Time to Reflect

I've been home for almost two weeks now. It has been great to spend time with family, friends, and time by myself to just relax and reflect on what has happened over the past five months. I made a decision to change my life because I felt myself getting pulled towards Honduras. I went to Honduras to be a teacher but within a few weeks I was head over heels in love with Breaking Chains homeless ministry and it wasn't long before I started working with them. I love the ministry I work for, we have an amazing team in place with people from all over the states working together to help those who have trouble helping themselves.

I knew when I came home I would miss the kids but I didn't know exactly what that meant. It is seemingly impossible to put into words the feeling I get when I think about Honduras, it is a mixture of not only missing them but the feeling I get that I need to be there.

I get the obvious question of "how long are you staying there?" every few hours from friends and family and my answer is always the same... I am going to take it year by year but I'll know when it is time for me to step away. That time could be next November or 20 years from now I just don't know. I love it that way though, I love working on His time and not my own. God has blessed me with not one but two jobs that I miss with all of my heart and two jobs that I can not wait to go back too. I find it tough to explain my current situation to everyone because these two worlds don't seem connected. It seems like a night and day difference. It is that reason that I am excited for one of my friends, Caity Davis, to come down and see what I do first hand. I sometimes get looks along the line of "you must be crazy" to work so much, so far away, to not even draw even every month. But, I respond the same way when I get those looks, I can't imagine being anyway else right now in my life, and until I can feel right about being somewhere else Honduras will be my home because it is certainly the current location of my heart.

School Starts Early

This last Monday we started our first adventure into bilingual education. Arol is 9 years old but is just now learning how to read and write. He is always excited to have lessons with Michael and I but a few nights a week was not getting him to the level that he needs to be at. That being said I was able to get him enrolled in Nashville School, a sister school to my own school, and have him start in 1st Grade there to catch up in time for him to be in 2nd Grade this coming February. Nervous doesn't begin to describe how Arol felt the days leading up to his first day. His anxiety reached a level of acting out that we hadn't seen in him before and finally he told us that he wasn't going to go. Michael and I marched up to his family's room the night before his first day and were determined to here him say "I am going to school tomorrow." Since my Spanish is well mostly nonexistent, Michael did most all the talking. After lots of "We love you" and "You can do it" like phrases he finally agreed to go on one condition, I go with him. So the next morning we headed to school and he went nervously into his classroom, Michael and Amber left after shedding a few tears and I sat for 7 hours praying that all was going well in the classroom. Come lunch time he ran out of the classroom to sit next to me and I told him he should go play with his new friends, not me. He did not want to do that. But then as if we were in a Disney movie his new classmates were calling his name and he went running to play with them. The rest of the day went great and so did the rest of his first week. I was so relieved to see the new kids accepting Arol, stepping into a new school, a new language, and children who live in an entirely different world than he does was not easy. We know this will be a difficult road for Arol but we pray we are making the right decision about his future. Please keep him and the other kids at Breaking Chains in your prayers as they embark on this new and challenging journey.

"Hakuna Matata"

My Spanish gets a little better everyday... and when I say a little better I really mean just a little. But I am slowly learning how to have actual conversations with the kids here and that means sweet little moments are becoming more and more abundant. Last week we took a few of the teens around the corner to a Pulperia to buy some ice cream and I brought Jonatan with me and he convinced me to buy him one as well. When we got back I told him we should sit outside to eat it since the other kids at the building did not get any ice cream. So as we sat there we started talking about our favorite things. Food, music, movies, that kind of stuff. When I asked him what his favorite movie was he responded with "HAKUNA MATATA" as loud as he could say it. He finished my explaining to me that he means the movie with the lion I took him to see, followed by his own rendition of the song. I wish everyone could have witnessed an ice cream covered Jonatan singing Hankuna Matata it was seriously one of the cutest things I have ever witnessed. As my Spanish gets better I can't wait for more awesome moments with my kids down here!

A Visit from the States

This past Friday we had a group from the States come visit our Breaking Chains building! When I told the kids that we had some "gringos" coming they got extremely excited. The little ones understand that means they have an extra 15 people to climb all over and play with for the night. When the team arrived I was standing outside with Jonatan and when he saw them get off the bus he grabbed my hand and pulled me towards them so he could meet all these new people. The group was awesome and gave the kids at the building an evening full of laughter and fun! It was also refreshing to me to see all these people come in and witness exactly what I have fallen in love with here in Tegucigalpa. I sometimes lose focus and get caught up in the routine that is my life down here. It was good to look back and see all that we have accomplished over the past four months and great to see how excited people were for all the plans we have for the future of our ministry! I can't wait to show other people the great stuff we are doing here and all the awesome plans God has for our ministry in the upcoming year!

Jesus Banquet

Last Wednesday I had the privilege to be a part of an event called the Jesus Banquet. The Jesus Banquet is an annual event put on every December to feed the people living in the communities around the city dump here in Tegucigalpa. The goal is to give these families a nice meal and an opportunity to sit down and enjoy it as well. A local restaurant called Carnitas did all the cooking and it was delicious. David, Mark, and I picked up the workers at 6 am so that they could start cooking early to hopefully start serving lunch at a reasonable time. The people were lined up and ready to eat and luckily everything went as planned and our estimate is over 1200 people were served that day. One thing that still gets me is the amount of children that live in these communities. It seems every family has 5 or 6 kids and it always seems to break my heart to see the condition they are in. However the bright side of having all the kids around was it gave me an excuse to go play with them all day! It was a really awesome experience and I hope to be here next year to help with it again.

Lesson Learned

This Saturday I will be heading back to States for a few weeks. As much as I am looking forward to seeing my friends and family it would be a lot easier if they would just come here instead and save me the trouble. I find myself thinking that a lot, people ask me if I miss "home" and to that I answer I miss my friends and I miss my family but I do not miss the States. I love waking up each morning not knowing what my day might bring, not knowing what God might have planned for my day, and just living this adventure. I've already warned everyone that I will definitely be crying at the airport, then I get my flight to Atlanta, then a 15 hour layover... awesome. But that in itself will be another adventure, thousands of new friends that I'll be bothering for hours on end. I worry who might have left the homeless building during my time away, and what exactly will be waiting for me when I fly back in January. But I have realized this is where I am supposed to be for now, and I'll just let the pieces fall into place in good time. I am extremely excited for my friend, Caity, to come see all the people who have grown so dear to me and who I talk about all the time, and I plan to convince everyone reading this to come down here to see what exactly it is that I've fallen in love with. Yesterday while at the airport here I found out something about myself that I didn't know I had learned so soon. I purchased a book, only $10. This was the first tangible thing I have purchased for myself since I moved here. As I was handing over the 200 Lempiras I found myself thinking about what that money could be used for and how I didn't "need" this book but someone out there "needed" that money to buy food for the day. I hope I never lose sight of that lesson and I carry it with me wherever my life takes me.