It´s Summer in Honduras!!

Trip to San Lorenzo

In Honduras, the thing to do during Holy Week is bañar (literally translated, that is "to bathe" but we bathe more than just once a year). Bañar, is actually the word used for swimming. So, in the weeks leading up to Semana Santa, people don´t ask "What are you doing for Semana Santa?" Instead they ask, "Where are you swimming in Semana Santa?"

"Isla el Tigre" -- We climbed that!

On the boat over to the island.

So, for Semana Santa, which was also our spring break from school, Ashley and I started by going to San Lorenzo, Valle, Honduras. This is in the south of Honduras, bordering the Pacific Ocean. We were each able to scratch something off our bucket lists-- Ashley climbed a volcano, and I swam in the Pacific Ocean!! It was an awesome vacation-- perfect mix of relaxing and adventuring. Very hot and sunny, too!

The Pacific Ocean!!!

"Bañar-ing" with Buen Pastor

After returning to Comayagua from San Lorenzo, we went swimming with my parents and the Buen Pastor moms and babies. (The Misericordia women had already been swimming with their school). We went to a small waterpark outside Comayagua, and had a great time. The girls did waterslides for the first time, splashed around, and got to be teenagers for a day. Javier, Alexandra, and Tatiana went with us, and they provided lots of laughs (see below!). We were all thankful for a fun day where the girls could get away and play around and just have fun.

Alexandra, our most mischevious and "traviesa" did NOT like the water...

I think it stessed her out, judging by the early nap with Papi (which she can say perfectly--we are still working on "Emily")

We are thinking this was Javier´s first time in a hammock-- he is completely stiff, and has a look of terror on his face. Definitely not relaxing the way your are supposed to in a hammock!

Las Alfombras -- My first time!

Comayagua is famous for its Semana Santa alfombras (carpets) and processions. Ths was my first time being here for the Easter week celebrations, and it did not disappoint. The carpets are made of colored saw dust spread out in the streets.

A beautiful design in the street...

The Holy Family on carpet...

Easter Sunday!

Interesting cultural difference is that here the biggest celebrations/activities are on Thursday and Friday of Holy Week, not on Sunday. Easter morning in church we talked about the importance of Sunday--without Sunday and the resurrection, death would have won. Praise God that Christ was and is victorious over death!! We read the scripture of Good Friday and the Resurrection, and I love part of what the speaker said-- He posed the question, "Why did Jesus ask God, `Why have you abandonded me?´" The answer: Jesus asked this question so that we wouldn´t have to. Jesus took my sins, my separation from God, and suffered the consequences so that I would never have to. He bridged the gap, for me and for you, and we can live full and eternal lives with our Creator and Father, who will never abandon us. Praise be to God!

Precious.

Ashley and me with the orange tree (or orange tree??) outside our house.

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.