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!