Honduras, pt 2

----------------------------Nov. 4

I didn’t realize it was Sunday today until 8pm when someone mentioned it and I whispered to Jether “Is it really Sunday?” We got up around 6am and had quiet time, reading Bibles and praying and journalling. After a while we went to a nearby house and ate breakfast: pasta and beans. After breakfast we walked to the water source, around 2-3 km I believe. It was very fun walking and talking. We got to the source and it rained some while we were there. We prayed a blessing over it and started walking back. We stopped at a house and talked and ate some fruit; star fruit and tamarand. We got to the village and I, Jether and Braden started kicking a ball around with some of the kids. After a little while we started on the path back, loaded up with tools. On the way down we stopped at some wild coffee trees and ate a few berries, and I dipped with some coffee leaves. They contain a higher percentage of caffeine than the beans. 

We got back and Jether, myself and one of the teenagers, Olin started throwing water bottles around to each other. It was a fun game. After we finished the game we ate lunch, rise and beans. I am really enjoying the food here, albiet the saltless corn tortillas are a little bland on their won. After lunch we went down to a small soccer field and played soccer. I did surprisingly good as goaly. The game was really fun. After soccer we came up and did a childrens program. We colored plastic stainglass crosses with sharpies, and sang/taught them songs. For the final activity we got a parachute and had fun putting squeaky chickens in it, everyone at the edges of the parachute shook it up and down violently. A hilarious game. After the childrens game we did something for the adults, Brian gave a little sermon and we sang a song we knew. Jether played the guitar and I played the case for a drum. After the program we settled into little groups to talk or play. We talked a lot (me, Jether and Lynnea) with Olin, which was cool. We ate supper, which it was pretty dark at that point and hard to see much. We ate and then talked, shared a little about our highlights of the day. Then we meandered to the house where we were sleeping at. We talked with one mother who said her daughter had diarreah, and I mentioned I had charcoal, which is good for something like that. Her daughter is 3 months old and some people on the team weren’t sure it was good for her to have it. I’m not sure if it would be bad, it doesn’t really have any bad side affects, and I’d be more ready to give that than any drug. It’s hard not having access somewhere to instantly find the answer to, like on google. 

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Just read the last part of Joel. It is so awesome! 

 “Eygpt shall become a desolation and Edom a desolate wilderness, for the violence done to the people of Judah, because they have shed innocent blood in their land. But Juda shall be inhabited forever, and Jerusalem to all generations. I will avenge their blood, blood I have not avenged, for the Lord dwells in Zion.” 

Beautiful; the love that Jesus has for us, his people.

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The bond that you feel between two people is amazing. Even though I don’t understand the language very well I’m still able to communicate fairly well, especially with Olin, the 16 yr old from here. He is pretty cool and is very fun to hang out with.

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Noah’s Ark is a symbol of symbol of the final coming. When Jesus comes back the door will be shut, and only those who are inside and put their trust in Jesus, will be saved. Only those who were in Noah’s Ark were saved. All those outside died. 

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This is to the least of these. This is serving the poor. This is living a life of serving to those who are in need. Helping them, serving them. This is the life that I want to live. One of satisfaction. Obedience to God’s word. Serving the least of these.

-----------------Nov 5

I slept very well last night. I slept in a hammock, I was surprised that I slept so well, because it’s been such a long time since I’ve slept in one. Yesterday we got up aorund 5:30am and got dressed, read our Bibles and made ready for the day. We got together with the locals and paired off with them as work partners. I’m getting a nice tan here. We all filed off to where the water tank will be and started trenching. We sectioned off around 30ft per section, and dug it out to around 20” deep. Once you were done a section you would move on to the next section. We ate breakfast around 9am and lunch around 1pm. Around 2:30pm we stopped digging and started backfilling over the newly layed pvc pipe. We had around 40-60 people working and we got a lot done. I’d say a good 1200ft of pipe done, which is quite impressive. 

After work we came back and hung out for a while, I played soccer, or more like kicked around the ball doing tricks with it. After that we went to the other house where we have meetings and had a met together. 

After the meeting and some songs played by Jether and I on the drums we ate supper. Rice and beans with some cheese! After supper I talked as best I could with some of the kids around my age. We wrote down each others names on our hands. While I was digging the trench I came across this huge taranchilla. It was at least four inches long and a couple wide. When we were first starting the day this 79 yr old chick came by to help out. She said she’d walked an hour from her village and she was working working just as hard as the next person. She said the kitchen was too boring. haha

I can’t get over how beautiful this place is! Surrounded by mountains, beautiful sunries and sunsets. Deep in the heart of Honduras, doing God’s work.

How blessed I am to be here on this trip. Definitely harder than other mission trips I’ve been on. If you want to experience third world povertty, get to know the people, and work hard, go on a water project. I had a good time hearing Jay and Brian talk.

Jay has done 18 water projects and has lived here for 2 years. He’s planning to eventually move down here.

Right now what I really want to do is learn spanish. More than anything else right now. I want to do what Londa is doing. I want to learn spanish so badly right now. I want to learn spanish and then come and live in Honduras for a few years doing ministry. I’d love to work with street boys, but also up in the mountains with the locals, farming. 

A rooster just crowed directly at me. 

English Vintner

Part 1, Honduras

So, here is the first part of my Honduras trip. I will do the best I can to keep it up, Lord willing I will have the rest of my journal from my trip up on here. Forgive any spelling or grammar, at this point I'm crunched for time and if it's up it's more than I can say. I'd love to hear feed back if you have it. To Him be the glory.

Honduras, like Peru, but greener. Is that a word? Anyway... The smell of diesel fuel fills the air when you’re driving around, the streets packed with busses, motorcycles, and odd vehicles carrying people everwhere. We started with 15 people in our group from the States, somehow we fit all our luggage and everyone into that one white pickup truck. Pile in the luggage and pile in the people, haha.

There is poverty here, but it surprised me how good some of the cars people were driving. I guess it’s like being in the slums of any city, you see the rich and the poor, both sides of society mashed into one city. Unlike Pere there are very few labeled taxis. There are a lot more busses and cars that are takis than actual taxis. Of course, maybe this is my limited experience in Peru, I don’t know. 

I’m praying for Christ to show me what He has for me on this trip. Why I’m here, seeing what I’m seeing, doing what I’m doing. This is a special opportunity, I want Him to show me more of Himself through this trip..

Would I be content to live here? Would I be content to trade places with someone here? Questions that we are asking our selves as a group. Do we trust Jesus enough? Speaking of Jesus, this group LOVES Jesus! It’s been neat to see it in them.

We ate lunch at Burger King in Tegucigalpa, the capitol where we flew in, getting in around 11:30am local time.

We read exerpts from the book Radical and heard a sermon on it tonight. 

Let’s risk it all. For the sake of our children, our lives, for the sake of 1 billion people, let’s risk it all! 

[Will we die in our religion, or die in our devotion?]

A fire will only last as long as the fuel is there. So is passion and zeal for Jesus. Don’t quench it, add more to it. Stir it up! 

You go to the need. Follow Jesus outside the camp. It means going to where the prostitues and drug dealers are. We’re made Jesus a clean and more respectable Jesus than the Jesus of the Bible. But that’s not who He is. Let’s look at Jesus for who he really is. The Jesus of the Bible is going to the dirty and poor. He is going to the outcast, those who society has thrown out. God’s plan for this world is through us! 

The only real thing of this world is Jesus! If he’s not our one and all than we have none at all!

Father, make me a bold witness for you! 

What does it mean to be followers of Christ, really? We have to be obedient.

Is Jesus enough for me?

We have to first be content with Him. What does He really want?

[Entire Abandonment and Absolute Faith]

We’ll have to put extra effort into showing the love of Jesus. These are hard people. Pray for unity, for compassion, for a miracle. be bold, be out there. They don’t have  hope, or are not putting trust in it.

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[To love is better than comfort]

I feel so in love with this country and the people here. Right now all I want to do is ministry here. Work with street boys, learn the language and have relationships with people.

----------------------------- Nov. 2 

We woke up after a good nights sleep and ate breakfast. We woke up around 5:30am which felt like 7:30am. I slept with my mini sleeping bag on the concrete patio outside. Surprisingly it was pretty comfortable.

I am so in LOVE with this place! I can’t believe how much I already love everything. I love the community that you feel as a team doing this kind of thing. We all sleep in the same room, use the same two bathrooms for all 20 of us. I can’t wait to see what God has next for me this week! He is so good!

The team is 15 members from the States, 12 from a church in Minnesota, and my two cousins Lynnea and Jether and I. We met 5 more people from Honduras. Three of them are American missionaries. One of them is Larry Smoak’s niece, who’s family lives in Brazil. She’s around my age I believe, her name is Lillian. There is another girl who is around the same age, her name is Blair and she’s taken a semester off from college to come to Honduras, she lives in Norfolk, Virginia. Mary is from the church where the rest of the team is from, and she’s been in Honduras since January. Joel and Erick are two Hondurans who came down as well. Joel has some mental health problems but loves Jesus, and Erick is around 24 years old and speaks a bit of English. All five of them came down from a small village, Las Mangas outside La Cieba, where there is a campus for people to stay for periods of time. They help with an orphange, the school, and it’s what Larry Smoak started.

Last night I met someone who’s name is Steven. He is from Indiana, but is working with a mininstry called Micah Project 2.0 and they do a street boys project, taking in boys off the street. He’s pretty legit. He is really cool, speaks spanish seemlessly, and is just fun to hang out with.

John 12:23-26

“The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Truly, truly I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternity. If anyone serves me he must follow me; and where I am, there will my servant be also. If anyone serves me, the Father will honor him.”

When you plant a seed, you lose using that seed for bread. You chance that that seed will grow up and produce many more seed out of the plant, but it means thinking long term. In the short term the wisest thing would be to make flour and bread out of it and eat it. We focus on the gain.

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I am absolutely in love with this country and the people here. I love being here. It is so awesome.

[We have to prepare for the miracle] 

[God’s ability, but my responsibility]

You have to believe. Take the nest step. Obedience to Him.

How do you know if God is talking to you? Try the door, see if it is locked.

The food here is delicious. I love experiencing culture through food. Rice and beans. Tons of carbs! We’re sitting around talking about Jesus and the far away sound of Honduran music plays in the background. I feel such a close bond with the people here on the team. I had a nice talk with Blair at lunch time, got to know her better, learned about her family and life. 

-------------------------------Nov. 3

It is Saturday, we’ve had our first night in the village. Last night it rained while we were sleeping. I was in the spot that had a hole in it, and had to move my head to get out from the drips. I was also hot because I slept in my sleeping bag the whole night. I sweated all night long. But I’m loving it. I really am. I’ve been using the word bonito, but they say I can’t use it quite the same way as I use it in English. I like to use the word beautiful for everything in English, I love the word. 

It took us a good 4 hours of driving on good paved roads and than rocky dirt roads with huge pot holes to get to the village where we parked our vehicles. The last 1/4 mile is so steep that almost no two wheel drive car can get up it. But the Honduran driver we had driving the other vehicle suprisingly made it up no problem. We unloaded and the village of La Vainilla came and took most of luggage and carried it for us. 

It was about a 20 minute walk down to La Vainilla. We got here and unpacked a little bit and than hung out with them. I played soccer, or real football with half a dozen of the Hondurans from the village. A good ice breaker kind of game. The girls on the team played with the real young children and wives. We ate lunch there, plan rice and beans. We gathered into a group and we all said something. The president and treasurer of the village and all the men and women said something, thanked us for being there. Then we took turns saying things to them from our group. After that we ate supper and talked as a group. We shared our thoughts and what we thought about everything so far, than we lay down tarps, get bedding and everything ready for sleeping which took a good hour or so.

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I read the first two chapters of Philippians this morning and was struck again at Christ’s humility comind down to be one of us, not grasping equality with God a thing to be counted. In one sense we are a little picture of that. Coming to this village, eating what they’re eating, sleeping in their houses, seeking to break down every barrier as possible to show Christ’s love to them.

The sun rises high and bright and it’s hard to believe that I’m in the remote mountains of Honduras.

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A poem that came to me this morning, pertaining out trip here.

Honduras

Over gravel, dirt and dust, 

through the shadow, I will trust

Wild mountains, rugged trails

Before morning, the cock wails

Surrounded by beauty and by love

All good gifts come from above

We’ve come to dig, but first we’ll see

Make Christ evident in me

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An observation. The people dress like in the States, often skinny jeans for the womena dn typical clothing for the guys. It’s not like because they live in mud huts they wear dirty clothes or old clothes. A lot of these people are wearing all the top American brand names. I don’t know where they get the clothing, but it’s the same style as America, with maybe a little Honduran flair. :) 

They have parasitic grass growing on the powerlines from the moisture of the air. Crazy!

I am always struck by how well you can still communicate with words. I realize how weak I am in Spanish, really next to nothing. I know greetings and some nouns. I feel so helpless at times. But it’s when I can’t use words that I smile. I find myself smiling at these beautiful people all the time. :) I can’t belive how much I love and will miss these people when I’m gone. It already feels like home here. It all fells so comfortable, and I’m so use to it all already.

Sitting on the dirt next to newly made friends. Playing football with them. Sleeping in their community, eating with them. Walking with them.

English Vintner