Tidbits, to suffice for my lack of blogging=)

As I type this, Ashley and I are sitting at Dunkin Donuts working on school stuff. It is eerily similar to evenings at Panera or Barnes & Noble or Spencer’s during university, except this time I am grading and not studying. Things are very different on this end of the education world—my respect for teachers has increased exponentially in the last two months. Planning lessons, writing quizzes, determining how to grade those quizzes, wanting so bad for all of your students to understand everything, but having to accept that not all students are willing to do their share in order to do well… it’s a tough job! But teaching vale la pena (meaning, it’s worth it!).

It has been entirely too long since my last blog post. Here we are. I thought I would share a few tidbits of life here. Some are entertaining, others are more like prayer requests.

~Tidbit Number One~ I teach a dance class at the Hogar on Wednesdays, and I have now taught absolutely every dance that I know to these girls. They keep asking me for a new one, so, on our day-off from school last week, I spent about three hours in my room watching “High School Musical Dance Along” on YouTube in order to learn the dance to We’re All in This Together! (Unfortunately I don’t remember all of it from my BCM days, haha).

~Tidbit Number Two~ Last night we went to a wedding reception, and Vanessa, one of the girls from Misericordia, who has Down’s Syndrome, was a bridesmaid. She looked like a princess! Half-way through the reception, I saw her standing outside, arms crossed, looking very angry. I asked her what was wrong and she just shook her head. One of the staff from the Hogar told me, “Emily, she is jealous.” I said, “Jealous? Why?” The staff member motioned her head towards the window, and inside the reception, Vanessa’s groomsman partner (a teenage boy who also has a mental disability) was dancing with another girl. I looked at Vanessa and asked her if she wanted to dance with me. She grinned and nodded her head yes, so we went inside. Within two minutes Vanessa had left me, cut in on the other couple, and was dancing happily with her groomsman. PRECIOUS.

~Tidbit Number Three~ (Necessary background information: the mascot of Comayagua is the Burro, or Donkey. People from Comayagua are sometimes called “Little Donkeys”. YES.) At school on Thursday we had a Honduran Culture Night. All day at school, the students had been preparing and decorating and practicing. The last period of the day, as I was monitoring the chaos, the gate opened and a donkey was brought in and tied to a post in the courtyard. Random, I thought, but I was assured that it was part of the culture night. In the evening, the students came dressed in traditional clothing and each grade performed a traditional dance. We ate traditional food from all the different departments (or states) in Honduras. Unfortunately, we had quite the rain storm in the middle of the fiesta, and everything had to be moved inside. In between some of the dances, Ashley and I walked outside and the donkey was still there, this time tied to a soccer goal. Reading this it does not sound that funny… but it was a donkey, inside our school, supposed to be a representation of Honduran, and specifically, Comayaguan culture. And all it did was stand there tied to a soccer goal in the middle of a rainstorm. It was funny to me. And then I found five lempira.

~Tidbit Number Four~ (The serious one) Things have been … complex … lately. I have found myself really questioning what missions are supposed to be. What does it really mean to care for orphans and widows, or the poor? What if someone doesn’t want help? Or doesn’t believe that they need help, but we know they need help? Or what if they want so much help that they don’t want to do their part? Do we “give to all who ask of [us]” if it is just crippling that person? Is it mine to decide what is crippling someone and what is helping them? Should I believe any and every story of need? Where does our giving intersect with being good stewards? Another subject… How do we determine God’s will? I knew, my parents knew, Ashley knew, that we were supposed to “go”; that we were supposed to be here in Honduras. But what now? If I was “called” here for one thing, is it possible that God would change that thing now that I am here? How does His will for us progress? Or is it more that we are slow to understand His will and that he is gradually opening our eyes to see? Complex, right? Basically, how do we obey God in the gray areas of life?

I wish I had the answers to that mess of questions. All I have is this (the passage from church this morning): Habakkuk 3:17-19.

Though the fig tree does not budand there are no grapes on the vines,

though the olive crop failsand the fields produce no food,

though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls,

yet I will rejoice in the Lord,

I will be joyful in God my Savior.

The Sovereign Lord is my strength;

he makes my feet like the feet of a deer,

he enables me to go on the heights.

I praise God for his word and how he speaks to us. For Habbakuk, (which, fun fact, in Spanish is pronounced "a-ba-COOOK"), everything was failing. When things are failing, when we are failing, it is easy to question our purpose. A farmer with no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls probably wonders why on earth God called him to be a farmer. And YET we rejoice in the Lord. He is still our Savior, he is still sovereign, and he is still our strength. =) =) =)

Our strength is not our own...

"He guards the steps of His faithful ones, but the wicked are silenced in darkness,

for a man does not prevail by his own strength."

- 1 Samuel 2:9

"God is our refuge and strength, a helper who is always found in times of trouble.

Therefore we will not be afraid,

though the earth trembles and the mountains topple into the depths of the seas."

- Psalm 46:1-2

"Consider it a great joy, my brothers, whenever you experience various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance."

- James 1:2-3

I thank God that the unforseen struggles in life are already seen by Him. When things turn out to be harder than we anticipate, we can trust that God saw it coming, and that He still decided to lead us down that path. All along the way, He is guiding our steps, producing in us an endurance that is not of ourselves. When we are at our weakest, God reminds us that his grace is sufficient, because His power is perfected in our weakest. "Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly in my weakness, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and pressures. For when I am weak then I am strong." (2 Corinthians 12:9-10)

Things I never thought to be thankful for...

I have been processing through a lot of situations lately... life situations that are somewhat normal down here. Sometimes when I try to put myself in someone else´s situation, it gets overwhelming. The best way to put it, I guess, is that I never thought to be thankful for things that I thought were a given in life. For example...

I never thought to be thankful that I didn´t have to raise my own siblings. I never thought to be thankful that I didn´t have to root through garbage (in fact, I was strongly discouraged from rooting through the garbage=). I never thought to be thankful that someone took care of me when I was sick.

The background to these situations? Well,

Last week INFAH told my parents about a 16-year old girl. She and her 1-year old brother had been abandoned by their mother. So, the girl found a man to live with, to take care of her and her brother. When INFAH called, the man had abandoned them as well, and the girl is pregnant and caring for her little brother. INFAH wanted to know if there was room for them to live in Buen Pastor. Her story hit me hard, because I don´t think I would ever imagine such a story. It never occurred to me, when I was 16, that I should be thankful that my parents raised us--it seemed like a given.

We have a woman here in Misericordia named Maita, and she is often a highlight to my day. I am not sure what her "diagnosis" is, but she always asks the same questions... "Will you play jacks with me?" and "When are we going to my house?" She also laughs very hard every time she sees me, which makes me laugh (I try not to get offended;). Anyway, if Maita gets outside the gate, she immediately starts looking through trash. It is her instinct. Tonight we took the Misericordia and Buen Pastor girls to dinner, and Maita made a comment about how "pretty" her empty soda bottle was (for trash, plastic bottles are a good find). I just think, really? In the U.S., we even train our pets not to get into the trash, and yet here, this precious woman, who can´t remember one conversation to the next without repetition, instinctively goes to trash to look for plastic bottles. I never thought to be thankful that I was someone throwing trash out, instead of being someone bringing it in to find my family´s next meal.

The reason we took everyone to dinner tonight is because Yoly (age 18) passed her 6th grade final exam. In Honduras, this is a big deal because now she is eligible to get a job and she can go into high school. So we celebrated, hoping to also encourage the other girls to keep working hard. Unfortunately, Yoly has been having some health issues lately, and the food didn´t go well with her. When my parents and I got back later, Javier (the four-year old) came to our door telling us to come help Yoly. I went down to her room, and she was on the floor of the bathroom throwing up. I squeezed in (she was kinda blocking the door) and, because I am no nurse, held her hair out of her face and rubbed her back. That is what my mom always did for me whenever I was sick. Standing there, I thought how lonely it must have been to be there on the floor, hurting, and unable to control your body. I think I always assumed that it was my parents´responsibility, their job, to be there with me when I was sick. I don´t think I was ever thankful for the comfort of knowing that someone cared that I was hurting, and that someone wanted me to get better.

Needless to say, I was thanking and praising God as I cleaned up that bathroom, washed the mop, and told the girls "Good night" tonight.

I was thinking about the verse in Matthew, where Jesus says to the righteous, "For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me." I have heard this verse plenty of times, even read entire books based on this verse, but still, I think I always took it figuratively. You know, I thought we were just supposed to do nice things for other people. But lately I have been thinking, No, there really are Hungry people, and Thirsty people, and Sick people. There really are people who need clothes, who need to be welcomed in, and who need someone to visit them, even if it means visiting them in prison. Jesus is not using figurative language to speak about abstract needs, but rather these are real conditions, and in much of the world, normal conditions. Jesus said, "And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.’" I pray that God will constantly remind me that these people are His, and no matter how humbling the task, I am working for Him.

Most of all, I pray that the 16-year old girl would know that she has a Heavenly Father who will never abandon her. That Maita, every time she is given food, will know that God is her Provider. And that Yoly, though she may be sick and suffering some tough things, would know God as her Great Healer and Refuge.

"Normal" day

What is a typical day like in Honduras? Today has been pretty "normal", so I thought I could share its events on here...

• 7am (ish) - Get up, go out to wash clothes. I love doing the laundry in the morning, because it iscool out and washing by hand is a very mindless task. It helps me wake up and get my mindgoing. Usually some of the girls from Buen Pastor will come out and chat, too, so that is alwaysnice.
• 7:30 (ish) - Come back in, have some quiet time. I am going through My Utmost for His Highestright now, so I usually read the devotion, read the context of the corresponding scripture, andcopy it in Spanish (I am trying to get used to scripture in Spanish!!).
• I eat breakfast, and get ready for the day... no particular time...
• This morning I did some sewing. I am fixing some shirts for a friend, and also my mom and I have been making bed sheets for the girls in Misericordia. In any down time, there is usuallysome sewing to be done.
• We needed more thread, so my mom and I walked into town and bought some. Two spools ofwhite thread for the machine, and three zippers for purses that one of the girls is making... 12 limpira (which is about 75 cents). Crazy!
• We got back, I sewed a little more, then we ate lunch. Today we had turkey sandwiches, grapes, chips and a really good salsa that my mom made.
• This afternoon some of the Buen Pastor girls had an activity at school, so their babies are herewith the tia. I have been playing with some of the Misericordia girls and Javier and Gloria. Ourfriend Krista from home teaches students with special needs, so she gave us lots of ideas forthings to do with the girls. Today we took paintbrushes and water and painted the concrete. Itwas so sunny that the water would dry in about 15sec, so we kept busy for a while. We playedwith hula hoops and a punch balloon, then some of the girls colored.
• Right now Javier is sitting in the office with me working on an ABC puzzle. He will startpre-school in August at the same school where I will be teaching!!
• Not too sure what the exact plan for the evening is, but the girls get picked up at 4pm and atsome point we will eat dinner, and we will have devotions at 7:15pm tonight.

Today is a Tuesday... On Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings my mom and I go to the Hogar to teach English with the kids. On Wednesday afternoons I do dance class with the girls at the Hogar, too.

So... a this is a typical, calm day. Some days are not so calm, but that is another post in itself=)

To the glory of God...

My aunt from Florida is currently here with a group, part of which includes my cousin, Baylor, her husband, Adam, and people from their small group from their church in Birmingham, Alabama. Their church is Brook Hills, where David Platt, the author of the book Radical, preaches. Adam and I were talking about part of this book, where David Platt talks about God being able to use all skill sets to his glory. He tells of a man in his church, who led a rough life and I think came to Christ while in prison. Any way, this man offered his skills to "smuggle contraband across borders" if they ever needed to get Bibles into closed countries!!

I, too, feel like God surprises me in the way He prepares us for things. On Tuesday a lady from the Hogar called at noon and asked me to come to the Hogar at four to teach the girls a "baile de gimnasticos ritmicos"... which translates to a rhythmic gymnastics routine. So, never being one to say no, I agreed. I just happened to remember a routine from high school cheerleading, and I just happened to have the music on my computer. Of course, I don't really think that any of that "just happened"... I think that God was preparing me at age 16 for the job I would be doing in Comayagua, Honduras at age 23.

Stories like this are everywhere down here. My Grampy (my mom´s dad) used to volunteer for Turtle Soup Luncheons at Brooklawn Youth Services in Louisville, which led to my mom and dad later volunteering on their festival committee, which led to my mom tutoring boys with behavioral disorders once a week. Now, down here, that kind of experience has given her a basis to work with some of the kids in their projects. It is always fun to see people come down here who "had a little Spanish in high school", who then find that they remember more than they thought.

I guess the point of this post is that we never know how God is preparing us to later use us for his glory. Whether your skills include illegal transport of contraband across borders, cheerleading routines, "handy man" type stuff, bowling, etc. etc. etc., be assured that God can and will use you to his glory if you will follow his lead. You may be in a phase of life right now where you feel like you are going no where, but maybe this is a season of preparation that will later prove valuable as you serve God. May the Lord bless you as you seek to follow him.

Let´s start at the very beginning... a very good place to start.

I wanted to share why John 15:13 is at the top of this page... It actually is my favorite verse but also happened to be the scripture basis for my devotion this morning. In "My Utmost for His Highest", Oswald Chambers writes that this verse does not say that we die in order to express love, but that we lay down our lives. He says, "It is much easier to die than to lay down your life day in and day out with the sense of the high calling of God. We are not made for the bright-shining moments of life, but we have to walk in the light of them in our everyday ways." I found this to be extremely appropriate and it prepared me well for some of todays trials. Before coming to Honduras, I said over and over that I didn't know exactly what I would be doing, but that I knew God was calling me here. Today I realized that we may not be here for some grand, bright-shining task, but rather to daily lay our lives down before the Lord. Repeating flash cards with kids who just don't get it, repeating "No, no estoy aqui para conseguir un novio" to teenage girls, holding kids with wet diapers, opening the gate for others, asking the tough questions that everyone else avoids, and simply being here to walk through life together may be the ways that God calls me to daily give my life over to Him. My life is not my own- it is His to use for His purpose and His glory. May we all show our love to God by laying down our lives for Him and for His people.

I have never blogged before, but I was encouraged multiple times that it would be a good idea to blog throughout the next couple of years here in Honduras. So, here it goes=)

I arrived in Honduras yesterday. To quote my dad´s Facebook status, "Emily safely in Honduras, luggage safely in Miami". Haha! He is a kidder... but really, my bags didn´t arrive. So, we left the airport and drove here to Comayagua, my new "home".

It was so exciting and such a blessing to meet the girls who live here with my parents. This past January my parents took over a couple of extra projects, so I had not yet met these young ladies. They were quickly calling me sister and introducing me to their babies, and I love it! I am excited to get to know them and hopefully build a strong relationship with each one.

This morning we went to the Hogar, and I got to see all of my dear friends. It felt like home being there... joking and hugging and catching up with the girls. I helped my mom teach her English class to the little girls, which culminated in Sarai (age 7) reading a children´s book to me in ENGLISH!! It is crazy to think about how these kids will grow up speaking English, and I pray that it will open up opportunties for them in the future.

I also saw some of my older friends today... kids who have left the Hogar in the past few years. They need a lot of prayer as they work to figure out what their adult lives will be like. It was great to see them and talk some, but I feel pretty burdened for them. I pray that God will lead them down a safe and solid path and keep them close to Him.

Tonight ended with devotions again and kicking a soccer ball around with the girls here in Buen Pastor. It felt like family, all talking and playing together.

And we got my luggage=)