4 Days

The rain is currently falling again tonight as it has been doing every night for the past couple of weeks. There is a puddle slowly creeping across the floor of my house to remind me that our roof needs to be fixed. While it is a Saturday night there are no crazy parties or people in the streets. As I mentally prepare to leave Honduras in 4 days to go back to the states I can't imagine that I have been here for 3 years now. As I look back on the year I see so much good that has happened and so many ways in which God works through people in this small community of La Union. I was reminded of this today as the rain was coming down and I was walking out of the church. One of my students who lives in a poor area about an hour out of La Union had a big smile on her face. She begins to tell me about how she has been volunteering at the school her mother teaches at to teach English to the students. She wanted to tell me because I had been pushing them before they left for vacation to get involved in their communities where they live. I see God when people fly all the way down to Honduras just to support the work that I am trying to accomplish. I see God when teachers don't ask about vacation days but instead ask how they can help the school they have not even become a part of yet. I see God in my students who work and translate for free because they know what they are doing is improving the community around them.

I pray that God continues walking along side of whatever is to come in the future and that even on boring Saturday nights I can see why God has put me in this little town in the mountains.

Year 3

So I am currently in year 3 of my life here in Honduras. Never did I really imagine that I would be here in Honduras this long. Things here don't even really bother me anymore. I am used to losing the electricity or water at any given time. I am used to things taking forever and just learning to relax and go with it. I often feel more out of place in the states then I do here in Honduras. Its kind of one of those really weird feelings I guess. So far this year things started out really crazy with two of our teachers leaving from Gracias due to their son passing away. However, thanks to the help of a lot of people we have been able to fill those positions. Tonight we have our parents orientation and on Monday we begin classes. Its pretty crazy how fast it all comes at you. I may try to post a bit more frequently then this quite a few month long gap. Blessings

Fumigation

Alright so there has been a confirmed case of Dengue here in La Union. Now it is not that serious but the problem is normally when you get one case more follow and it can turn out to be a large problem if it breaks out. So today the city I live in sent out people to fumigate our houses. So some man with a large leaf blower type machine came into our house and blew some crazy smoke all over. Smoke was coming out of our roof and every other hole that exists. They said it would take 40 minutes to clear out of the house however, they were quite wrong. We came back into our house 2 hours later and it looked very foggy and you could barely breathe when you entered. So we covered our faces and opened all the windows and set up a fan. Finally I am writing this post and things have cleared up. However, the smell still remains but at least I don't have to worry about mosquitoes tonight. Just another day in Paradise.

SAG

So this last week has been filled with 3 letters SAG. For those of you who are out of the loop that stands for Student Annual Gathering. This is 4 days of competition between the 6 different Abundant Life Schools. Now I am not going to lie I had been preparing for a long week of chasing students around not sleeping and eating cruddy food. What I witnessed in my opinion was a pretty well run event. Everyday we started with all of the schools gathering for devotions with Pastor Evelio. We would then proceed into a variety of sports and academic competitions against the other schools. We compete in all things from Soccer, Sudoku, Debate, Ping Pong, Volleyball, Cross Country and a variety of other events. It turned out to be an exciting week as we ended up winning 10 medals. As we are only up to 8th grade and all of the other schools are up to 12th Grade we felt we did quite a good job. We ended up even winning cross country. The food during this week was much better then other camp I had been to. We had things like Roast Beef, Tacos, Chicken, Hamburgers and a wide variety of food all that was cooked in a very tasty fashion. Even through this my students still complained about the food mostly because they just wanted tortillas, beans and rice. I guess La Union kids are just a different type of person haha. We then finished the event off by having a beautiful dinner at the Marriot Hotel with a meal of Chicken Cordon Blue. We even had street performers come in on stilts and large drums it was a pretty fantastic display. I must admit it was a fun time. Today I spent my day driving through the mountains of Honduras as we met with our coffee workers and eating bananas right off the tree. It is a crazy life.

Nicaragua

So it is Wednesday and it has been a few days since I got back from a wonderfully crazy Semana Santa. I ended up going to the country of Nicaragua. We started off in on the beaches of San Juan del Sur. We hit up the beaches and did some surfing and had a really great time. Next we got on some buses to the island of Ometepe another place that is in the middle of a large freshwater lake and the island consists of two large volcanoes. It is really crazy. So we hiked to the top of the volcano where a lake exists inside the crater. It was quite a fantastic day trip. From there we headed to Leon. This is one of the cultural centers of Nicaragua. We saw some amazing old churches and just some wonderful buildings. However, what we really went to do was Volcano Boarding. We hiked up this volcano with makeshift sleds, put on some brightly covered overalls and threw ourselves down the volcano. It was a great ride. I must say it was a good trip. We got back on the last bus on Sunday and prepared to work on Monday.

Currently 7th and 8th grade are preparing for SAG. They are playing all sorts of sports as well as cross stitching and making bracelets. They are keeping quite busy. Next week Wednesday all of the competitions begin and I am quite excited to be able to go along and be a part of it. We are into our last and final parcial of the school year so the year is really starting to wind down. Keep our school and students in your prayers as always.

The Joys

Today I woke up and as I was getting ready the smell of burning television set came into my room. Saying our electricity here in La Union is unpredictable is an understatement. Currently half of our city hasn't had power for the past 3 days. My part of the city has had power but its been flickering like crazy. It flickered to the point of setting my television on fire. After the television caught on fire we headed out to the coffee farm for a teachers party. We hung out went fishing and then ate the fist we caught. Tilapia are a great tasting fish. We also played a little bit of Ticket To Ride which is a great board game. Then I got back to La Union and now the power in my house doesn't even really flicker anymore it is just dead. So we are calling a repair man tomorrow. Then I went to our young peoples meeting where they decided to go and preach to other youth about Christ in the community. However, they set a time limit of like 15 minutes for our team. What we were supposed to accomplish in that small amount of time I am not sure but that is the life here. I currently am sitting here outside at the church because it has electricity. These are the days when I realize why I stay in Honduras. I just don't know if I could go back to predictable.

La Union Vs. Gracias

Alright so today was the first time La Union has ever played against Gracias. So the Abundant Life School in Gracias came out to play against our school in Soccer for both men and women. I must say the kids were incredibly excited to play against them. Especially after I read to them a text message from Mr. Lara that said Gracias was going to massacre our team. While the boys game was first and after Miguel put in a head ball it put La Union up 1 - 0. The second goal was scored by Alan from 5th Grade making the final score 2 - 0. I must say my kids were extremely excited. The next was the girls game and our team ended up winning by a final score of 6 - 2. So earlier in the week I had made a deal with my kids that if they beat Gracias they wouldn't have any homework for a little while. So I will be following through on that promise over the coming week. We also have a teachers party on Saturday and Mr. Perdomo's farm. It should be real good especially with some fresh fish. Oh I forgot to add after the soccer game we had a big party at my house with the students so I must say chaos reigned for a good hour before we kicked the students out. Next week more SAG preparations begin as we have eliminations for SAG in Tegus. We also have another soccer game currently planned against Gracias this time in Gracias on Tuesday. SAG sure keeps things interesting this time of the year.