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!

Music Review- Switchfoot's Fading West

Switchfoot.  Consisting of five band members, Jon Foreman and his brother Tim, Chad Butler, Jerome Fontamillas, and Drew Shirley.  They hail from Cali (as if Jon's awesome hair wasn't a dead giveaway). Since their first album, The Legend of Chin came out in 1997, they've released numerous studio, live, and compiled albums with their latest album being Fading West. Released January 14, 2014, this album has already made "waves" (pun intended) on my life especially. The song list includes Air1 hit, "Love Alone is Worth The Fight," followed by "Who We Are," "When We Come Alive," "Say it Like You Mean It," "The World You Want," "Slipping Away," "Ba55," "Let It Out," "All Or Nothing At All," "Saltwater Heart," "Back to the Beginning Again." The album Fading West was written as they were filming their documentary titled Fading West as well. Both are full of excitement and a raw feeling of life. With as big of a following as Switchfoot has, I am continuously astounded as to how down to earth they continue to be.

Fading West the album, has some recurring themes which pervade the music and serve as encouragement to the listener. Some of these themes include exhaustion in Christians as well the refreshment they, as a band, and we, as Christians, find in going "back to the beginning" to be refreshed in Christ. However, they do it in a way that makes you think, which, from my understanding, is Switchfoot's goal in music. In Fading West, they make you think about the "why" behind the "what."

Musical Aspect
When it comes to music, Switchfoot has always delivered. Fading West is no different. They have upbeat and catchy songs such as "Say It Like You Mean It," which begins with an intro heavy in the bass has sounds similar to those found in "Mess of Me" from Hello Hurricane and "Afterlife" from Vice Versus. "When We Come Alive," has an awesome melody of "Ooohs" which seem to be trending in the music of all genres right now. And "Let It Out," the title of this song is pretty self-explanatory when it comes to the melodies in this song.

Fading West also has some softer melodies like "Ba55," "Love Alone is Worth the Fight," and "Who We Are." But don't let the word "softer" through you for a loop.  They still rock pretty hard.  Switchfoot has always had a raw sound, something rare in the music industry where, by a band's 3rd album, they become "refined" or, in my opinion, tailored to the Christian music industry which has a distinct, uncreative, fairly bland sound.  Now, I'm not bashing Christian music artists, but Switchfoot has something special about not conforming to certain sounds.

(For more opinions on the problems with the Christian music industry click here.)

Overall, Switchfoot's Fading West felt like it was written and recorded at a beach somewhere. I don't mean this in a negative way at all. In fact, it's a pretty high compliment I'm paying them.  You can hear the influences the ocean has on their music. Switchfoot surfs. In fact, to be apart of the band, they're required to surf.  Not only do they surf waves in the ocean, but they surf sound waves as well. And yes, they're those people who make surfing water and sound, look and sound easy. Fading West definitely captures their musical abilities.

Lyrical Aspect
I don't know a music lover who doesn't love a good lyric that creates images in the listeners head. Switchfoot definitely does this. An example, "Cough drop dripping from my mouth like a long shot..." is the first line from "Saltwater Heart."  Can you just feel the stickiness in your mouth? Can you smell the smell of, "Oh no, my throat is chocking me AGAIN!" And can you imagine singing with that??  If anyone's ever fallen asleep with a cough drop in their mouth, they know how awful and gross and dirty it is to wake up with sticky saliva. You feel like you have to take an entire shower to get the stickiness off your face, out of your hair, and any other part that was contaminated by the medical mess.

In the chorus, they begin to question themselves. "Oh maybe I could break clean." And continue to push out the lyrics, "We're on your shore again. I can feel the ocean. I can feel your open arms. That pure emotion. I'm finally free again."  Switchfoot isn't just singing about any shore, they're singing about God's shore. It depicts an image and a feeling of cool, clear water, warm, soft sand, and a bright, golden sun rays hitting your face.  This just depicts a peaceful, exciting, pure image in the minds of the listeners. The part of the world that has a view that God is existent, often construe their images. They see God as all-powerful, which He is, but they (myself included) seem to forget how beautiful God really is.  Switchfoot reminds us of this.  Switchfoot, a band who's goal is to write encouraging music in a world that needs it, does an incredible job through their lyrics to achieve this.

Thematic Aspect
One recurring theme I discovered as I listened to Fading West (over, and over, and over, and over again), I discovered this theme of exhaustion in their lyrics. From the "cough drop" line in "Saltwater Heart" to talking about reminding ourselves why we do what we do in "Love Alone is Worth the Fight."  Exhaustion in Christians is something big right now. Between attending church once or twice a week, add Tuesday night bible study, then there's serving at the soup kitchen or working a toy drive.  Don't get me started on sport's practice and games, housework, oh and cooking, and then there's also social life...I think. And then full time jobs. No wonder we're so exhausted.  And Switchfoot wholeheartedly agrees.

In their documentary, they comment on how surfing is their outlet, their thing they do to wash away all the stress of touring, recording, writing, etc.  So, accompanying their empathetic lyrics to exhausted people, they give you an amazing idea of refreshment in Jesus Christ and all his glory. Both "Saltwater Heart" and "Love Alone is Worth the Fight" talk about that refreshment being found in two ways, basking in God's glory and reminding yourself why you do what you do.

In Conclusion
Throughout their lyrics, their music, and their themes, Switchfoot is talking to an exhausted people. A people who have forgotten how to enjoy God, how to enjoy His glory, and the why behind the what. Revelation 2:4 says "Yet I hold this against you: you have forsaken your first love."  So often I, personally, have to remind myself what my first love is. Recently, with the stress of living and working in Honduras, I get so caught up in the "what" of my life, that I forget the "why." I forget why I'm here, and that makes life incredibly difficult.  I forget to take time to just breath in God, breath in His word, breath in His music, breath in His creation.  Switchfoot encourages everyone who listens, to get to God's shore, immerse yourself in God's water (figuratively or literally, you pick), and remind yourself why you're alive. Because there is a God who loves you, a God who has called you according to his purpose, and who has a really, really awesome beach waiting for us in Heaven!


Both the album and documentary are available on iTunes and Amazon.