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!