~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!

Insights from Janelle

Our first week in Honduras has gone really well! We have gotten used to the food. It was a little rough for some of us though. But we are all doing really well. Our host families are all really great and soo nice! They take care of us and wait on us hand and foot! It is really crazy. haha They are all soo sweet! Funny story with my family. The mom made me dippy eggs every morning and I can't eat eggs that aren't cooked. So I would cut out the yok and leave it on my plate, hoping she would get the idea that I didn't like it. After a week of doing that she finally scrambled my eggs last night! :) 

-Notes From Jesse-

When I was involved with the Manhattan Bible School after school program, I noticed a child that had a harder time reading and writing then most of the other children. His name was Anderson and he is in the second grade. I continued working with him and came to the conclusion that he was dyslexic. I realized that like a lot of inner city students, he might not be getting the help he needs to overcome his dyslexia. So I asked around to see if he was acknowledged by his school as a dyslexic child. I quickly found out that his school did recognize him as a dyslexic child and that he was getting the help he needs. It was just that the tutor at Manhattan Bible School did not know at the time that he was dyslexic because she was overwhelmed by the number students that she had (22 students). She then proceeded to call his parents to verify this and the matter was quickly resolved. Although this might have been a small matter it was awesome to see God at work by bringing me into Anderson’s life. To help me relate as well as help Anderson along in a struggle that I once had to deal with. I find that to be no coincidence, that’s God at work.

Greetings from Yolanda!

Another week has passed and I have now finished one month in the STEP program. I am really enjoying this discipleship process with Priority One Ministries. Last Friday, the Honduras team were the only ones to go to World Vision. The India team went to the embassy to start the process for their visas. Friday evening we, the Honduras Team, went to to the Spanish church. I think I caught about twenty words maybe. I have a lot of Spanish to learn! Saturday was a relaxing day. In the evening, the STEP teams went to watch "Courageous". It was very good but movie tickets are a bit pricier up here in New York! On Sunday, Janelle and I played our instruments for worship again.
    Monday was a stretching day. Mike Holland came to speak about evangelism. In the afternoon, we went out on the street and talked to people about Jesus by doing a Spiritual survey. I was able to speak with one lady, Michelle and also go through the tract. She had already asked Jesus into her life before but she was asking deeper spiritual questions. The coolest part was she was planning to take the bus but decided to walk instead and so she was able to talk to us.

On Tuesday Mike talked some more about evangelism and cell groups. In the afternoon, we went to Operation Exodus. A fourth grader was doing his homework in the Kindergarten room and I was able to help him. It was a nice change to help someone with a little harder work. Some of the math problems I had to think pretty hard to figure out how to solve them! We also performed the skit "The Good Samaritan" for all the students because their theme this week is bullying. I got to be the Samaritan and help the "bullied" person.
     On Wednesday, Pastor Lou spoke to us about how Christ is in the center of the church, the Bible, and the mission. In the afternoon we went to Operation Exodus again. The kindergartners didn't have any homework so we played some pattern games and read books to them. Today, we went to the Bowery Mission. Janelle and I wiped down all the pews in the chapel and tables and chairs in the dining hall. We served lunch to the residents and staff. Then, we were able to sit in on the chapel time before serving lunch to the community. Suri, our Spanish tutor, couldn't make it last week and again this week so Bonnie taught us some common Spanish phrases. We decorated the apartment with Spanish words!

Dios la Bendiga,

                Yolanda Rice

NYC Take One!

Hello to everyone! I and the team of 6 of us are approaching our 3rd week here in Bronx, NYC! It's been going so fast already! This coming weekend we are attending a retreat in a cabin in PA for 4 days. I'm excited to have the chance to reflect and connect even more with each other, and with God, in our Honduras and India teams.

   Over these past 3 weeks we have served with a few different ministries. World Vision being one of them, which is a national and international supply organization who helps a tremendous amount of small outreaches with clothes, office supplies, building supplies and much more! There we do a various amount of tasks such as sorting clothes, cleaning the warehouse, organizing things etc.

      We also help out with the Bowery Mission in Manhattan. The Bowery Mission is a ministry that reaches out to between 60-90 men at a time over a six month time period when they are given counseling, love, a good working experience and most of all, a second chance. As well as that ministry, the Bowery also feeds the community 3 times a day and gives and serves in whatever way they can!

   We also help with an after school program in which we tutor grades kindergarten up to 5^th grade. At this after school program we play with the kids at a nearby park and then proceed to help them with their homework in their individualized classrooms (I work with the first graders). I believe my favorite part of all is when we have worship time with them at the end of the day! I’m amazed by the awareness these children have of Jesus and how they love to worship him and pray to him. As you know, they live in inner city homes, and it is very evident in their behavior as well as their responses to us as a group coming from mostly rural areas. Precious and innocent these kids are, and every day I find myself realizing why Jesus told us to have faith like a child and be like them.

    We also work with a breakfast ministry on Tuesdays and Wednesdays in the Fellowship Chapel Brethren in Christ Church basement. That ministry is smaller, but it is in my opinion the most stretching project of all for me. Learning to work with difficult people and learning to love people at the hardest times have been in the agenda, and I'm finding a joy in it because I know the Lord is teaching me and showing me his ways in how to handle things and accept the things I cannot change.

     Every Monday and Tuesday we learn and listen from various mentors. They have been excellent and have brought the view of many topics in the Christian belief into light, and helped us evaluate what we believe. Our speakers so far have pulled us, and our thinking, out of the average thinking box. I'm highly encouraged each week to continue to search out God's will and his ultimate truths.

   It has been so much fun, and I am thoroughly enjoying the difference in the culture and the different people we come across. Living here lets you live outside the "me" bubble, the one that selfishness dwells and ignorance thrives in. But you can't ignore the problems of others when you are surrounded by them. So for the next 7-8 more weeks I hope not only to acknowledge the people, but somehow give what I can to help the people and show them Christ’s love! ~Holly Salyards~