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.
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. =) =) =)
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