Happy Easter and Greetings from Honduras!
So, 2 completely different experiences all in one week, all of which could only be completely successful with the guidance and protection and faithfulness of the Lord.
There are many many more stories, but I am always way too long winded, so I will stop there.
Isaiah 40 has been my power verse to pump me up and push me through to the end of this school year. I meditated on this chapter every day of break. When you finish reading this e-mail, please stop and grab your bible and read it, because it is truly inspiring. Each of these verses in this chapter will carry me through till the end of the year in different ways and I continue to wait and hope in the Lord as He renews my strength and does for me more than I can ask of Him or imagine could come to pass. Please pray these verses over my kids and me as we finish out this school year.
Each and every one of you have been anointed in prayer over the past week as your faces flooded my mind through the long hours of travel. I miss you and will keep praying for you as well.
After making it through a grueling stretch of school without breaks everyone staggered into Semana Santa in desperate need of a break and some rejuvenation.
I must say that I had no idea how difficult it would be to guide 20 children through 94 solid days of school in a row with a one day break for a random cancelation. By Wednesday I had completely lost it and felt like a madwoman. Patience was gone and the kids had had enough and we had no choice but to just push through to the end. So our 10 day break came at JUST the right moment.
I prayed for a long time about what Semana Santa would look like for me and how to spend that time and found that when submitting plans to the Lord He always has more planned than I could ask.
Saturday morning at 3am we boarded a bus that began a 15 hour travel day and many adventures. I didn’t realize the amazing amount of traveling I was committing myself to within a short period of time, but when I got home on Monday afternoon I added the travel hours and it came out to be 53 ½ hours altogether, which adds up to a lot of time on a bus, staring out the window and praying for many many many things.
In-between long bus rides I found myself remembering what it feels like to be a real person again as we frolicked on the beaches of El Salvador, went on a zip-line canopy tour, ate fish and shrimp and talked for hours amidst the ambiance of candlelight and crashing waves and just found everything to be like a fairy tale. I was amidst wonderful company with my friend Gina and her sister and best friend who came down to visit.
On Tuesday I began the long travels back to Tegucigalpa and then got up at 3:30 am Wed. morning to board yet another bus to head out to a tiny pueblo in the middle of the Honduran mountains, completely switching gears. This time I accompanied my Honduran friend Waldina to her family’s rural farm house, which was just the adventure I was looking for. There were so many moments that I just had to throw my head back and laugh because it was so fun, and yet so crazy!
To describe a little bit of the setting in which I spent 6 lovely days I’ll tell you some of my favorite moments:
- Mashing our own corn to make tortillas over a fire
- Dozens of chickens, 4 turkeys, and 4 dogs always running around our feet (one of which we killed and then ate for Easter dinner on Sunday!)
- Thousands of flickering fireflies at night dancing all around
- Enjoying afternoon rainstorms from the hammocks on the front porch
- Packing 15-18 people in the back of a truck and bumping along 4 wheel drive roads to a random river where we crossed a huge suspended bridge to find hot springs bubbling up in the middle of the road and a random mariachi band to sing for us, then spending the afternoon swimming in the river and playing a lively soccer match on the shore.
- Climbing trees with machete in hand to hack down dozens of mangos, of which we devoured way too many!
- Washing my clothes by hand on rocks by a stream and realizing what it is like to live life with no running water…oh America, we are so blessed.
- Semana Santa sawdust carpet artwork and procession after procession flowing through the streets
- Slip sliding through mud in the rain on a 45 minute walk with luggage in hand at 3 in the morning to catch a bus to head home
- Huge spiders, a scorpion encounter, dozens of ant bites and quite a few mosquito bites to top off the real rural Honduras experience!
My friend Waldina approved my missionary status after I survived the week of craziness and enjoyed all the adventures. We laughed about my Spanish, talked about our crazy students, met new friends, tried new food, and enjoyed the calm, quiet, and rest of the life on the farm.
I must say that I had no idea how difficult it would be to guide 20 children through 94 solid days of school in a row with a one day break for a random cancelation. By Wednesday I had completely lost it and felt like a madwoman. Patience was gone and the kids had had enough and we had no choice but to just push through to the end. So our 10 day break came at JUST the right moment.
I prayed for a long time about what Semana Santa would look like for me and how to spend that time and found that when submitting plans to the Lord He always has more planned than I could ask.
Saturday morning at 3am we boarded a bus that began a 15 hour travel day and many adventures. I didn’t realize the amazing amount of traveling I was committing myself to within a short period of time, but when I got home on Monday afternoon I added the travel hours and it came out to be 53 ½ hours altogether, which adds up to a lot of time on a bus, staring out the window and praying for many many many things.
In-between long bus rides I found myself remembering what it feels like to be a real person again as we frolicked on the beaches of El Salvador, went on a zip-line canopy tour, ate fish and shrimp and talked for hours amidst the ambiance of candlelight and crashing waves and just found everything to be like a fairy tale. I was amidst wonderful company with my friend Gina and her sister and best friend who came down to visit.
On Tuesday I began the long travels back to Tegucigalpa and then got up at 3:30 am Wed. morning to board yet another bus to head out to a tiny pueblo in the middle of the Honduran mountains, completely switching gears. This time I accompanied my Honduran friend Waldina to her family’s rural farm house, which was just the adventure I was looking for. There were so many moments that I just had to throw my head back and laugh because it was so fun, and yet so crazy!
To describe a little bit of the setting in which I spent 6 lovely days I’ll tell you some of my favorite moments:
- Mashing our own corn to make tortillas over a fire
- Dozens of chickens, 4 turkeys, and 4 dogs always running around our feet (one of which we killed and then ate for Easter dinner on Sunday!)
- Thousands of flickering fireflies at night dancing all around
- Enjoying afternoon rainstorms from the hammocks on the front porch
- Packing 15-18 people in the back of a truck and bumping along 4 wheel drive roads to a random river where we crossed a huge suspended bridge to find hot springs bubbling up in the middle of the road and a random mariachi band to sing for us, then spending the afternoon swimming in the river and playing a lively soccer match on the shore.
- Climbing trees with machete in hand to hack down dozens of mangos, of which we devoured way too many!
- Washing my clothes by hand on rocks by a stream and realizing what it is like to live life with no running water…oh America, we are so blessed.
- Semana Santa sawdust carpet artwork and procession after procession flowing through the streets
- Slip sliding through mud in the rain on a 45 minute walk with luggage in hand at 3 in the morning to catch a bus to head home
- Huge spiders, a scorpion encounter, dozens of ant bites and quite a few mosquito bites to top off the real rural Honduras experience!
My friend Waldina approved my missionary status after I survived the week of craziness and enjoyed all the adventures. We laughed about my Spanish, talked about our crazy students, met new friends, tried new food, and enjoyed the calm, quiet, and rest of the life on the farm.
So, 2 completely different experiences all in one week, all of which could only be completely successful with the guidance and protection and faithfulness of the Lord.
There are many many more stories, but I am always way too long winded, so I will stop there.
Isaiah 40 has been my power verse to pump me up and push me through to the end of this school year. I meditated on this chapter every day of break. When you finish reading this e-mail, please stop and grab your bible and read it, because it is truly inspiring. Each of these verses in this chapter will carry me through till the end of the year in different ways and I continue to wait and hope in the Lord as He renews my strength and does for me more than I can ask of Him or imagine could come to pass. Please pray these verses over my kids and me as we finish out this school year.
Each and every one of you have been anointed in prayer over the past week as your faces flooded my mind through the long hours of travel. I miss you and will keep praying for you as well.
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