Adventure is Out There!

I hadn't planned on using this blog again until my next big adventure (which, in case you were wondering, will be a return trip to Honduras this next May!).  But I have started to realize that you don't need a plane ticket and and a passport to have an adventure-they can happen anywhere!  And this past semester has been filled with more adventures than I can remember.

But the most recent one has definitely been the most amazing.  The past two weekends I had the opportunity to visit some friends I made in Honduras-in the U.S.!  Some of the leaders of El Sembrador (where I worked this summer) are in the United States for a few weeks to visit some of their supporting churches and give some updates about the ministry.  It was a bit of a roadtrip, but my friend Shelby and I couldn't pass up the opportunity.  These people became my family this summer, and they mean so much to me.  It was completely surreal to see them when it was less than 80 degrees outside, but it was completely awesome.

                                            Before the service in South Solon, Ohio

                                            Praying for the ministry at El Sembrador

                                                          Thanksgiving Fiesta!

Three months ago I never would have dreamed that an adventure like this could be possible.  But God is capable of doing so many cool things, and He takes pleasure in working things out for the good of those who love Him.  So why don't we expect more adventures in life?  Adventure is everywhere, whether you are playing soccer barefoot on a concrete field in Honduras, or you're feeding goats and making faces to entertain a 4-year-old at Bob Evan's in Ohio. 

So let's start expecting something amazing when we wake up every morning.  You never know what God has planned!

The Adventure Continues

It seems completely surreal to be sitting in the WGM guest house in Tegucigalpa on my last night in Honduras, right where my adventure began about seven weeks ago.  But this trip, which seemed like a mere blink of an eye, has given me so much wisdom-about God, what it means to have a relationship with Him, what it takes to be a missionary, and so much more.

One of the first things I learned coming here was how quickly a place can become home.  At first it can seem like you will never fit in; and then after a while you realize that you can understand most of what people are saying to you (so you can start to use words other than "Que?"); you realize that you actually have friends (courtesy of a couple bottles of soda and a deck of Uno cards); you realize that you can find your way from town back to the school (go past the big unfinished building, which is next to the smaller unfinished building, turn right at the gas station and follow the pot holes to El Sembrador); and before you know it, you realize that it's time to go and you aren't quite ready to say good-bye to all the people that you love.

I will miss so many things-getting to speak Spanish, working in an office where I could listen to anything from rapid, incomprehensible conversations about farm equipment to my friend in the room next door playing "Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire" on his computer, dropping everything I was working on to play endless rounds of Uno with the kids that came by my house.

I will miss beautiful views like this:

But mostly I will miss hanging out with kids like Daniel:

And Fernando and Samir:

And everyone else:

We have such an amazing God who has created some truly wonderful people.  And whether they are in Honduras, the Dominican Republic, or right down the street, I am looking forward to meeting even more of them in the future.  This is about the time in my trip where I get really upset and don't want to go, but during these past couple months God has taught me that these aren't good-byes; these are stepping stones, slowly leading me to where He wants me to end up.  My time in Honduras is over (for now), but I know He has much more in store for me wherever I am!  And, God-willing, I will be able to see my Honduran friends very soon.

Thank you to everyone who has kept up with my trip this summer and given their time, money, and prayers to help support me.  I can't even begin to describe to you how blessed I was through my time here, and it is a direct result of how much support I received from back home.  I thank God for each and every one of you, and I hope that God blesses you as much as He has blessed me this summer.

Gloria A Dios!

Well, here I sit, on my second to last night at El Sembrador.  On Saturday I am leaving to go on a week-long retreat with the missionaries in Honduras, and then I will be heading back home.  It seems like I have only been here for a few days, and yet I learned enough to fill a lifetime.  But I will go into detail about that when I have more time to sit and reflect.  For now, I am giving just a quick update in between laundry, packing, finishing up some last minute work in the office, and trying to make sure I say good-bye to everyone.

My last week at El Sembrador has been filled with a mission team that came down on Sunday.  We are working on building a fence in the mornings around a small one-room school in town, and in the afternoons we are putting on a Bible School for the kids that go to the school (and all the neighbor kids who heard about us coming).  On Monday we had about 25 kids.  By Wednesday we were scrounging to have enough chairs for everyone to sit in.  This has been a very stretching week for me, mostly because I have never been considered a "leader" of a mission team, and now I am learning what it takes to lead a team through a mission trip.  And also, my translator training wheels finally came off, and I have been leading the Bible School every day this week.  It was scary at first, but the kids have been so patient with my sometimes-incoherent Spanish, and they seem to be really enjoying themselves!

Here are some pictures of our adventures this week:

                                                     The school where we are working

                                                   Kids waiting patiently for Bible School

                                                 Emil-a really shy and really sweet little boy

One semi-spur-of-the-moment thing I got to do was teach some boys at the school how to make tie-dye shirts!  I'm pretty sure I shrunk all of them in the wash accidentally, but hopefully they can still wear them!

It almost seems a little unfair that life is so short.  There are so many amazing people in the world, and there is no possible way to meet all of them.  Even at El Sembrador, I wish I had three more lifetimes to get to know all of the wonderful people that work here and go to school here.  It would take volumes of books to tell you all that I have learned from the people here and how encouraging and inspiring it is to watch them in their walk with Christ.  I guess that's why we wait in expectation for heaven-it probably will take eternity to get to know all of God's beautiful creations!  And even though it makes me a little sad in the meantime, I know it will be worth the wait.

Anyway, sorry for the rambling!  When I'm relaxing at the beach next week, I will write my last blog to finish up the trip.  But while you wait, here's a picture of one of the views near my house:

The picture hardly does it justice, but it will have to do for now!  Good night, and for a lot of you I will see you soon!

Fiesta!

It's been a while since I have written!  It has been a very busy week here, but mostly with parties and celebrations!  On Wednesday we planned a surprise party for Erin, one of the members of the missionary family that served here for a month.  We had a pinata and everything-a very typical Honduran fiesta.  Here's some pictures from the party:

                                                                      Pinata!!

Then the next two days were full of celebration as well.  Thursday was the anniversary of El Sembrador-58 years of working with underprivileged kids in Honduras.  It has come a long way since 1954.  God is so faithful!  On Friday we celebrated the national holiday of Honduran Citizenship, which celebrates the rich cultural heritage of Honduras.

                  They brought in students from another school who performed traditional Honduran dances

 

Then we went over to look at the huts they had built (called "champas") the day before.  They looked amazing, and it only took them two days to construct them!  They were made mostly out of bamboo and palm leaves, and then the students brought in decorations.  Each champa represented a different territory of Honduras, and each described a little bit about the culture and lifestyle in that area.  Apparently Honduras has 7 indigenous groups that have their own language-who knew?

Besides the parties, I have been impacted by a few more serious things.  I could go on forever, but I will try to keep it short:

1. Spiritual Emphasis Week.  This week we have services every night with worship, a message, and an opportunity to come to the altar and spend time with God.  It touched my heart so much to see these young boys moving freely to the altar, not caring what their friends thought or what people would say, but just wanting to spend time with their Father.  It has been such an honor and a blessing to worship with everyone here.

2. Sponsorship.  If you didn't know, many of the students at El Sembrador are sponsored by people to come to this school.  One of my jobs has been to translate the letters the students wrote for their sponsors.  It finally sank in as to just how important a sponsor is in a child's life.  All of them thanked their sponsors again and again, and asked only for pictures of their families and for prayers.  Leslie told me that boys come in all the time and ask her if their sponsors have sent them a message yet.  I thought about my own sponsor child, and how much I have been slacking in sending her letters.  I am sending her one as soon as I get home, and I hope if you have a sponsor child somewhere that you will write to them as well.  I have seen first-hand just how much it matters to children.

3. Education.  Tonight we went to the students in the Bible Institute so we could get their letters to send to their sponsors.  The Bible Institute reminds me a lot of my own college.  It is small, so the classes are very close-knit, and a lot of the ministry classes are very similar to the ones I am taking.  I was completely blown away by these students' eagerness to learn, and also their spiritual maturity.  There are all very close to my age, and before they all wrote their letters, they stopped to pray together not only for their sponsors, but for me as well and the calling God has put in my life.  I see these students studying so hard every single day, and happily going to their practicums on the weekend.  How many times have I complained about an assignment in my ministry classes?  How many times have I blown off my work and only done the bare minimum to keep a good grade in the class?  Why haven't I realized that this is the time God wants to form me and shape me into the kind of missionary He wants me to be?  He has so much He wants to teach me, and I am giving up this precious time to sleep for an extra half hour or watch a movie I have already seen 10 times.  Thank you, God, for reminding me of how blessed I am to have this opportunity to study and prepare for my life of serving You, and please be with these amazing students as they learn and grow closer to You.

Time Is Flying

I can't believe that in exactly one month I will be leaving Honduras!  Time has definitely flown by, and I don't know how I will ever leave.  I have met so many beautiful people.
Like Dania:

Dania is sixteen and lives with Leslie and her family.  She goes to school in the morning, works in the afternoon with the other students, and then goes home and helps take care of the kids at night.  I have never heard one complaint from her, and it is so heart-warming to see the love and affection she has for the children; they are closer than family.

And Leslie and Osman:

Leslie and Osman both work at the school, in very stressful jobs.  But you can tell they love every minute of it, and they put their hearts and souls into this ministry and into the students at El Sembrador.  Leslie makes it a point to chat with all the students as she walks by them and learn all their names, which is no easy task.  Osman will come home exhausted after a long day of work and then go right back out to play soccer with some of the boys.  They are truly amazing servants of God.

But the kid who stole my heart today was Samir:

I wish I had a better picture of him, but this is the only one I had.  This is on his profile on the El Sembrador website.  Every student who is in need of a sponsor to pay for school has a picture and a little paragraph about them.  All of the kids are asked what they would like to do in the future.  Most kids say typical things like "I want to be a pilot," or "I'm going to be an architect."  This was Samir's answer: "In the future I would like to buy my mom a piece of land and build a house for her."  Of all the things he could be dreaming for himself, the first thing he wants to do is provide for his mother.  I pray that his dream will become a reality.

I have been learning a lot about prayer during my time here.  One of the big lessons I learned today was a reminder of how much God cares about everything in our lives, no matter how big or small.  This morning Leslie and I prayed for all the sponsors of the students here.  Later this afternoon the family visiting here signed the papers to sponsor two children to go to school (one of them, praise God, is Samir).  And then after work we were taking a walk by the river and Leslie's son Osman lost one of his shoes in the water and the current swept it away.  He was crying because it was his only pair of flip-flops, so I said a quick prayer that we would find it.  Not two minutes later I spotted the shoe floating right past me, and we were able to rescue it from going downstream.  It blows my mind that the God of this universe, the one who created the world and sent His only Son to die for us, would care so deeply for a lost flip-flop.  But He does.  What a beautiful God we serve!