Bible Study

Last Thursday I started a Bible study with some of the new women at church. I was very nervous about this because I have never really done anything like this before especially with adults. We announced it at church and immediately 2 ladies who had only been there once before expressed their interest. This was very encouraging to me. Thursday I arrived and per usual in Honduras the 9 o´clock bible study started at 10, but other than that everything went wonderfully. The study involves a lot of talking and feedback and I was a little worried about sitting in silence, but they were great. They really got involved and are excited about our next study next week. Afterwards I headed over to Xiomara´s house on the other side of the mountain and we went to visit her sister in law. We were there for a while and then we asked her if she wanted to do the study and she said yes. So I did the study again there and about half way through Xiomara´s brother in law showed up and he stayed as well. This study went a little more slowly because they were more hesitant to talk but still it was great and they both said they would love to study again next week. I´ve been going crazy at home and God has provided me this opportunity to get out into the community again and share the gospel with some great people. I am so blessed to be able to see God working so plainly in my life.

Another New Friend!!

LOL yesterday I went to the prison to visit the boys and ended up coming home with a puppy. Jack, as I´ve chosen to call him, rejecting his name of "Homie", is an adorable baby pit bull. Someone brought him to some of the gang boys and they have to wait a week for permission to have him. They needed someone to take care of him for a week and that someone is me. He is incredibly placid for a puppy. He just sleeps most of the time which is nice for me. It means not a whole lot of clean up. I think a bit of that may be malnourishment though because before he was being fed things like spaghetti and rice. After I leave here I´m going to buy some puppy food and maybe it will perk him up a little. He´s a sweety but very shy. He sleeps on the floor by my bed and hasn´t barked once the whole time. I´ll keep you guys updated on anything exciting that happens during my puppysitting week.

A New Friend

About a month ago I was hanging out with my good friend Xiomara behind my house while she was washing the clothes (an activity she loves and I find impossible). I ventured into the little "maid´s room" that is out there, and that I am afraid to go into by myself, for some unknown reason. Upon entering I saw a grocery sack in the corner and decided to check it out. I had been in this room occasionally before and the grocery sack was new. Inside the grocery sack were several old bandanas (sp?). Nothing too creepy about that except that they are in the scary room and have no reason to be there. So I come running out with my normally overdramatic exuberance and shout at Xiomara, "Look!! Someone´s living in the scary room." Mind you this would require some pretty major acrobatics by a very thin person to even get into the room, but still my mind will do as it wishes. She laughed and stated the obvious about the near imposibility of someone getting into the room and also the large quantities of people (especially children) that come and go from my house and could easily have left the bag there. So that was that and the stranger in the scary room became a great joke between us. It also become the subject of many interesting dreams, not scary just interesting, that Xiomara found hilarious. The owner of the bag still has not been found, but 3 or 4 nights ago I found a very adorable little cat leaving the room. She sleeps there at night and quite enjoys the milk and cat food I´ve begun leaving her but won´t let me anywhere near her. Slowly she is letting me see more and more of her and I`m hoping that soon we will become friends. She has already decided that she really likes to watch tv (my kind of cat) and crawls between the bars on my front windows to watch every night. I´ve named her Bianca because Blanca (the spanish word for white) seemed a little too obvious. Maybe I´m crazy but I´ve fallen in love with this shy little kitty.

Visit with my boys

Hey Guys,
I just got back from visiting my boys for the first time since I left Jovenes. I had talked to them a few times on the phone but this was the first visit. They had their monthly visit with their parents and so they were in town and I just went over to IHNFA (basically the honduran dept of family services). It was wonderful. It was so good to see the boys. They are growing but are still the same great kids that I grew to love. There are now 10 more and I made friends with a couple of the new boys as well. It was hard answering questions about when I´m coming back because there is really no answer to that question. I made plans with a couple of the people that work at Jovenes to have dinner next week and I¨m already looking forward to that. God has blessed me with so many great relationships from my stay at Jovenes. Today also showed me that I really do have a talent for working with children and I truly do believe that is where God wants me. Sometimes it is hard for me to stay on track and I´ve become very good at doubting myself but God knows what I need and he provides it. Isn´t it wonderful that as Christians we have someone who knows better than we do what we need? That is unfathomable to me. God recognizes my problems and works at fixes them before I even realize I have them. That´s an awesome thing. I encourage each of you to take some time and think about how God is working in your life right at this moment. Whether you are feeling thrilled, devastated, or floating along in the middle God is there and he´s working in your life. I love you guys. You are amazing. Email me.

Crazy Thieves

The funniest thing happened the other morning, well it wasn´t funny at the time but I find it hilarious now. I had bought a hammock and put it out in front of my house. This is not an odd thing, it is actually quite common here. The hammock cost about $20 and the two ropes hanging it up costs $1 a piece. The hammock was hanging a total of one day and one night when I woke up, went outside, and saw that someone had climbed over my front gate, smashed the plants on the other side of the gate in the process of climbing over, and stolen not the $20 hammock which was laying on the ground, but one of the $1 ropes. WHAT!! people here are so strange. So I was frustated because on top of this I had no electricity and it was just a bad morning. I go to church and tell Xiomara, my best friend and cleaning lady, about what happened and by this time I think it´s just a big joke. She is furious. She says "where was the security guard he should have been watching your house. I`m going to talk to him tomorrow. " Which she proceeds to do. The security guard, who I expect to blow the whole thing off, starts apologizing profusely and saying that he wasn´t there because he had been in a house around the block drunk for the past two days. I´ve never heard anything so ridiculous. He then says that I don´t have to pay for the security until August and he will pay special attention to the house to make sure nothing else happens. Talk about craziness. I was expecting Xiomara and the security guy to get into a big fight. She was so funny. She started telling me how if I didn´t stand up for myself people were going to walk all over me and I just couldn´t stop laughing. Especially in light of the past months experiences. Oh the crazy hondurans.

Carnival!!

Sorry I´ve been remiss in writing for awhile. The electricity in my house is out indefinitely which prevents me from writing posts at home and then bringing them in to upload. Last Sunday I had 4-year-old Julia spend the night with me and it was so much fun. Because of the lack of electricity we had to be a little bit inventive as far as activities go. So we decided to go out for lunch and eat pizza and play in the little playpark in pizza hut. A common experience at home but here something she talked about all day until we decided to go to the carnival. Now that was an experience. It is just a bunch of mechanical rides like you would find at a state fair all together near the grocery store behind my house. When they began this process I definitely was not anticipating the grand affair that it became. There are two giant roller coasters that went up literally over night. I have to admit I¨m a bit hesitant to get on them but I have seen inspectors looking over the rides during the day so that´s a good sign. Anyway, So Julia and I decide to brave the massive crowds of people and join the fun. First of all, entry to this place is one ticket which costs 5 L. Well me being the planner that I am buy 50 L. worth of tickets so that we won´t have to wait in line to buy tickets when we get inside. We pay our tickets go in look around and decide to ride the little worm kiddiecoaster that has the longest line in the park. There are an indescribable number of people in this place. You literally have to shove your way through to get anywhere. We wait in line for about 20 minutes and then arrive, finally at the worm. The ticket man takes one look at my tickets and says no sorry you need gray tickets, unfornately I had bought 10 pink entry tickets that could not be used for anything. So we go and buy tickets for the worm and learn that there is a different color ticket for every ride. Talk about insanity. So we finally ride the ride and have lots of fun and continue on our way encountering many other people who have made the ticket blunder and trading around tickets as we go. We arrive at a little ride that has the kids circuling in the air in little elephants and cars and such and I put Julia in and step back to watch. I watch a mother place her child, about Julia´s age, crying into one of the cars and then place one of his little friends in with him. She then tells the friend to hold the kid into the car. This poor kid is scared to death and his little friend has a vice grip around his neck. The mom just stands back and yells encouragement until the ride starts and the kids take off. The little boy finally calms down but the friend keeps his hold until the ride is over. It was a little sad but at the same time one of the funniest things I have ever seen. The little friend´s face was priceless. Well that´s about it for now. thanks for reading.