Last Days

The last day of classes was on Friday. Oh my, that was a day!
It started off as usual, we picked up the kids at the usual time. I was able to land bus duty on the last week of school, which I may complain about but I secretly LOVE bus duty. Well, I guess it's not a secret anymore now that it's on the internet. This is just a fun time to talk to a bunch of students and greet them and play with them (we've all gotten proficient in poking someone and then blaming it on someone else).

We were supposed to have soccer games in the morning but that's kind of hard when it was raining so hard the animals started showing up two by two. This led to indoor desperation moments of singing songs in English and Spanish in first grade along with reading "la libro grande!" Side note: I read my kids this GIGANTIC Mercer Mayer book earlier in the week and they LOVED it and wanted to read it again.  I highly recommend "My Special Friend" by Mercer Mayer. It was cute and gave us opportunities to talk about how to be nice to our friends.And it's a plus if you can read it from a book that is 2'x3' in size. After finishing the book, we played musical chairs which was adorable. I don't know what it is about little kids turning into football players and pushing each other for a seat, but I found it hysterical. Oooooh the faces they make.
By around 10, the rain finally stopped and we were able to take the kids out to smack the snot (or in this case, candy) out of a pinata.  For my 23rd birthday, there will be a pinata. I'm just saying.

After the fun and games at the school, we moved on to the church for the end of the school year program.  The kids sang, danced, acted, entertained. By far, the Second Grade drama was the funniest and adorable thing I think I've ever seen. I will try and get video footage uploaded to my blog at some point. After all the performances finished, it was time to say goodbye. Having my students come to me cryyyyyying as they said goodbye was by far one of the hardest moments of my life. I was honestly convinced that I would be able to hold off the tears until I at least got home. Yeah. Right.  To see all of my first grade girls with tears streaming down their face was so heartbreaking.  My emotions were drained after a time span of maybe 10 minutes, and my heart was wrenched from my chest (forgive the dramatic explanation, it was a dramatic moment in life).

But as I look back at that moment, not once did I ask myself if I was doing the right thing by leaving.  Not once did I say, "God are you sure?"  He had given me so much peace beforehand knowing that I was supposed to return home that I had no doubts during a huge emotional moment.  My dad even asked me later in the evening as we were chatting on Facebook if I was sure I wasn't supposed to stay. I told him that as sure as I was that I was supposed to come down here, I knew I needed to go home. Anytime I'm afraid at what will happen to these children while I'm gone, God whispers to me, "You call these 'your kids,' but they are really mine. And I won't let anything happen to them that I haven't planned. I hold them in the same palm of my hand that I hold you."  

Time...

I have five days with my kids left.
Five.
Days.

I am not emotionally ready for the last day of school.  It's going to be so hard to leave my students. I have thought throughout this year how my students are my joy.  While they are a huge part of my happiness, and I have so much joy when I'm with them, they aren't my joy. I'm realizing this. If they were my joy, I would stay here for years and years to come.  My God is my joy.  He's the one who gave me strength to come down here in the first place, and He's the one giving me the strength to go back to the States and leave the care of these children in His hands, where they have been this whole time.
Does it make it easy? No. I'm beginning to believe that whole, "Christianity isn't easy," message these preachers are coming at us with. *wink wink*

With that being said, I am extremely excited and counting down the days until I see my home again. But I am already feeling the loss of my students. I've grown fond of having ten students attack me in "un abrazo de oso."

Psalm 91

Last Wednesday, my first graders had the opportunity to recite Psalm 91:1-7, a passage of scripture we had been working on since sometime last semester. They did absolutely wonderful! Only problem was Teacher Nicole (yours truly) got nervous and missed a line in the passage.

I love hearing my students recite Psalm 91 because I hear it as a declaration of this class.  They will be protected and blessed in the Lord as long as they dwell in His presence.  This was a constant reminder for me as well that I will be protected and blessed when I am dwelling (not visiting) in His presence.

death has been swallowed up in victory

Growing up in church, I knew what Easter was all about. It wasn't about a bunny, or candy, or eggs.  It was about Jesus' death and resurrection.

It never clicked with me that it was about victory over death.  As we approach Easter, I am painfully reminded of death.  My mom called me this morning to tell me that a my good friend, Matt Mahoney, was shot and killed last night.  This kid. Oh my lanta. He made summer 2013 interesting and awesome. After giving my guitar away, he went out and bought me another one, a nicer one, because he wanted me to continue glorifying God with it. He quickly became a brother as we talked about the things God was doing in our lives and what we were learning about God.

And that brother is no longer on this earth.

Death hurts.

It hurts for a short time compared to eternity in the presence of Jesus Christ that awaits us.

Oh death, where is your sting?
Oh death, where is your victory?

Death, the moment my Savior died on the cross, the moment He gave up His life for us, you lost the victory oh death. You couldn't hold my Savior down!!! And you know what else death? You can't hold me down either. In Jesus Christ, my brothers, my sisters, and I have victory over you as well!

This is what Easter Sunday is all about.  Being able to look death in the face and saying, "You have no victory over me in the name of Jesus Christ. You have no victory!"

When the perishable has been clothed with imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: "Death has been swallowed up in victory." 
           "Where, O death, is your victory?
             Where, O death, is your sting?" 
The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

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!