I Believe in You

Their smiles melt my heart. 

“Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around.” Amen.

My class begins each school day with a devotion.  We've been practicing the same songs, Jesus Loves Me, and This Little Light of Mine.  It's been great to see some of the students picking up on the words to the song, and singing along with me.  I also play the tambourine to Rise and Shine and to our goodbye song at the end of the day.  During these two songs my students dance with one another, and I must say it is the CUTEST part of our day.  I will have to get a video of it one of these days to share with you, because I have a very confident feeling that it will bring you just as much joy that it brings to me!  

Friday night the girls in our house went with Sarah to one of her youth group events, which happened to be the first over-night event.  It's called Groupos de Vida y Con Vivencia (Groups of Life and with Fellowship).  It's really neat because all of the youth involved are from all over Gracias and go to different churches, but through this group they are able to come together to have even more fellowship with each other.  We went to a camp up on a mountain about 10 minutes away from our house.  The evening consisted of dinner, worship music, Shannon (Kristi's husband) preaching, a skit that some of the youth performed, and a bonfire before bedtime. The skit was very powerful, and was one that I even participated in when I worked at SpringHill one summer.  The skit and Shannon's message were extremely powerful that evening.  Here is the video of the skit the youth performed (and Kiley even got to be "death" in the skit).  

This skit shows Jesus and one of His children together in the beginning.  He is showing her all that He has created in the world, how beautiful everything is, and how much He loves her.  Then the sin in the world starts to distract her from Jesus.  The temptation of the opposite sex, money, alcohol, outside beauty and how we think we need to look, and finally the Enemy itself.  The girl is extremely tempted by all of these things and they get in the way of her relationship with Jesus, even though He continues to fight for her.  Finally, as she contemplates taking her life because these distractions have not fulfilled her enough, she realizes it is only Jesus who can fulfill her desires.  And she runs for Him.  Jesus proves His mightiness by holding back all of those temptations that used to distract her, and not allowing them to grab a hold of her again.  In the end, it is just Jesus and her again, and she falls in love all over again with Jesus.  I hope this skit touched you the way it does me every time I see it!

 After the bonfire all of us girls went to the housing area we were staying in for the night.  It was one room filled with bunk beds, and even more bugs than beds.  There were different kinds of bugs all over the place, and it is a big surprise that I am not more bit up than I am!  But the event was definitely worth going to for the night.

beautiful view of some of Gracias!

Jaime and I

The girls housing

The next morning Kiley and I walked back to Gracias, because we had seen a poster for a breast cancer walk that was happening Saturday morning.  We went to the central park down the road from our house and waited for the event to start.  There was a group of Canadians that we learned are here for three months doing different volunteer projects.  They work together with a group of Hondurans, and together they helped to organize the walk.  

 They call breast cancer "Cancer de Mamas" here, which is Mother's Cancer.  We had pink balloons and posters with statistics of breast cancer on them, and walked through town for a bit.  It was a very neat experience and I was very happy to be supporting breast cancer, and the importance of being checked for it.  

 

 

The evening was set up for a surprise party to happen for Tabitha, Kiley, and Zak because all of their birthdays are within the next couple of days.  We planned it out well and it was a lot of fun!  The night was filled with hamburgers, cupcakes, music and dancing, and best of all a pinata with lots of candy!

 

Also, I decided to include a YouTube video in this post.  I love so many of the Spanish songs I hear, even if I don't necessarily know what is being said.  When I heard this song for the first time, I fell in love with it.  It is so beautiful to me and I wanted to share it with you!  This is basically what it is saying: I want to lift my hands to You, wonderful Jesus, Miraculous Lord, fill this place with Your presence, descend your power; we are here, I believe in You Jesus and in what you will do in my everything, You receive all the glory, we are beautiful children of God.  Just click the link below and enjoy :)

Creo en Ti

Give Thanks to the Lord, for He is Good!

Our weekend in Tela was beautiful, refreshing, and much needed!  All of us girls traveled together to Tela (which led for Kiley and I to not get ourselves in trouble) and a great time for us all to hang out together again outside of Gracias.  When we arrived in Tela we met up with some of Stacey's friends from Tegucigalpa, who were awesome to hang out with and get to know-they even spoke very well English!  We knew with a hurricane coming to the coast soon in Honduras that the weather would be a bit chilly, which it was.  But it didn't rain, and the weather didn't stop us from enjoying the beach and pool.  We stayed at a beautiful resort right on the beach, going down the pool slide in ways we weren't supposed to (in groups and head first), played pool volleyball, sand volleyball, sand soccer, and even rode a 4-wheeler on the beach!  The waves were absolutely huge, and there ended up being a red flag for swimming both days, so we just enjoyed the ocean by its beauty and the sound of its waves.  At night we enjoyed music and karaoke on the beach, and even a live show at our hotel!  It was an active weekend, but very relaxing and refreshing at the same time--and SO much fun.

 And today was just a typical day after a three day weekend: crazy.  My students just have a hard time getting back into the school week.  And they are still learning how to repeat after me (and still hardly do it).  Today it just really got to me that so often I am completely talking to myself half the time, because either they don't understand, or aren't even listening to me.  So whenever you might say a prayer for me, that is something specific you could be praying for me about.  I'll admit, it's sometimes easy to feel like a bad teacher when there is such a language barrier, and it definitely takes patience to not let some things get to you.  But, we still do manage to have some fun inside the classroom and my students do continue to get cuter and cuter.  We have to change our classroom decorations every 2 months so that is something we have been busy working on right now too.  They don't celebrate Thanksgiving here, but they know that us American teachers do, so a lot of our decorations are for Thanksgiving.  The school even takes us to Tegucigalpa (the capitol) for a Thanksgiving weekend celebration, where we stay at a hotel, dress up, and have a full Thanksgiving feast together.  With my love for food, especially Thanksgiving food...I CANNOT WAIT!   

Psalm 107:1 Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good; his love endures forever.

 PS.  My plane ticket to go home for Christmas was officially booked!  I will be in Arizona from Dec 17th-January 1st...so feel free to visit!  Just saying, it'd be a wonderful Christmas present :) 

Mom and dad, I'm sure you wouldn't mind, right?!

Double Trouble

Leave it to Kiley and I.  Her and I just happen to get ourselves into interesting situations!  We can easily call ourselves "Double Trouble."  Kiley and I get along really well, and many people have called me "weird" in my life, and Jen even stated herself that Kiley and I are both extremely weird and have finally found one another.  We just had to laugh about it!

Here is a perfect example of what happens when Kiley and I are left alone.  Kiley and I both have the same kind of foam rugs in our classrooms, but Kiley didn't end up using hers.  So she brought them home the other day and we decided that we would use them for little mats to work out on.  Well, the rest of the girls left somewhere for a bit, and Kiley and I are extremely tired.  But instead of going to bed, we decided to become robot people.  We made robot heads out of the foam pieces and took pictures.  It gave us a good laugh!    Then, it just got better.  We pulled our two chairs in front of our house door, sat in the dark with our robot heads on, and waited for someone to come home.  We literally sat there for over 30 minutes chatting quietly until we heard someone at the door.  In walked Justin and Jen, and they turned on the lights and we got two reactions: Jen, immediate laughter.  Justin, "what...the...heck."  Priceless.  It was well worth the

one hour less of sleep we got that night! 

This weekend Kiley and I decided to head to Lago de Yajoa and meet up with some of the teachers from La Union.  We got a little bit turned around and lost on our journey there, but after 9 hours of travel, we safely made it to D&D's Brewery, where we were going to be staying for the weekend.   We arrived around 3pm, and it was just pouring outside!  We had planned to float down the Jungle River, but instead we just hung out at the brewery for the day/night.  We were stayed in a private cabin that held six people, and that night the hostel had a trivia night and live music.  It turned out to be a lot of fun, even though our team didn't win!  It was fun to be able to sit down and relax, and to try some of the freshly brewed beer.  In Gracias, we aren't allowed to go out to a bar or even purchase alcohol anywhere.  In Gracias there are two options mostly: either you don't drink, or you drink too much...there is no knowledge of a casual drink here and there.  If we were to be seen with a drink or purchasing something, word would quickly spread throughout the town and people would assume that you are an alcoholic.  So we just don't have the option to have a casual drink ever.  So sometimes it is nice to get away and have that opportunity.  We tested a few different beers and I really liked one light beer and also a blueberry beer; interesting but pretty tasty!

The next morning we slept in and ate a nice breakfast at the hostel.  We then traveled to the waterfall, which turned out to be quite the walking adventure!  Buses in the area were said to never be consistent, and we found this to be a fact!  We walked quite a bit (a beautiful bit) until a bus that was finally heading towards the waterfall area picked us up.  We got to the waterfall and enjoyed hiking around the area and seeing the beautiful falls.  We had the option of going behind the waterfall, but for this you needed to hire a guide, and no one really seemed too interested in paying to do this.  Luckily, I had the opportunity to do this twice in Africa (which was one of the most amazing experiences I've ever had) so I didn't feel the need to push for us to do it...or I would have!  Still, the falls were beautiful! 

That night we just hung out at the brewery again.  We got to know the owner and manager a little bit from hanging out for the night, which was fun.  They even brought us a free plate of delicious crackers, cheese, and olives (YUM!) to enjoy, since we were all the last ones to be awake. 
Later that night two men walked in, wearing what looked like some kind of army gear.  Kiley and I were paying for all of our stuff and talking with the manager, who happened to be good friends with the two guys (twin brothers).  Also, the manager and owner of D&D's spoke English...my Spanish didn't magically get really good as to where I can hold in depth conversations...but one day it will :).  Anyways, we were talking with the manager and he told us how the two Russian guys were "hit men..." I kid you not, HIT MEN!  He said they had just come in from "fishing"...for people!! I wanted to ask so many questions, because it was just so crazy to me!  But they didn't want to talk about "details" because there were other people around.  Anyways, I can say that was definitely a first experience for me!  But they were very friendly to us and reminded us to "stay safe" always, and were in and out of the brewery quickly after eating.  Needless to say, good thing I wasn't on anyone's hit list! Yikes!

Finally Kiley and I went to bed, ready to wake up at 5:30 for our long journey home.  Everything was going fine until we were on our last bus home, less than an hour away from Gracias.  First, our bus got a flat tire, which took about an hour to fix.  After we got going again for about a minute or so, our bus stops again and everyone had to get off.  We didn't realize that up ahead the road was blocked by officers for some reason.  After figuring out that everyone was now going to walk, we started to walk, and then the weather decided to start raining.  So, soaking wet, with a bunch of grocery bags and luggage from the weekend on us, we walk a bit further.  We were able to pass the officers, and by asking questions in the little Spanish that Kiley and I know we figure out that there is some kind of protest going on.  At the point both of us were very nervous because no one spoke any English and we had no idea what was going on or if we were in danger (we have heard in big cities protests can become very violent and to just stay away from them).  All of a sudden an army vehicle pulls up and about 20 army men jump out with their machine guns and beating sticks, and they continued further down the road.  At this point my heart began racing quite faster than normal.  We stayed back for a bit, and then we continued to walk with some people close by and stayed by some women.  There came a point in the road where it was completely blocked off by people and we stopped to sit behind a parked vehicle and used my last seconds on my phone to call Kristi.  We let her know where we were and what had happened.  Luckily, her husband Shannon had been at a lawyers office earlier and heard that there was a protest going on in Gracias about the road conditions.  We were told that we weren't in any kind of danger, but to just stay out of the protest itself.  This was a relief to hear at least that we weren't in any danger! 

So we sat around awhile and then an elderly lady came up to us and told us that we were able to keep walking if we wanted, but vehicles just weren't allowed to pass through.  We didn't know if we were being set up for something, because no one else was moving.  So we made our way through the crowd just to see why they were blocking the road.  What we saw was a sight I will never forget!  About 50 army men now blocked the road further ahead with their shields in front of them and weapons in hands.  I wish so badly I had a picture of the image I have in my head!  The elderly woman and now elderly man said that there was no danger and that we could pass, and so the elderly man led the way and we followed him.  The walk seemed forever towards the army men, and was very awkward because close to a hundred eyes were on us two gringos, the only people making their way past the army men.  The elderly man told the guards that we wanted to pass and they said in English, "Oh! Of course," and let us pass by them.  I know to them, I looked like a deer in headlights, even with my eyes on the ground. 

We finally figured out that the whole time we were sitting and deciding what we should do, we were sitting in the protest itself.  We had no idea because everyone was just sitting and standing around, but I guess I am at least very happy that it wasn't violent at all!  We continued to walk a bit further, and Kristi and Shannon called to say they were coming to get us.  Soon after that call, they called again to say that there was another protest just past where we were and that they couldn't get past in in a vehicle.  So again Kiley and I walk through all the cars this time, and finally we see Shannon and Kristi up ahead looking for us.  It was such a relief to see them, especially since they have played a parental role in our lives here.  And praise God they drove us home safely!  But let me tell you, Kiley and I...DouBLE TrOUbLe!!

My mission is LOVE

Love. Love. Love. That's all I want to spread.

Love them like Jesus.

My students continue to be extremely adorable.  And we continue to play and learn each day.  Our latest fun "crafty" projects included a class mobile and paint butterflies for the letter B.  

                                                  

Saturday morning a group of us traveled the hour to Santa Rosa to volunteer at an orphanage we had heard about.  It was called “Missionaries de Caridad.”  When we got there an older lady and a very young girl were waiting outside the gate as well.  I’m not sure if the little girl was being dropped off at the orphanage or not, but I do know that she must have been starving because she was eating plants as we waited for someone to come to open the gate.  One of the workers opened the gate after about 20 minutes and told us that we had to go to the church down the street to find the sisters of the orphanage, in order to enter.  So we went to the church and found them.  They were dressed in their clothing and just as sweet as could be.  As she walked us back to the orphanage she explained that there are about 38 children in the orphanage from 6 months to 6 years old.  She also told us that Mother Teresa once visited the orphanage too, which has been running for 25 years.  I love Mother Theresa so I was very excited to hear this news!

Playing with the children

Food coma.

Naomi and I

 

As soon as the doors to the orphanage were opened, a number of children came running towards us all with arms wide open.  And we sure did shower them with love for the time we were there.  We mostly played with the children and also helped to feed some of them.  The orphanage has 6 workers and it is very nice and clean- I was VERY impressed.  I want to love on those children so much while I am here, so I know I will be volunteering at the orphanage as much as I can! 

One of the sisters with one of the boys--This picture is SO beautiful to me.

She's beautiful.

After the orphanage we went to an Abundant life Christian School soccer game. It was the championship game and we won 1-0.  It was fun spending time with students from our school and cheering the team on!  Later that night we celebrated with a delicious barbecue! 

Sunday morning Kiley and I walked down the street a bit to see the parade we had heard about.  It turned out to be really awesome!  It was a parade about the importance about recycling, and everyone had outfits on that were made out of garbage.  There were some really creative, and even beautiful outfits! 

We then went to a house church up a mountain in a small village.  Maritza works for Shannon and Kristi, the missionary family here (Kristi is a teacher at our school too) and it was her cousin's house that we went to.  There were about 4 people at the house church, and then a group of us American teachers.  Shannon preached and Sarah translated for him.  It was a really neat experience, and nice to have a sermon that I fully understood, since it was in English.  Shannon explained to the family that we were hungry for God's Word, and that it has been really difficult to fully meet that need here when we don't know the Spanish language well, and don't understand the sermons at local churches.  He couldn't have spoke truer words.  So it was very refreshing to go to this house church, and understand what is being said, while also listening to the sermon in Spanish as well.  I can't wait for my tutoring to begin at the end of the month, so I can communicate with people much more easily and start to develop deeper relationships with the people in Honduras.    

Another break, another trip. 

                                               I just love traveling and seeing God’s world.   

Kiley and I took off bright and early on Saturday morning for Santa Rosa, where we met up with some of the La Union girls.  From there we got onto our next bus to head to La Entrada.   It was about an hour chicken bus ride through the beautiful mountains.  We made it to La Entrada and had to wait there for nearly an hour before the bus for Copan would leave because they needed more people on the bus. Well, in Honduras they don’t care how long you wait, just as long as the buss is packed to its max before departing.  In a little 8-10 foot bench we squeezed at least 5 people plus the mothers with their babies into each row. I couldn’t help but laugh at how we looked so crammed into a small spot. 

We finally arrived to Copan and first found the hostel we were going to be staying at, the Blue Iguana.  It was a very nice hostel, and even had hot water! 

Side story: Our one shower has only ice cold water now, so we have all been sharing the other shower with warm water.  The other night I was waiting for our water to come back on so I could take a shower.  Kiley and I were by the shower and watched it come slowly out the spout.  Well a few seconds later it started making a loud noise and then misting everywhere and then POOF it completely caught on fire for a second and then there was just smoke everywhere.  Needless to say, that shower is now broke.  So, we called our landlord to tell her the problem.  The next day at school one of the secretaries (who also rents from our landlord) told us the landlord came to her house last night complaining about all of our complaints and that if we don’t stop complaining and making her pay/fix things she will have to find other people to rent the house.  Wonderful!  So, the point of this story: I was excited for the hot water at the hostel..and I am glad I enjoyed it since I got home today and we still don’t have a warm shower!

Back to Copan: 
The first day/night we just enjoyed the new town and the fun shops, exploring all around.  The next day we headed to Welches coffee shop for breakfast and then off to the Mayan Ruins we went!  On our walk to the ruins, we met Mina, who is from Germany.  She hung out with us for the day, and she was a really awesome person!  She’s been traveling through Central America for the past six months, and only had a few more days in Honduras.  The ruins were very beautiful, and there was a lot to see.  Hopefully the pictures give you an idea of how neat this place was!  After the ruins we went shopping a bit more around town, and then later that night we went out with some friends we made at the hostel for dinner.  I absolutely love staying in hostels.  It’s much cheaper than hotels, but more importantly you get the opportunity to meet some really awesome people!  So we enjoyed the evening with the group and then called it a night a bit earlier, since we had to be up at 4am to walk to the bus station and catch the 5am bus! 

Life really is  kinds of beautiful!

I am now back safe in Gracias and ready for another week with my little ones that bring a huge smile to both my face and heart every day!