guy of us 6 working at Casa :-) (Taylor, Sarah, Rachel, Xan, April and me) We left Casa early in order to get Xan, Taylor and I to band practice. It was a long band practice. First, it was just Jose Carlos (electric guitar and I think one of the worship leaders) and us three, so we could learn chords/words, etc so that when “real” practice happened, we could actually practice. Sounds like a good plan, except that that meant we were practicing for over 5 hours. Ahhhh!!

Friday: Finally! Internet! So exciting! At Casa, Sarah and I went to manualidades real quick to discuss a new bracelet idea Sarah had – however, it involved jicaro, and the woman working with jicaro wasn't in that day, so we chatted then left. Eli (the boss, I suppose... no one here really has titles) was showing Taylor how to roast the coffee beans when we got back, and Sarah was super excited :-P We got to try some coffee and it was so goooood.... I'm craving some right now :-) As Eli was pouring the coffee into the sample glasses (that were pretty small), he said, “I feel like I'm playing with my daughter right now.” We all laughed. After a few glasses, I was getting hyper :-P It was fun! Then a lot of the staff came into the office and we had a birthday celebration for Pastor Giovani (spelling? It's different every sermon haha) and Eli! It was a lot of fun. I think the cake was pineapple or something like that. Good stuffs. After all the celebrations were over, we went evangelizing a bit – there were a lot of empty houses, but we managed to talk to a few people. There was one family that may not know Christ, so be praying for them. There was another family that loves God, but only a few can read, so it makes it harder to read the bible. They were a lot of fun to talk to!! Pray for them too, there's a lot of issues with their kids' health.

Had another laundry scavenger hunt when we got back, had pizza hut for dinner (turning into a tradition!) and went to an HLT session with a Nicaraguan speaker. It was fun, because he spoke pretty clearly, so with the translator and him, I caught a lot of Spanish and made me happy haha... Xan, Taylor and I played with the band which was super fun as well. After it was over and all the different small groups were getting together to talk, all of a sudden, wedding music started playing and one of the men proposed! It was so cool! I'm pretty sure it's the first proposal I've seen in real life :-) It was so great to witness the church celebrate for the new couple!

And there's week 3. *whew* Don't worry, week 4 is coming, but I'll leave you with this for now. :-)  

Apologies...

Sorry for not posting for so long. I swear I haven't forgotten about you guys! It's just been super busy here and I've had absolutely no time to post. Last weekend was not a break for us, otherwise I would have totally updated you. I also apologize for this post -- it's not anything crazy, no real update here -- I just wanted to post SOMETHING for the people who obsessively check here every few hours (I don't know if such people exist, I just know I was that person last summer :-)

Suffice it to say, it's been c-r-r-r-r-r-r-razy! (roll that R!) I've been getting to know the people here better and God's been teaching me a lot! Lately I've managed to play piano a good bit, shoot a scorpion, go to a resort in the mountains, have our apartment burn to the ground (not really), share the gospel, try Honduran barbecue, connect with a few of the women at Casa, avoid catching the plague, and ride in the back of the truck as it drives the wrong way on a one way street. To name the more exciting bits. More details to come! Thanks for all your prayers!

SUMMARY: Week 2!

This is both a normal update and a SUMMARY series, since it's been forever and a day since I've last posted – don't blame me (toooo badly), blame the band practice and terrible internet)

Well, we've managed to get a schedule going in week 3 – but week 2 was more ironing it out and really nailing down more specifics. In other words, we did a few things and talked about what we needed to fill our time with. Casa Hogar Vida is very laid back – we have to develop all the things we want to do – they just provide the environment and we provide the services, essentially.

Sunday: Pancakes in the morning and then feeling bleh for the rest of the day – thank God it was just a short sickness though – lasted one day and that's it!

Monday: Started the exercise program for the people in the community (mostly for the women to bond more), played with the kids, talked to that woman who was really on fire for God – found out her name is Hilda. She is a great person to go to if you need encouragement – she's just overflowing with the Holy Spirit! In the evening, Peggy (our roommate) led a bible study on Joshua.

Tuesday: Sarah and I went to Manualidades (the crafts house) – Sarah made a scarf and I translated and talked to Maura (who is like, the matriarch of the community here). We finished just in time to join the second half of the exercises and catch Xan's lecture and Bible verse of the day afterwards. After lunch was a English class with the kids – it was crazy because we just were trying to figure out what level the kids were at, but it was chaos. They basically know some random vocabulary and that's it. We played with them for 3 hours, which was exhausting! After dinner (which was at the cook's house again), Taylor, Xan and I went to band practice – I got to try out their keyboard, which has some cool sounds on it :-)

Wednesday: Instead of going to our separate sites, the entire HLT team went to the hospital in the morning to visit some extremely malnourished kids and their mothers. It was really hard – honestly, I don't think I've had much time to process it. There was a news team there (randomly), so of course they had to interview the hoard of gringos visiting the hospital – it was annoying. But apparently we were on the local tv here – crazy!! After that, we went to our separate sites – we played with the orphans for a bit, then ate some of the best beleadas I have ever eaten! (Granted, I had had beleadas like once before haha) but they were delicious. For real. One of the women, Edith, who comes to the exercises offered to make them for us. She's super cool. After lunch, she braided our h r, whhch was fun. Dinner w`/Qmac'n'cheese and potatoes with cheese, but I wasn't hungry after all those beleadas! Haha

Thursday: Sarah and I went back to Manualidades – by this time, Sarah had created a pattern for a purse, so she tried making one that morning while I translated, organized their shelf of fabric (fun for me!) and looked up vocab words pertaining to sewing and such. We missed the exercise class (oh darn... :-P). But after lunch, we finished the bag and showed it to Maura, who really liked it. Then we played with the orphans and the community kids, read them bible stories from the gospels, and got a little wet (Xan got a lot wet because she played out in the rain with the orphans and the tia – it was fun to watch :-P) (and for those wondering why I didn't get in the fun, I didn't want to drive to dinner in wet clothes, haha) After dinner, Ed spoke at our first ever HLT meeting on Habakkuk. It was a group of about 100 youth, so there was a translator of course... some of the dry humor got lost in translation. Ed's hilarious! But he also said some really good things about disappointment – how we need to complain directly to God, and that God sometimes still lets things happen, but in the end, it's all in his will. Good stuff :-)

Friday: Miguel (one of the electric guitar players – he's like 15) came with us to Casa and hung out at Manualidades while Sarah taught Joana how to make the purse. Then we played with the orphans (I got to chase the twins around – Eli will run all the way around the house, so I'll just go the other way and catch him; Elias will run for a side of the house, then stand there laughing until I catch up to him and scoop him up! SO FUN!!!). After lunch, Michelle, Mandy and April joined us from the support group, and evangelized – it was so cool to see some of the people on our team really step up and ask good questions to these women. (Could you pray for the women we met? They were all Christians, but a lot of them have seen some tough stuff and are going through some hard circumstances.) Then we had exercise in the afternoon because apparently it'd be cooler – it wasn't. We're sticking with the mornings next week :-) When we got back to the apartments, we had to go on a scavenger hunt to find our laundry, because the lady doing our laundry had hung it out to dry and it was all mixed up with everyone else's laundry. It was fun though! :-) Tonight, our cook was busy, so we got pizza from pizza hut, so while we were waiting for that to come, I got to skype with my mama :-D so nice to chat for a bit :-) After dinner, we watched Emperor's New Groove (Shout out to my roomie, Michelle!!! :-)

Saturday: Sarah, Elsa and I got to skype with said roomie of mine (Yeah yeah!!!) and eat ice cream while talking :-D Sarah and Elsa went swimming, and I took pictures since I wasn't in the mood to swim. It was HOT though! I forget what we did that afternoon, but dinner (burgers) was at the church because we had the church service that night. I didn't get to hear the translator, but I tried copying off Sarah and Elsa's notes. The pastor was talking about the need to serve in the community, and about halfway through both S and E zoned out and started doodling with their respective majors (fashion figures and eyes for Sarah; dots and leaves for the Interior Designer, Elsa). I cracked up! Apparently I got the gist though, and since we're already serving in the community, it's okay that I didn't catch everything :-P

That was Week 2! Sorry I didn't get this out last weekend, but our electricity and internet has been a little sketch and we didn't have internet basically at all this past week. I'm going to the office to see if I can get a signal there, but if not, hopefully they'll fix the router soon!!! Plus, band practice is taking up basically all of my free evenings, so I'm not sure I'll be able to do as many updates as I'd like. Ah well! 

One Whole Week In!

Sunday: 

Pancakes with the whole group at 9 in one of the gal's apartments – we played bananagrams and hung out :-) SUPER FUN!!!! After that though, I was feeling a little sick, so I rested until dinner – took a nap and took some drugs – both helped!! It was a bummer though, because I couldn't help with shopping, and I didn't get to practice slacklining. Ah well... After dinner I felt a LOT better, though not 100%. (PS dinner was chicken, potato salad, “real” salad, bread, and watermelon. A typical American meal, but I think I prefer the Honduran meals actually! More flavor, in my opinion)

Monday:

Thank God, Sunday was basically isolated and I didn't really feel sick today! Only a teensy bit in the morning, but it wasn't too bad :-)

We started Xan's fitness program today – we had a man, about 4 women and about 15 kids join us for some cardio – it was a lot of fun, and some of the participants seemed really grateful that we were doing it. I loved seeing how it was meeting a need in the community. Thank God it wasn't too hot – there was a strong wind which helped! After lunch, we played with at the orphanage – and I learned that the older girl there is named Vilma and is around 15 yo. The tía taking care of them right now is only 19! She´s just the substitute tía though – the current tías sister is on maternity leave right now. Still! That's a lot of responsibility! 

After chilling there for the majority of the afternoon, Taylor, Rachel, and Sarah played with some of the neighborhood kids while Xan, April and I wanted to talk to some of the women of the community some more. We ended up back at the house of Hilda (? we think... names are so hard to catch here!!!) – she's the woman who was super on fire for God that we met on Thursday. We spent about 45 minutes there, listening to her talk. We start with her family – her hijos (kids) in Orlando, bu it doesn't take long before she's telling us story after story about God's goodness and faithfulness and how he's provided for her so often in the past. It's a little hard to interact fully since she's speaking Spanish the whole time (plus her front teeth are missing!), but her passion is hard to miss! Plus, God helped out a lot today and gave me ears to understand Spanish better today :-) Yay!!! After talking with her, I felt like I would love to get to know all of the women at Casa Hogar a ton more! If you could, pray that Hilda helps us to be a light in the community – she's already doing a great job on her own, but pray that she would continue to be used for God's glory! Everything she told us, she always gave God the glory. I think all three of us left that house more encouraged and charged than when we came in. Oh yes.

Dinner was at Tollita's (sp?) house again (she's the cook). We had HOMEMADE PIZZA!!! It was delish! Oh, and I haven't talked about the sodas yet. Usually there's Coke or Pepsi, which is always gone by the end of the meal. There's also another kind of pop with it – either grape, banana, or lemon flavored. I hate the grape one, can stand the banana one, and really like the lemon one – it's basically my favorite drink mix in America – Lemonade and Sprite! Today we had Coke and Banana soda.

After dinner, Peggy led us in a Bible study about Joshua – it was awesome, and I was glad we got to have a deeper, more spiritual time with the whole group. Splitting for jobs means we get to know some people really well, which is great, but I like getting to know everybody better :-)

Tomorrow, we're going to try to develop some semblance of a schedule. However, this is Honduras, so we'll see how that goes :-)  Honduran culture is way more laid back than American culture. Ed (the director of Honduras LT) was saying that usually we'll have a speaker come in for a session on Thursday -- however, if the director shows up early, it may happen on Wednesday, or we may find out a few hours before it should happen that the session won't be happening till Friday. You just roll with whatever people want to do. It works fine for me! In a lot of ways, that's how it works at college :-)

Well it's official! I've been in Honduras for a whole week now! Craziness!

Prayer requests: 

Continued health of the group 

Clear direction from God for what we should do more specifically at Casa Hogar

The people of Casa Hogar, that they would draw closer to God this summer.

SUMMARY: week 1

The SUMMARY series (haha) is for all the peeps in my life who don't have the time and patience to read my long detailed posts *coughnotmyfamilycough*


They'll come every weekend either Saturday or Sunday. I may do one in the middle of the week if a lot is happening :-) If you have questions feel free to comment and ask away! Enjoy! 

Monday was a long day of traveling. Honduran driving is crazy. Met the rest of the team. Learned a good bit about the state of Honduras on the way down. Monday was a very very very long day.

Tuesday was meeting the church staff and hearing all the different jobs we could help with, and then touring the actual sites. Basically Limon community center is a nutrition clinic/day care with bible classes/english classes/computer classes. There's about 70-80 kids there. Casa Hogar Vida is a community with an orphanage, a neighborhood, handicrafts place, hotel, coffee roaster, brick factory. We also went shopping for breakfast and lunch food.

Wednesday I worked at Limon with the bebes and helped the computer class. I didn't feel that connected and couldn't see myself working there for 2 months. However, Sarah told me Casa Hogar Vida was different and it sounded like I'd really like it.

Thursday I went to Casa Hogar and fell in love :-) The 6 orphans are super sweet and cute and fun and obsessed with cameras and electronic dictionaries. I met some different awesome people in the community, including a woman with HIV who calls all her Christian friends her family because her own family disowned her, a man who got a loan to start a chicken farm, and an older woman who is completely on fire for God and has seen God do some amazing things in her life. That night we got milkshakes and got to bond more with the other team members. (It also didn't rain today – shocker!)

Friday we talked about evangelism, played with the orphans, slacklined with the kids (google it), and evangelized in three homes – two Christians and a new church-goer. It was so great for me to hear the Christians' stories and be able to encourage them. I'm desperate to get better at Spanish so I can give April a break (her Spanish is the best out of us six at Casa Hogar). That evening, we were going to have a teen meeting at Casa Hogar, but the rain finally came in time to interrupt the meeting :-) we all huddled in a few of the houses and the kids took pictures with my camera.

Saturday I enjoyed getting up late and not having anything on the agenda :-) We went to Wendy's for lunch and I wrote all of these novels here on my blog and got ready for church. Church was pretty sweeeeet. I love singing in Spanish, and I was able to get the gist of the sermon, which was good. Mostly by copying my neighbor's notes haha. The sermon was about Mary and Martha and the importance of daily times of sitting with Jesus :-) Had a good night – wish I could have those kind of nights like 4 times a week! Haha!