Outdoor Experiences! ~Holly~

So the team, along with one of the Missionaries who live here in Honduras, just got back from a week of what I would consider "roughing it". All this week we stayed and traveled through some of the most poor communities in Honduras. It was a trip! The first 2 days we stayed in Orichuina, a place where we took bucket baths and had pigs and chickens for company. Both of the 2 days there we woke up early each morning to get a head start on our 2 hour hike up the mountain to get to the little village we planned to evangelize to. The hike itself was sooo tiring because it was all up hill and the sun beat down on us every step of the way. When we finally got to the small community, the people were so much sadder then any Hondurans I have met so far, even the children. Both days after evangelizing for about an hour or so, we held a kids club and church service for them. It was weird to not see laughing faces and brightened smiles...but I hope we were able to spread a little joy for the little time we spent there. After the 2 days in Orichuinca we headed out to another small town, in which I could not and still can not recall the name of it haha. There we had even more adventures eating beans, cheese, and avocados for every meal along with the long weary nights of almost no sleep and the out house that had living creatures dwelling within it. Every night was a challenge, at each house, the ladies woke up between 3-4 every morning to make tortillas (which consists of loud pounding). Add that with the crowing roosters, the oinking pigs, the bees buzzing so loudly from their hives and just even the bats and bugs that made their home every night in the little rooms we slept in and you get maybe one nights worth of sleep stretched out over 5 nights of needed sleep.
   Suprisingly, our spirits were kept up and we enjoyed the daylight hours going door to door speaking with the people who are a targeted area for starting a church. I had the opportunity to pray with people, share the gospel with them, and share my own personal testimony with them. I can only hope they were blessed as I was. One thing though yet again was that in the littlest communities, the people often seemed more oppressed and saddened. Although some showed interest, not one person in the community wanted to accept Christ.
It was frustrating at times, but I know our planted seeds can only be watered by the holy spirit. They all are so precious in the sight of God, but if only they could seek his presence and his love. When we evangelized in that second small town, it was the most intense so far because we evangelized in a way what is called a "2 Day Evangelizing Plan". The first day we ask them questions about themselves like their personal info and then invited them to our evening service. The 2nd day, we shared the gospel with them and asked them if they wanted to accept Christ or were even interested in maybe learning more. It was a grand plan! I had never thought about that, and the plan went great...no one really was ready to take action, but it was a start! 
   In the end, we all I believe, had one of the most memorable times this week. It was a humbling experience and made me appreciate my home here in Tegucigalpa so much. I must say, I was never so happy to sleep in a comfy bed with no bugs, bats, roosters, or tortilla makers to be a 3 AM alarm clock. We got to experience the true way 80% of Hondurans really live. I thank the Lord for all my little comforts, but I am still reminded that the people who live with less, such as most Hondurans, don't necessarily mind it, in fact, it's what they define as comfort!

Dental Brigade

   The past couple weeks have been so so busy for the whole team! We have had different visitors from The States come down on top of having a different ministry to work with each week. Last I blogged about was Evangelism Week, since then we have had one week consisting of a neighborhood kids club, another week with a Dental Brigade, and this week we are working with a small school that is held in one of our partnering churches.
    There is so much to share, I'm not really sure how to begin. At the Dental Brigade, Jesse and Yolanda helped the hygienists while Janelle and I helped with the Eye Clinic upstairs. I must say, I am so glad they have the eye glasses ministry on the side, because my poor little stomach wouldn't have been able to handle helping the dentists haha. But it was probably one of my favorite weeks! It was such a great experience being able to help so many with eye problems. Not to mention, we had amazing volunteers who were all just wonderful, including some of the older boys from the Micah Project (another ministry we will be working with). That week I used every ounce of Spanish I knew, and with the Lords help as well as the young Micah Boys who were bilingual, I was able to successfully help. The ministry only lasted four days, and on the last day, (ironically) we had 2 gigantic pinatas for the towns kids, who not to forget just had serious dental work done haha. I know that so many people were a blessing that week and I can only hope and trust that we were to them as well!
   As for Kids Club week, that was also my favorite, because I lovvvve kids! Ever since, there are always neighborhood kids coming up and giving generous hugs everywhere we go. Every Friday we have an evening bible story and some games for them as well. For me, the kids are sooo very special and are a huge part of what we are here for. I find myself often sitting in the park across the cobble stone path from my house just watching the kids play, and of course try my best to speak Spanish and hold conversations with them. There is one little boy named Jone', and he is so precious to me, I feel like God has placed a special love for him on my heart. His smile just lights my world up and I see so much God-Potential in this small little child. He likes to just sit and talk with me about his day at school, and I like to hear his thoughts and receive his loving hugs along with those adorable smiles of his. Little by little I find myself getting to know my neighbors and the different people in the neighborhood, which is what I have been wanting so badly.
    This week we get to work with even more kids at a school! So far, the shock of how this particular school is run has not worn off. Sadly to say, our observations have been of unqualified teachers, poor classrooms, even poorer learning materials, and unstructured teaching. The kids are so cute and most of them are willing to learn. I help teach kinder gardeners, so far I enjoy it, but it's sometimes hard to look past the obvious poor learning conditions. One thing this school does that I believe is thee most important thing is include Jesus in the light of every learning opportunity. They pray several times a day and sings songs in the morning with devotions as well as The Lord being constantly mentioned and talked about throughout the day. This school might not be up to standards when compared to the US, but they have what almost all the schools in the US don't, which is the teaching of Jesus Christ!
    To end, we leave for Belize on Saturday!!!! WooHoo!!! We are sooo excited and ready for a much needed break. We plan to learn just as much in Belize as we do here in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, so here we, with arms open and willing to receive what the Good Lord has to show us!

Evangelism Week ~Me~ (Holly)

This week is Evangelism Week!!!!!!!! Everyday in the evening around 4-6 pm we work with a group of young people from a Spanish Church named Aleman. They have been so gracious to let us tag along in their awesome outreach to the communities surrounding Tegucigalpa, Honduras. Although our Spanish is not the best, we have been working on something called "EvangeCube". It resembles an arrubix cube but instead of being insanely hard to figure out...it has arrows that show you how to unfold the clever little cube. On each face of the cube there is a picture, and each picture tells a part of the story of the Gospel. So in Spanish Classes (which ended last Friday! Unbelievable!) we practiced how to tell the story of our sins and the wonderous gift of Jesus in Spanish, along with memorizing criticial bible verses concerning the Gospel its self.
    What was really neat was that last Friday before Evangelsim Week started, we had a pastor named "Lado" come and speak to us about evangelizing. In all honesty, I wasn't too excited about hearing him speak before he came, but by the time he was done, I truely had a heart on fire for telling the true meaning of the Gospel. He started off with the questions "What does the 'Gospel' mean?". And of course we all had our various answers...and he himself had a few. First he reassured Jesse that indeed, the literal meaning of the Gospel is, "The Good News". But when we talk about The Good News, what all does that include? He mentioned how many pastors often give the sermon of God's Love and how much he wants a relationship with us, but forget to fill in the blanks.
     The blanks that christians often leave open when giving the message of life are the full entireity of the story of the Gospel. Pastor Lado then proceeded to explain solely what The Good News meant...
The truth that all have indeed fallen short of the glory of God through sin and that sin permanently seperates us from him and his Glory. But alas! The plan of redemption was put in place when God sent his only Son, Jesus, to the earth to be fully God and fully human in order to die on the cross and be the ultimate sacrifice for the sins of the world. When crucified on the cross, he rose three days later from the dead which is crucial in the story of the Gospel because it represents that he crucified the sins of the world but he himself lives eternally in return giving us the ability of eternal life with him!
    Now since I explained Pastor Lado's whole speech, I want to get back to Evangelsim Week. Although we might not always have the right words, we have the words of redemption! This week has been challenging, but also exhilirating by resting in the fact that the holy spirit is working in the hearts of those who hear the true "Good News"!

Jesse's Experience

To all those who have been praying for me and have waited a long time to hear from me again, I thank you for your patience and your prayer. I know that your concerns for me must be great by now seeing that I have not updated my physical and emotional well-being as well as my Spiritual Growth since I last made an update in New York. Please be rest assured that I am getting better physically.

 Let me begin by putting some of your fear for me to rest. To answer the question most people have asked me both here in Honduras as well as the United States “Are you enjoying your time in Honduras?” My answer to this is simply “Yes”. My time here has been enjoyable for the most part. My experiences at first were challenging. For instance my experience with some of my host family was difficult because of some of their comments that I found distasteful or stereotypical. An example of this is they asked me if I like alcoholic beverages in which I immediately said No and that I would be going against the law in the United States, (As well as going against the STEP rules for proper conduct in another country.) Encounters like this angered me, but I shook those kinds of comments off because I came to the conclusion that this was their world view of most Americans. I am happy to be different in this aspect and happy to be able to shake up their view of most Americans.

     Language learning was also a difficulty for me and it didn’t help that my host family, and tutor, would get on my back for “not studying enough” when nothing could be farther from the truth. I would study for at least 2 hours a day maybe more but I did not realize at the time but although I was understanding what my teachers as well as my host family but I could not speak the language coherently so they would automatically think that I was wasting my time. In this I was also glad to prove them wrong for all my hard studying did pay off and I can now speak partial Spanish but I still have grammatical errors that still make it difficult for me to communicate effectively so they continually try to speak to me in English even though I try to tell them to speak only in Spanish thus hindering my efforts to learn the language. Even though I spoken ill of some of my host family it is important to note that all my family members are very sweet and accommodating to me. They continually make strides to make my time here enjoyable as well as help me live in place where my allergies seem to run rampant, but even my allergies have started to become manageable because of them. They are wonderful hosts and wonderful people. It’s only because of cultural misunderstanding that I have had some tension between some of my members of my family. We have and continue to have an enjoyable time together.  The first month was just hard for me to emotionally adjust. 

As for my physical well-being, from the moment I literally set foot on my plane to Honduras to my time writing this letter I have not felt a since being healthy. At first it was my allergies that kept me miserable for a month and a half. Then from then I have continued to feel ill or have stomach problems or have some kind of sickness. Some of my sicknesses have had explanations for why I am sick but some sicknesses the doctors here cannot figure out why. I have a strong inclination that the Devil has his hand in this so please continue to pray for me.

So some of you are probably wondering as to how my answer to the question of “Are you enjoying your time in Honduras?” could possibly be a simple “Yes” well though my emotional state and physical state continue to be a perpetual rollercoaster, there is one part of my well-being I have not mentioned and that is my Spiritual Growth. Although my emotional and physical states continue to be shaky at times my Spiritual Growth has taken flight. I am constantly growing closer to God. In fact I feel my closer than I have ever felt before. I started reading through the Bible and the more I read the more I can’t get enough of learning about my God. One morning I woke up and I was just hit over the head with a sack full of Gods joy, the Spirit of God. I was happy and there was no reasonable explanation for it. I mean my emotions were not where I would have liked them to be and I was still sick that day but I WAS HAPPY and continue to be happy. I felt embolden as well, filled with a chrismal and a tenacity that I haven’t felt.  But it was not only that something else happened. Something I haven’t felt in a long time. For the first time in a long time I GOT EXCITED the thought of just talking, listening, acting with the lord just gets me EXICTED. Every time I think about it or talk about it I can’t contain the Joy that he has given me. It just burst forth from every pour of my being. So all these things that most people would want to change like circumstances of relationships with others or sicknesses, these things have become my secret joy because I believe in no other way could God have changed me in the same way he is doing now. My God has and is and continues to be too good to me so I will thank him and worship him because he is good. I am growing and being stretched all over and I love it.

When I think of several passages of scripture that I feel I can relate to this experience I think of Psalms 1:1-3 as well as 2 Corinthians 4:7-18

Copan!!!

Over New Years we all went to Copan here in Honduras which is about an 8 hour drive from Tegucigalpa. When I say an 8 hour drive, I mean very whindy roads and uncomfortable positions for 8 hours straight haha. But it was worth it when we got there. Copan is known for it's ancient Mayan Ruins and including that, we did so many fun things there! We went horse back riding on the mountain (which there are a bunch) and we visited a bird sanctuary at the top of the one mountain. The sanctuary is called "Mcaw Mountain". There are a ton of absolutley beautiful birds! We all got to hold them on our shoulders and arms, it was really cool and I am sure I probably won't get the chance to do it again. Haha, the funny thing is when Jesse was holding 3 of the birds, two of them decided to make him and his clothing lunch! He left the park with a button missing as well as 3 holes in his shirt, ahaha. On of my favorite things was the beauty of Copan...it was just breath taking with the fresh air and the beautiful mountains. Every morning I got up fairly early and went on top of the hotel's deck where there was a great view, as well as hammocks, and I that's where I met God every morning while I was there. They were some of my treasured times in Copan because it was quiet with crispy breezy air, and an awesome view.
 The one day after we went horse back riding on the mountain, we traveled up to the top of one of the mountains to a place that has natural hot springs! The water pools were heated by volcanic hot water in or near Guatemala. Some of the pools were so hot that we could only stay in them for a little bit...I must say that that was yet another one of my favorite experiences. When New Years Eve rolled around, all the fireworks in the town broke out! It was an awesome experience!!!!! The whole town was lit up with fireworks!!! Copan was truely a blast of a time!

~A Bird's Eye View From Holly's World~

It is the middle of our second week here and I am loving it! My average day consists of waking up to (thank the Lord) a nice hot shower along with devotions and wonderful breakfast from my host mom, Adely. Adely is really awesome, she is semi quiet but as sweet as pie. Everyone morning I look forward to waking up to having just "me and her" time. Although we can't communicate well, we almost can always exchange our feelings and ideas. The reason I say I wake up to just "me and her" time is because all hours of the day the kids in the house are running around and of course, being kids! Haha, Diego, Sohpia, and Elias are my little sweeties. Diego is 10, Sohpia is 4, and Elias is 2. Diego and Sophia are like my mini tutors, they are sooo excited to help me learn spanish and I am sooo excited to have them help me. After breakfast we head off to spanish classes in the old BIC church. It is a nice building with 4 floors, we study on the 2nd floor with our tutors, Ana Maria and Carla. Ana Maria works with Jesse and I and Carla works with Janelle and Yolanda. The funny thing is, me and Jesse probably know the least spanish (thats why we study together) and we have the tutor who doesnt speak any english hahaha. But I must say, speaking for both Jesse and I, that Ana Maria is one of the best teachers we could ask for. She gets a kick out of us often...and the funny thing is she is an older lady who is very reserved and meek, and she has Jesse and I for students, hahah. It feels good to be able to make her laugh.

We are in class for 4 hours total, 8 am - 12 pm. We have a 20 min break at 10 so that is nice, we usually go to one of the cute little out-of-the home stores that the Hondurans have in our community. Already we are getting to know the community we live in, it feels nice to be able to smile at familiar faces.

3 x a week we have a language route, it is where we go to the open market and talk to the people who work there. It is fun! But sometimes it's intimidating not being able to speak the language. Every night we usually study and do homework for about 2 hours. When I first got here and heard that we would have homework that would take that long I thought that was ludacris, but in all honesty, there is nothing else to do when you don't know the language. I really enjoy our studying times, it's when our team really bonds and is able to help each other. God has been so merciful with us and is blessing us left and right. You will find that sooo many people have religous knowledge backrounds here. Hahah, my favorite thing is seeing so many cars here with the play boy bunny sticker on one side of the window and having a picture of jesus or a cross of the other side of the window! It cracks me up, but at the same time makes me wonder. It's as though they view God and Jesus as a good luck charm. On almost every taxi/bus there is something about God and how he loves us on the window. If only the people truely could experience the deep true love of Christ! When you think of missionary, you think of going into a foreign land teaching and preaching the good news...but I find more so that here, they don't need the teaching and preaching, because they are quite educated on Jesus and God. More so they just need to be shown true genuine love. It is hard also because they are suchhh a loving culture! What more could us gringos bring to their culture?? (gringos are white people/americans)

Thank you guys so much for praying for the team! We have our days of tiredness of the body and even more, the brain. But it's awesome being here and experiencing God in a whole new way!

 

 

Our First Week! ~Holly~

So STEP Honduras 2011/2012 team has officially been in Tegucigalpa, Honduras for a little over a week. We are pretty well settled into our family's, and adjusting to the schedule. Each of us seem to really enjoy our host families! Yolanda lives with an older couple that are very sweet and hospitable, and she gets to play with all of the grandchildren (and there are alot!) Diagonally across from Yolanda is Janelle and her host family. Janelle lives with an older couple as well, and the host mom most very is spunky! haha! In her house there is always family coming over and hanging out. She hasn't quite figured out who is related to who and the names of all the grand children but I'm sure as time goes on she will learn them. She has a parrot that sits right outside of her door who gets all the food from meals that Janelle doesn't eat hahah so the bird, I am sure, is appreciating Janelle's presence at the house.
   I (Holly) live around the corner with a young couple who have 3 children who are 10, 4, and 2. I must say they are sooo adorable! I have come to really love my host family already. My host mom is just the sweetest lady and she makes me feel at home. She often talks about Emily who was in the STEP program last year and lived with her, I enjoy hearing about her experience here. I love to play with the kids...and they seem to be accustomed to me already :) My host family is actually related to Janelle's host family, so me and Janelle are pretty familiar with each others families.
      Jesse lives right beside me with an awesome God-Loving family. He lives with an older lady who's husband recently passed, she has quite the personality! She loves praying with us as a team, and I believe she enjoys praying with Jesse at meal times. She loves reading her bible as well! Jesse also lives with her children who are all in their twenties. Jesse has developed already a close friendship with her only son, he is really cool! We went to the movies with Jesse's host brother and his fiancee the other day. His fiancee and him both speak English so it was such a nice outlet from having to comprehend Spanish and or speaking it for a few hours.
     Spanish classes have started and the classroom learning has begun! Haha, I will be honest, I have learned more Spanish in the past week then I ever did in my 2 years of Spanish in the States. We are all working together to learn the language and encourage each other. Keep us all in prayer for language studies. We have such a passion to reach out to the people here including our families that we live with so we are trying our very hardest to learn as much Spanish as we can.
   So far, we are really enjoying Honduras and it's people! We hope to continue to express our experiences with all of our friends and families. It is truly an amazing experience! Thank You for the prayers and support!