Everyday life. Right?

There have definitely been some incredibly funny moments in the past few weeks.  I'm hoping that these aren't the "you totally had to be there" moments. So, I will attempt to tell you what happened to my roommate and I last Wednesday. 

There is a Baptist church that's about four blocks down from our houses.  Every now and then, we'll pass it while they're having band practice.  It sounds JUST like home. Somewhat cheap electric guitar plugged into a somewhat cheap amp.  It's that raw "garage band" sound that I'm definitely a fan of.  So, I've continuously been drawn to this church. 

Bethany and I decided that we needed to find out what the service times were.  There's nothing wrong with going to church at Destino, but every now and then, I need a change of view.  We passed by the church on our way home from school Wednesday afternoon and there was nothing opened. Found out the pastor was supposed to be there around 5ish (this is Honduran time!).  At 5 pm, we walked back up to the church to see if there was anyone we could talk to about service times.  

At 5, one of the gates was opened; we went in...and called BUENAS for about 5 minutes, searching the church grounds for any sign of life.  Made our way up to the second floor that looks out over the campus. Finally, I heard shuffling of feet. This sweet, old man came shuffling around the corner. We asked him what time the services were and he told us.  We got what we needed and had to get home for dinner before Destino Church that night, so we headed downstairs and back to the gate where we entered.  

It was locked. 

Padlocked. 

*gulp*

"Permiso!!!! Como salimos???" (I don't have a Spanish keyboard to do the upside down punctuation marks).  The gentleman, was no where to be found. He disappeared into thin air.  

By this time, a small crowd had gathered across the street.  And our only way of exit was...

You guessed it...

To climb the gate. 

Now, I've climbed a ton of chain link fences since I could climb. But never in another country with about 7 strangers watching. 

What will the people of Honduras laugh at when Bethany and I are no longer here? 

As silly as this was, crazy antics like this seem to be a normal, every day thing.  

And this story didn't even happen at school! 

Like today, I had two boys who had a small scuffle/misunderstanding. As they told me what happened in English/Spanish/Reenactment with lots of tears (the tears came from an exhausting week. I was ready to cry multiple times today too), I went "Ooooh Lord help me on this one. I have NO idea what on earth is going on."  I had the boys apologize to each other and then told them the three of us were going to pray.  We formed a three person prayer circle and I started praying. About 10 seconds into my prayer, they started giggling with each other.  I have NO idea why they were laughing but 2 minutes before they were steaming mad at each other, and then they were giggling and laughing. 

Gosh, I love 4th grade boys.  If that were two girls...sheesh! I'd be dealing with drama until summer! 

   

Missions Day

Missions Day at Destino was definitely a day that I had been looking forward too since I started teaching here. It's a day where students get to learn about different countries. They learn the similarities and differences between the countries and Honduras. They get to eat cool food native to the country.  But most importantly, they learn what the needs are of these countries and get to pray for them. 

I was assigned the country of Uganda. I say assigned but I'm pretty sure I planted a bug in Rhonda's ear that "Uganda would be pretty awesome" almost every week. 

Anyway, I was assigned the country of Uganda with two of the Spanish teachers who were a blessing to work with. Pictures were taken of the three of us, but somehow not with my camera. 

What happens on Missions Day? 

This is what happens on Missions Day. 

Every child receives a hand-made flag for each country that is apart of Missions Day.

The rooms get decorated to give off the aura of the country they are representing. 

Here's Uganda!!

 

Brunei

Belarus

And Cuba!

Cuba!

Here's Jordan (Jordania). 

The morning of missions day, was absolutely crazy.  One of the buses wasn't working at all so our big bus picked up all the teachers and all our missions day stuff (which was pots of this, bowls of that, and bags of who-knows-what). Not only did the bus carry all of that, but we picked up EVERY student and piled them all into the bus. For those of you who don't know, we stack children on top of each other with the two buses we normally use.  So, with that being said, the electricity in the air was agitated by our interesting morning.  People in Guatemala were probably feeling the surges of excitement coming out of Destino. But you couldn't tell by the looks on the kids faces could you?

Once Missions Day was underway, we were able to deliver information, missionary stories, and prayers to our 1st through 6th grade classes. 

We started off by welcoming the kids to Uganda and telling them a little bit about the country. And then I prayed. In Spanish. Once it got to the older grades I started praying in English.  

No, she was not posing for the camera. Alisson really is just that angelic. 

After the prayer, country information, and missionary stories, the kids got to color a page in their Country Folder that had a picture of the country's flag on it. I swear, these kids LOVE to color. 

 After coloring came the kids FAVORITE part of the day. 

Eating. 

Some things are the same in every country aren't they?

For Uganda, Profe Yohanna (the Spanish teacher I was with) put together various fruits in a salad to represent some of the fruits that they eat in Uganda. 

And they loved our "Tooti Fruity" as Yohanna called it. 

In between rotations, we ate lunch and took kids out to recess.  So, there was plenty of time to cheese it up. 

And take cool pictures of our shadows.  The kids thought that was the coolest thing in the world. 

Oh? Did I forget to mention that we all got to wear cool outfits??

And this sums up the end of Missions Day for all of us. 

But it was WELL worth it! All the glory to God.

Pray with me that the passion of missions was placed in the hearts of these students and that they would be able to seek after God's plan for their lives. 

What's Next?

I just realized that I've only blogged twice this year. Yikes!
But, that is a sign that a LOT has been going on.
As soon as we got back, we jumped right into school. The first week we finished our last week of teaching with the following week being review week. The week after exams is always the hardest for me (always being the two times I've actually been apart of exam week).  That week is filled with the introduction of new things, and filling out the students report cards (we put only positive, encouraging comments on the report cards...in Spanish. Have I mentioned that I'm far from fluent in Spanish?). The Friday of that week, the students go home at 12 and the buses pick up the parents.  The rest of the afternoon, the parents are able to see their children's report cards, ask the teachers questions, and fellowship with each other. I don't know why I find this day SO stressful, but I do. So, my first month back was incredibly crazy.  So crazy that my mom had to send me a message on Facebook saying, "Whatsa happening? I haven't heard from you!" With as crazy as January was, it felt like it went by incredibly slow.

February. Now that's a different story. I don't remember much about February. It went by quickly.  In fact, I'm still coming to terms with it being March.  In First Grade, we've been learning about the Farm and What People Wear.  Discovering fun words like cheep (sheep) and chirt (shirt).  Phonics has been a blast. I'll be honest, there wasn't much I did as far as helping First Grade read.  That was all their Spanish Teacher (Profe Olga) working on Spanish phonics with them.  We're just working on changing some of those sounds into English sounds.  Sometimes (okay most of the time), this is an uphill battle.  The letter "i" is next to near impossible for them to pronounce.  It's either "red" or "read" instead of rid. You don't realize how important the vowel sounds are in a word, until you're trying to teach the difference between an adjective (big) and a verb (beg) or a noun (bag). *sigh* It's moments like those, that I have to remind myself that it's okay if these kids don't speak a lick of English, but have a deeper understanding of the Love that Jesus has for them.

These next weeks ahead of us are going to be FULL of excitement.  This weekend, we're going to see Heaven's Gates and Hell's Flames in Spanish.  As a wee lass, I had the opportunity to be in the travelling drama so I am incredibly excited to see how it's portrayed here in Honduras. Our pastor at Destino also runs this drama ministry.  He and a group of people travel to a bunch of different places (not just Honduras but many Central American countries as well) and they train people in the area they're in to put on this evangelical drama.  It's a beautiful way to have communities ministering to each other. So, if you get the chance, please pray for the people who are running the drama, the people who are in the drama, and the people who are going to see it.  And also, pray for discipleship to happen after the fact.

March 14th is an exciting day for Destino.  This is what we call Missions Day.  I'll be writing about it after the fact and hopefully will have some pictures! The long story short; Missions Day is a day that is devoted to showing the students other countries, presenting the issues with that country, sharing with them prayer requests from these countries, allowing them to glimpse the culture, and pray about whether they are called to foreign missions or not, and where they are called.  I am STOKED about this day! Prayers for the students as well as the teachers are much appreciated.

I have reached a decision on what I am doing next year.  It was a hard decision to make (as I had been praying about it since September).  But, I have decided to go home after this year is up.  I feel as if I need a gap year to process everything that has happened in Honduras as well as my life thus far.  I'm going to use this next year as a year to figure out where I want my life to go.  I've certainly discovered a difference between high school dreams, college goals, and real life realities.  I didn't feel at peace with coming back another year, and I didn't feel at peace with making a commitment to staying in my hometown (and favorite place on earth) for years.  But, during a prayer/journal time a couple Saturdays ago, I felt God present me with this idea of just taking a step back, and just seeking him and finding out where my life is headed. What this next year holds is a mystery to me.   I have no idea where I'm going to work.  If I'll live at home with my parents or find a place of my own.  I don't know if I'll teach, or if I'll bag groceries at HEB.  I'd love to teach something literature oriented (especially since that was basically aaaaaaaaaaaall I studied in college).  When I think about my future, I just think "Who knows?" Then I'm reminded of Ezekiel's answer to God, "Oh sovereign Lord, only you know!" And I smile, because I know that God knows.  And there's so much peace in that.

So yes, that's what has been going on! Hopefully I'll be able to update you soon on Missions Day!