A Wedding

So I just called home on Saturday and my brother proposed to his girlfriend of a little over a year. So come December or so Ary will be my new sister in law!!! I am pretty excited for them and for the wedding it should be a lot of fun. The only problem is that it makes me feel quite old since it is my younger brother who is getting married. Its crazy to think about.

A Different Topic

What is normal? So I was talking to another teacher today asking her some questions about my students. One thing that I brought up was that one of my students always seems to be sick. The girls name is Delmy and she is probably one of the smartest students in my class but she always complains about being sick. At first I kind of took it as just a way to get attention but as I talked to another teacher I realized it is not that. I guess this girl comes from a very poor home and he parents actually work in the fields of another student in my class. I guess Delmy has been sick to her stomach frequently for at least the last 4 years. She sometimes faints from the pain and other days she has to be sent home. Normally this would be a problem you would get tests on to try and fix the problem. However, in this case the family either doesn’t have the money or just thinks it is normal to get sick a lot and in Honduras advanced health care is only in the big cities. Some of the teachers worry that it could be stomach cancer or bacteria. Either way it is sad. It would be terrible to have an awful pain in your stomach almost every day. Kids get sick here much more often then in the states and it is almost just a part of life for these kids. Education is needed here not just in schools but for parents. All of our waste is just dumped in the rivers. You often see pipes going right from bathrooms to the rivers and then at the same time you might see kids playing in the river as well. You also see people sweep up their garbage into a pile on the street and just set it on fire to get rid of it. Trash pickup is almost nonexistent. Sometimes driving down the highway you see truckloads of trash just dumped down the side of mountains and then just set on fire. The other day I was out playing soccer with a bunch of the community kids and kids from my school and we were literally playing on a horse field complete with lots of poop and mud. It was crazy. I am no longer in America.

Other then that I watched some Monday Night football last night, which was nice and made me feel like I was back home, although Brett Farve looked kinda sad throwing a couple picks. Oh well life goes on. God Bless

A slow day at ALCS

Well today is a slow day here at school for me. I really only teach about half the day so the other half I just sort of sit around but I can't complain a whole lot. I just got done reading other peoples blogs and its crazy how I can have such good friends in Egypt, Kazakastan and South Korea. Those places probably almost make Honduras seem normal. I enjoy reading about the adventures of others. These last few days have been pretty chill for me so I don't really have much to write about. I just booked my ticket home for Christmas however, so if you want to hang out and possibly go snowboarding let me know and we will figure something out. I am quite excited about it all. God Bless!

A new Note

A story of how Jesus can change a community…. So I was talking with a teacher today and they told me a story of how only about 4 or 5 years ago La Union was a violent place. I guess you would never go out after 6 in the afternoon because there were regularly shootings and people carrying around AK 47s and what not. It was a tough place and families hated each other and whole families I guess were killed. Churches then started to come in and things got much better and the shootings suddenly stopped. When I walk around the city I never feel threatened or have had anything said in a threatening way towards myself. Jesus can really change people’s hearts. I guess even the pastor I am living with was one of those really tough people and drank and did drugs a lot. He says he carried a pistol around with him all the time as well. Now he is totally different and probably one of the most crazy on fire for God people I know. It was just a really cool story to hear because sometimes you feel like communities can’t change.

This last weekend I had the opportunity to visit the Mayan ruins in Copan, which were really awesome. We had a four day weekend because September 15 was Independence day for Honduras. So I ended up seeing about 4 parades over the course of the weekend which was pretty fun. Sometimes the parades would be in the middle of the road while we were driving so we had no option but to stop. Hopefully I can put up some pictures of Copan because it was really beautiful and something you would never see in the states. Last night at like 3 in the morning kids came out and lit off what were pretty much equivalent to bombs to wake up all the teachers for teachers day because that is what they do every year. I guess it is some sort of twisted tradition. I was ticked because those bombs proceeded to wake up like every rooster in town including the one that sleeps next to my room. I will just say I slept quite poorly the rest of the night. I guess the positive events were an extra day off of school on Tuesday and lots of nice notes and candy from my students.

Well I guess that is all, I hope everyone is doing well wherever you are. God’s Blessings!

My First Week!

So it has been about a week since I have updated. A lot has happened since my last post. I have finished my first 5 days of teaching now and surprisingly it has been going really well. A few highlights of the first day were first of all I was writing on the board and my marker went dry and one of my girls said “I can fix that for you” so without thinking I handed her the marker. Well she proceeds to put the thing in her mouth taking out the tip and flipping the tip around and puts it back in the marker. She of course then had to go to the bathroom to get all of the marker stuff out of her mouth. Another moment came when I told the kids that they don’t have to have my permission to drink out of their water bottles. I figured since it was like a hundred degrees in my class and they were asking me every 3 minutes to get a drink and it was disrupting class like crazy. Later today I was told by another teacher that I am not allowed to do that and they need to ask my permission to even get a drink out of their water bottles. How crazy is that. A few other things I have to get used to are every time I walk into the classroom the students all stand up and tell me good morning. There is a lot to get used to. The students here don’t exactly think for themselves when they are in the classroom and constantly are asking if they have to write what I am writing on the board and normally I proceed to tell them that it will be on the test so it up to you to decide but my suggestion would be yes. Tomorrow or I guess it will be today when I actually get this post up is children’s day here in Honduras. This is a big holiday here so all we do all day at school is play games and hand out candy. All the money for the candy has to come out of the teachers pockets though so that is kinda different but that is what happens when your school is extremely poor. The 7^th graders don’t have any of their own textbooks and even the teacher hardly has even a teacher’s edition for most of the courses. It makes learning a much slower process because so much more writing on the board has to happen. This next weekend is our first vacation already for another holiday so we actually have a four day weekend so I am pretty excited about that. I will be hopefully heading to Copan which is the site of Aztec ruins which I am really excited to learn about and see. Something else that I have been doing since I have arrived here is drinking a little bit of coffee. I never thought I could ever stand it but here the coffee comes from the hills right next to where I live and it isn’t very bitter it is a little sweeter. They roast it themselves and do all the work themselves so it is fun to enjoy the coffee they produce with them. The principal of my school even has a farm where he packages and sells his own coffee that he grows. One thing that needs prayer is I got an email from one of the teachers in Gracias which is another school owned by Abundant Life Schools which they just bought and I guess things there are terrible both academically and discipline wise. They are debating about whether they will even stay through the week. I actually graduated high school with these teachers so I know them pretty well. Please pray that things get better and that they stick it out for the year because if they leave they will be more short teachers then the school already is. Well this is turning out to be a rather long post but I hope it gives you a better idea about my life. Hopefully I will be able to put up pictures once the Internet connection here allows me. I miss you all more then you know. God Bless

P.S wow this weekend already is my one month anniversary of being in Honduras…time flies.

P.S.S So after actually writing this post we had Dia por la Nino's or somthing along those lines. It was pretty crazy. Very little was planned and basically it was like summer camp for the kids for a day all we did was play games all day. While we were hitting a pinata one girl got hit in the face and so I had to fill out an injury report. Meanwhile all the kids were stealing the candy out of the pinata. At least the injury was only a small cut on her head and really wasn't a big deal it just scared her.

Teaching

So I start teaching tomorrow...... I think I am in a lot of trouble..... Things are pretty disorganized I feel and I really have no idea what I am going to be doing for the whole day... I will need prayers.... Although they are only a bunch of 5th graders.. How bad can it be?

I also found out it looks like I will be heading home for Christmas so if anyone wants to snowboard let me know!

God Bless

Poverty...

I think I may try to do my journal entries a little different….. It gets kinda dull writing about what I did for the day so I think I will reflect more on what I have seen and done specially since that is what a journal entry is really supposed to be for. It also gives me a little more time to write them because normally when I sit in the “internet café”, which is really just a brick room with a couple computers, I just feel so hurried and only write about what I did for the day. Today one thing that really struck me was when I was at Osunas’ house, his neighbor, which is a family of 4, lives in pretty much literally a mud and straw house that is about one room. The daughter often comes over to watch the television with us and you see her poking her head in the window when she wants to come in but she never really says anything. She is a beautiful girl of about the age of 13 who lives in poverty and it’s hard to see. Not everyone here lives in houses like that but there are more then just that one. The family I live with has a huge family of about 6 kids and relatives that are always over. However, they have a family room that looks pretty decent with a TV that is like 13 inches that they sit around at night and watch but there is a curtain covering the hall. That is because behind the curtain it no longer looks nice and the house looks like it is falling apart. Many houses here in this town have that exact same thing going on so it is hard to see as well. The thing that I have to deal with is the fact that even though I am hardly making any money here the teachers at the school including me are probably in the top quarter of the wealthiest people in the city. I live in a small room that is like 10x10 but I have people who cook for me, iron my clothes and wash them everyday for me. I also have a room with no bugs, a queen size bed and I am using a laptop which is a luxury very few can afford. This basically just goes to say that I am very blessed and have a lot to be thankful for.

On a different note today I tried to ride a motorcycle which sounds fun except for the fact that I stalled it really badly and made the thing jerk really bad. The positive note that came out of it was that I entertained everyone around me who was watching me laughing while I made an idiot out of myself.

Oh yea it is also raining again… I think it has rained almost everyday since I have arrived (quite literally)… I now know what a wet season is like…

God Bless

“My family’s not rich by any means but I feel we won the lottery” – The Format