The Last Week

In exactly four days, barring a terrible traveling emergency, I will be sitting in my family van speeding toward home. It’s crazy to think that these last twelve weeks have already gone by. I can count how many days are left with my fingers. Instead of helping the children write cards to the other teams and interns who are going back to the United States, I’m helping them write my goodbye letter. (I can make huge lettering really well, so all the kids are having me write everyone’s names. Including mine. It’s so depressing. It feels like I’m signing my own pink slip or something). But not only are they, once again, writing “I will miss you and love you forever” letters, but I am doing my best to impart my eternal wisdom in my own cards. This, again, is not fun and I have in no way been looking forward to it. I’ve made 21 cards so far, four left.

We are also spending all of our free time tying up loose ends around the orphanage. We’re organizing, cleaning, painting, translating, and repackaging food all the day long. We want everything to run smoothly once we’re gone. The staff here have come to rely on us. Not that we run the orphanage better (in fact, I often wonder if we are hindering them or giving the children false expectations), but we give them the ability to take a break and breathe. They can enjoy their jobs. Once we leave it will be 2 hardcore, fierce, wonderful women taking on 24 rambunctious children, 1 cook, and a handyman. It’s important we don’t leave any more stress than necessary.

Mirian and Amanda

But the most painful part of this week has been spending time with the kids. While this summer has been wonderful for them and for us, it has been getting taxing for these precious kids. They’ve seen people come and go over and over, and they know that another group of people they love are about to abandon them. Today I came out for lunch and was, like usual, greeted by my sparkling, joy of a friend Mirian. She’s four, sassy, and a diva to the core. She also knows that she has every last one of us wrapped around her tiny little fingers. Every day she points at me and commands, “No llora!” (no crying! I’ve been suffering from allergies, so I look like I’m crying 90% of the time). I say, “No! No estoy llorando! Voy a llorar en viernes!” (No! I’m not crying! I’m going to cry on friday!) But today, she greeted me differently. She said “No puede salir.” (You can’t leave). This confused me, yesterday she seemed perfectly at peace with the concept that I was going to leave. “Porque?” “Porque voy a llorar. No quiero llorar.” (Why? Because I’m going to cry. I don’t want to cry.) That just about killed me. She kept saying it over and over. “I don’t want you to leave. I’m going to cry.” She sat next to me at lunch and cuddled up next to me every chance she got.

She is not the only kid who knows we’re about to leave. Edwin Emil walks up and gives me hugs every 3 seconds it seems like. “Estas saliendo en viernes.” (You’re leaving on friday). He gives the best hugs. I want them to last forever.

Today, however, we got some terrible news. Tomorrow, a bunch of the kids have to leave 2 hours early from the program. It sounds silly, I guess, but it doesn’t seem fair! I feel like I’m being cheated out of my last day with the best kids in the world! Tomorrow is going to be rough. There are going to be two tearful goodbyes (although I keep promising myself and everyone else that I’m not going to cry, fat chance). I am going to have to say goodbye to some kids knowing full well I may never see them again, and if I do, they will be older. Different. More mature. I probably won’t be able to carry Mirian everywhere. Edwin Emil might suddenly become “too cool” to give hugs all the time. Jairon’s voice might change. Nahun’s voice will be deeper. While I don’t know if I’m saying goodbye forever or for now, I am saying goodbye to these children at this particular time in their lives.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m psyched to go home. Spending 3 months in a foreign country is hard, especially when you leave exactly 2 days after school ends. I haven’t had a summer, and it will be fun to have a couple “normal” weeks before flying into my senior year.

Favor: Pray for my team and I tomorrow as we say goodbye? And definitely pray for these kids. Some of these kids live a life of being abandoned every day by their families (either physically or emotionally), and I don’t want this group to be another group of people who have abandoned them. I want to make sure they know that we came to bring God’s love, and that is going to stay here forever.

The front gate at the Orphanage.

Beautiful, Wonderful

As an introvert, I sometimes have trouble working with groups of people. Especially when I don’t get time to recharge. This is sometimes a hard concept to explain to extroverts. “Recharge? If you need to be alone, don’t you just recharge

Jairon (pronounced “hye-doe”) he’s an introvert, like me.

every night?” No, but that would be nice. That does give you a nice break, but after going days and days without a significant break, you body and mind do some strange things. At the beginning of this week I was feeling seriously drained. My symptoms: crabbiness, emotional turmoil (I would be in tears on second and comatose the next, it was bizarre), a short-temper, and constant headaches.

This was compounded by the fact that this was my first time being a “leader” missionary. We have a group of 24 high school students working in the orphanage. That means every day I have to get up earlier, work harder, be more social, and act like a grown-up (which, to be honest, I’m not very good at. I’m 21, but sometimes I act like I’m 12). On Monday I knew I was in trouble. I took a small group of  the students through Parque Central. My job was to “be mute and keep them alive”. I did only one of those things, you can guess which one. I tripped and fell, got stuck in a small taxi, and had to use every ounce of my energy to keep a happy face on. When we got back I retreated to my room and passed out. I skipped lunch and prayed, thinking God? How are we going to do this? I haven’t had a break in 3 weeks! You made me an introvert, which is wonderful…but that means I am about twelve seconds from breaking! It wasn’t long before I was forced to emerge from my fortress of solitude. I was instantly greeted by a stern warning to stay involved with the teenagers. “I know you don’t like meeting new people, but you have to do it anyway. You can’t disappear.”

I felt like a little girl who was slapped on the wrist. I walked away feeling dejected. If I can’t get a break, I may fall apart.

True to my word, later that night I fell apart. Since my brother is my best friend, I wrote him a long letter with all my struggles. I knew it seemed whiny to complain that I wasn’t getting enough “alone time”, but it was becoming a problem. I was crying, and I hadn’t cried in Honduras yet. I’m afraid to get the alone time I need. I think I’m going to snap, my head hurts, I’m homesick…I don’t know what to do!

The next day wasn’t better, actually it was worse. I was put on “construction duty”. This was expected. As I mentioned before, I’m a leader with this group, and as a leader, I must lead. They gave me a handful of students and set me to work sifting through trash in the back. I was in a constant prayer mantra. All I could think was “Jesus Christ, Son of David, have mercy on me, a Sinner.” that Brad had taught us years back. I was still overwhelmed. I knew that I needed to get away. “Just an hour, that’s all I need.”

I slept for an hour. Then another hour. Then I decided not to go to VBS. I needed to recharge. I needed to spend some serious time with my creator to get back in the right mindset. God and I found out way to Psalm 25.

“To you, O Lord, I lift up my soul; in you I trust, O my God. Do not let me be put to shame, not let my enemies triumph over me. No one whose hope is in you will ever be put to shame, but they will be put to shame who are treacherous without excuse. Show me your ways, O Lord, teach me your paths; guide me in your truth and teach me, for you are my God and my Savior, and my hope is in you all day long.” (verses 1-5).

“Bekka!” he exclaimed, “Don’t you know how much I love you? I’m right here where you need me! If you rely on me completely and follow the amazing plan I have for you, you will be fine. Better than fine, you will be blissful and protected. I’m here. Come to me.”

I spend two hours with Jesus. We talked about a lot. He revealed things about his love for me, and reminded me that spending time with Him is the best method of recharging. Later that day though, I was feeling guilty. Really Bekka, you skipped VBS. Worst leader ever. 1,000 fail points to you. Once again, God put an end to that negative thought-train. He said, “Hey, remember Mary and Martha?” I looked it up. Martha was running around doing stuff, and none of that stuff was bad. In fact, it was helpful stuff, stuff people expected her to do. Things that people would have been put off about i they hadn’t been done. But Jesus commended Mary. She had chosen the better thing. She had chosen to spend time with Jesus. Once again, God had given me what I needed and I had some peace. I was rested.

Today has been a world of a difference. I did the same construction work, but with a completely different attitude. Even the students I was working with saw a difference. “You are so encouraging!” I still wasn’t a powerhouse construction worker, but God was using me either way. I didn’t feel the intense desire to escape, I was able to act silly with abandon. I asked some of the students to tell me about their lives. I felt like a completely different person.

I was acting like one too. =]

Cumpleanos

At the orphanage they celebrate Birthdays two times a year. Today I was lucky enough to participate in one of their biannual birthday celebrations.

King Carlitos

We didn’t actually find out about this “party” until late last night. It was a little stressful. We needed to make cards for all of the kids and write personal notes to all of them. We card-made, rocked to some Christian music, thought long and hard about what eternal wisdom we wanted to impart to the children here. I thought about this for about 30 seconds before I realized “Half of these kids can’t read…and the other half is not really going to care…” So, being the mature, Christian woman I am. I decided to have some fun with the little Spanish I have a handle on.

• To Miriam I wrote: “Happy Birthday. You can’t read, right? In that case, I like cheese. Felicinadedodos” (which is not a word in any language that I know of)”-Bekka.”
• To Ariel I wrote: “When I was a young girl I had forty pink dolls. Good luck.-Bekka.”
• To Cindi: “Happy Birthday. Eat your vegetables.-Bekka.”
• To Luis David: I started by quoting a song, and ended by saying. “You are very funny. You’re not allowed to talk to girls until you turn 30.-Bekka.”

I wrote more, but to be honest, I don’t remember exactly what else I said. But it was all along the lines of “What random things do I know how to say? They’re not going to read it anyway…” I am an inspiration.

But the party today was awesome. We had cake. To be honest, I am not even a little bit a fan of Honduran cake. I considered hiding in my room so they wouldn’t accidentally serve me some. They do this cruel thing where they make the cake look really appetizing and it tastes…inexplicably bad. It looks just like my favorite kind of cake: white with whipped icing. It’s definitely white, but strangely crusty. And the icing is NOT whipped. I’m not sure what it is..but it is unlike anything I have ever tasted. The icing was useful though. Our cake-eating time turned into a MASSIVE icing contest.

For the first 10 minutes I was able to avoid the chaos. I’ve been practicing my mean-teacher “don’t mess with me” face.

Mirian and I. Pretend you couldn’t resist this girl, seriously. It’s impossible.

And I think they were listening. But then I was approached by my Honduran Kryptonite. Her name is Mirian and I have the hardest time saying no to her. I’ve mentioned Mirian before, remember here? She’s four, sassy, and completely adorable. And, unfortunately, she walked up to me with icing covering her little fingers with the sweetest look in her eyes. She didn’t even have her normal feisty “just-try-and-tell-me-no” expression. But, I think she’s learned that I am putty in her hands. I just bent down and let her beautify me.

And then it was all over. I was part of the icing chaos. Most of our team ended up totally messed up in icing. Brittany, for example, had the sticky, yucky, Honduran icing all tangled in her hair-line. Sarah had clumps of icing matted into knots in her normally put-together hair style.

We love these kids. I am pretty sure we’d let them do almost anything if we were allowed to. Watching them open birthday gifts was the most humbling experience. They all got a new pair of clothes and one “extra” item like hair ties, sunglasses, or a hat. And they were so excited. Felipe was a trembling, excited, mess when we called his name.

It’s hard to believe that two weeks from today I’ll be saying goodbye. It doesn’t feel real! I love them too much to say goodbye!

All You Can Eat

There are many wonderful, beautiful, inspiring things about Honduras. And I would be delighted to enchant you with another heart-warming story of how God is revealing himself to the children and to my team. However, instead, I am going to tell you a horror story. I know, you are probably thinking “She’s been there for almost 3 months, she still has things to complain about?” Yes.

I am SO TIRED of being an everlasting all-you-can-eat buffet for the bugs here. (As I was typing this sentence, Shelby walked in and exclaimed “I am so itchy!”, thus continuing to reinforce my point). Everywhere I go I get eating. A couple minutes ago I was sitting in Kichi’s room and I was bitten over and over by vicious, man-eating, ants. It sounds wimpy to be complaining about ant bites, but these buddies hurt. After getting bit 17 times I **internally** screamed “that’s it!” and got up to escape the madness.

I forget what my legs used to look like before I came here, but I’m sure they were beautiful. Now they look like I am going to die from a terrible flesh-eating disease. Last weekend we got new team members and I caught them staring at my legs in horror and muttering to themselves. “Wow, does that happen to everyone?”

“Pretty much.”

“I guess we’re going to have to get used to it..” but one look at my mangled leg-skin gave them a healthy dose of fear.

Maybe my write skin is just more appealing to them. They’re like “Ooh, white meat!” chomp. I know that my ultra-pale piel showcases their handiwork more prominently than my colorful team members. I look terrifying. And there is seriously nothing I can do about it.

I know for a fact that there are bugs living in my bed. (I see them all the time……yup. Just saw one. There is no escape.) And it is impossible to stop every bug that tries to feast on my sweaty, American flesh. We have a lot of big bugs here (3-inch-long cockroaches, spiders as big as my hands) but I have garnered a healthy all-consuming fear of the tiny bugs that attack me every day.

I just want to stop itching. Please.

=[

Emailing my Dad

My dad is one of the smartest people in the world, in case you weren’t aware. When I wrote my exegesis I sent it to him for final editing, because I wanted an expert’s opinion on what I was saying (also to make sure I wasn’t being heretical). Tonight, I’ve done something similar.

All weekend I’ve been mulling over the kids’ questions: “What is God’s love?” and “Why does he love us.” I decided to write out all of my thoughts, and then ask my dad for advice. After finishing it, I decided that maybe I could benefit from the advice of my Blog-o-sphere friends. So, I am going to copy and paste the email I just sent my dad. Keep in mind, it’s 2 am. I lost most of my coherent thinking-ability about an hour ago, but I think I got at least half of my thoughts in the email.

It’s long, so if you don’t want to sludge through my theological ramblings, I recommend you turn back now.

“Theology and stuff” an email to my daddy

You are waking up to an email goldmine from your daughter. Congratulations.

I’m working on how to answer the questions the kids here at the Orphanage gave me. “What is God’s love?’ and “Why does God love us?”. Here is what I’ve come up with. I want to hear your thoughts and wisdom (and corrections if I say anything heretical or stupid).

What is God’s love?
1. God’s love is unconditional.
What does that mean for us? First of all, we don’t deserve it. “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” (Romans 3:23) We are wimpy, frail, imperfect human beings filled with sin. That sin separates us from God, making it even harder for us to understand what his love is (and how it fits into our lives). In the same way, second of all, God’s love is something that can’t be earned. There is nothing we can do to make God love us more. He does not love us because of the good things we have done. “This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his son into the world that we might live through him.” (1 John 4:10) Third and finally, since God’s love is unconditional we cannot disqualify ourselves from his love. Many times people think that God’s love is something that we need to earn. That God will love us if we behave a certain way, or that he doesn’t love us if we do something wrong. “For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the Love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8:38-39).
2. God’s love is indescribable.
Describing God’s love is impossible. “We love because he first loved us.” meaning the only way for us to describe God’s love, is by comparing it to the love we experience here on earth between each other. However, as I mentioned before, we are sinful. The love we have here on earth is a silly imitation of the all-consuming perfect love of God. “Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is Love.” (1 John 4:7-8). While our love can be compared to his love, his love can not be compared to ours. Because of that, there are no words on earth that can accurately portray the way God loves his creation. We can try, but we can not truly understand it. “How great is God–beyond our understanding!” (Job 36:26).

That’s how I would describe God’s love, by admitting that I can not actually describe it. (For the kids I would put it in a simpler, outline form. Keep in mind, these kids are between the ages of 12-18. So they’re not little, but I’m really hoping I don’t go too far over their heads.)

Keeping in mind that God loves us no matter what, in all circumstances, with a Love that can’t be described. Let’s examine what we do know about God and his love.
1. He created everything. He created us (in his own image), he created the world, he created love. He sees all, he knows all. Since he created us, he knows us better than we know ourselves. “Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you. Before you were born I set you apart.” (Jeremiah 1:5). What does this mean? He has the ability to see potential in us that we can’t understand. He knows the purest version of ourselves, not the imperfect pieces of ourselves we display to the world around us. Oswalt Chambers phrases it like this: “But, my God, my soul has horizons farther away than those of the early mornings, deeper darkness than the nights of earth, higher peaks than any mountain peaks, greater depths than any sea in nature. You who are the God of all of these, be my God. I cannot reach to the heights or to the depths; there are motives I cannot discover, dreams I cannot realize.” God can see value in his creation that we can’t.
2. He has given us a description of “love” in his word. In 1 Corinthians 13 we are given a definition of love. Since God is love, we can assume that this passage perfectly describes God and his love. However, our version of love does not do his version justice. As it says in verse 12 “Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.”

We can’t understand his love now. And on this earth, we never will. We can only know a few things for certain.
GOD LOVES US. End of story. No matter what.
That love is beyond anything we can imagine, however we get to experience it and reap the benefits every day.

Thoughts? Am I completely wrong? Did I miss anything really important?
I am going to outline it more succinctly in the morning. I need to be able to say this all super simply. And then say it even more simply in Spanish.

I’m in way over my head aren’t I?

Spanish with Yessenia

During the first 6 weeks I was the regular English teacher. I am not sure how much they actually learned, but I felt like I got to know the kids a whole lot better than I would have if I wasn’t in front of them teaching. One of my units was on professions. I had the students draw pictures of themselves in fifteen years. What job do they want? What are their hobbies? Are they married? All that jazz. It was really fun, I love adding crafty things to my lessons. However, almost all of the students said the same things. They all want to me married, Christians, soccer players, and (with a few exceptions) teachers. As a “teacher” (I feel strange calling myself a teacher. Yes I’m teaching, but at the moment I just feel like a poser!) I decided that gave me a pretty neat opportunity. I could encourage them in that endeavor. Boost up the kids, make them feel special.

Daryl gave me an awesome idea. Have some of the kids give us Spanish lessons. I want to learn to speak Spanish…they want to be teachers…it’s a match made in heaven.

Yessenia and Judith, our beautiful Spanish teachers

I decided that if I wanted Judith and Yessenia to be my teachers, I needed to make a big deal out of it. That I didn’t just want them to teach me, I needed them. With my spare time I made elaborate cards. They were covered in glitter, their names were written fancily on the front, and a not-so-eloquently-phrased letter was written on the inside. “Hi. I want to learn how to speak Spanish, you want to be a teacher. Would you give me and Katie Spanish lessons over the next 6 weeks? I know you are going to be marvelous Spanish teachers. Love, Bekka.” I didn’t try to make the grammar perfect. I am pretty sure I even spelled many of the words wrong. It was important that they realized that I was hopeless and desperately needed their help.

Good news friends, they graciously rose up to the challenge. About a to weeks ago Yessenia pulled me aside. “Manana, clase de espanol.” she said in an excited whisper. I gasped aloud. “Donde?”

“Afuera.”

“Cuando?” (at this point I am practically yelling and jumping. I guarantee that she has no idea what to do with me.)

“Nueve?” It was a date. I was so excited. Unfortunately I got sick the next day so Spanish was put off for a couple days. However, it was probably a good thing. Our entire team showed up for Spanish with Yessenia. Every day we get together and learn new words. It has become the highlight of my day. Yessenia has all of her lessons planned out in a notebook. Each lesson is a treat for everyone. We take notes, ask questions, and do our best to make sure she feels like a real teacher. Not only is she having fun, we are having a blast. Our vocabularies are flourishing, and even our most confident Spanish speakers are learning new things. (Surprisingly, to me, I am on that list of “confident spanish speakers”. Who would have thought that spending 9 weeks in Honduras would make me a confident Spanish conversationalist?)

Since she is making up her own curriculum and can’t really explain her thought process, some of the words seem kind of random. (Which is most of the fun for us). For example, last Wednesday she started her lesson by teaching us how to say the names of family members. She divided the names so we could see the difference between the masculine forms of words and the feminine forms. We learned words like uncle, father, brother, grandpa, ect. It made perfect sense. The next list, however, completely blew our minds. She erased the list of family names and wrote down: “Masculine: man-servant, he-wolf, turkey.” We all just about died “He-wolf? What?” Then continued her list “Feminine: Maid-servant, she-wolf, turkey-hen.” That seemed like the most random combination of words possible. “In which situation did Yessenia think we were going to need to know the word man-servant?”

We are learning a lot. (We also have a fun new nickname for our one man on the team. “Criado”, you guessed it, “man-servant”). And I can tell Yessenia is having so much fun. Today we had a test and the sisters spent all morning working to finish writing them.

Moments like that are probably what make this trip the most worth it. I do not think that my English or bible lessons will be the things that make the most difference (although it would be nice). The biggest difference will be made by the relationships we build with these kids. I can already tell that Yessenia is more comfortable around me than she was before. And she is getting more confident with all of us. When I leave, I hope these kids know that they are valuable, wonderful, and treasured.

“But as for me, I will always have hope. I will praise you more and more. My mouth will tell of your righteousness, of your salvation all day long, though I know know not it’s measure. I will come and proclaim your mighty acts, O Sovereign Lord; I will proclaim your righteousness, yours alone. Since my youth, O God, you have taught me, and to this day I declare your mighty deeds.” (Psalm 71: 14-17)

I’m not going to know the things I’ve done here that have made the biggest impact. “I know not its measure”, but I do know that God has done great things in me and through me. In these last three weeks I pray that God will use me in every situation. When I’m being silly with the kids, in front of everyone teaching in broken Spanish, or even when I’m not saying anything at all. I want God to shine through me in every situation.

What is Love?

This week I have been teaching bible lessons every day. It has been a lot of fun. I love teaching bible, but since these kids are older I have been doing more that just telling them stories and asking them questions about it. I’ve been wanting to let them know about the nature of God. The fact that he is there for us, all the time. When we are having troubles, he’s there. He is there when no one else is. He is there under every circumstance, even when we don’t want him there. It’s a huge concept to try to convey to these kids, especially since I only speak half of their language.

Today we went through Psalm 23. I knew right off the bat that this was going to be hard. I know that these students had dealt with it before. It’s really easy to discount a message if you think you’ve heard it all before. I am one of the worst culprits of deciding to tune out as soon as I hear a familiar passage. As soon as I told them the passage I knew that my suspicions were right. They opened their bibles and immediately all the boys checked out, and a couple of the girls. I instructed them to be quiet and listen, then I read the passage. One or two of them were listening. Most of them had that glazed-over look in their eyes. So I did something kind of risky, especially considering my wimpy Spanish skills. I started to break it down.

“What does he mean when he says “The Lord is my shepherd?”. They told me that it was talking about David taking care of his sheep. The mentioned the story of how when David was taking care of sheep and  he had to protect them from bears. This seemed like a good start, so I asked “How is God my ‘shepherd’? I’m not a sheep. I’m a person. Do I look like a sheep?” They laughed (which, honestly, surprised me. It was a bad joke.) I broke down the scripture like that for about ten minutes. They didn’t answer me at all. I said “Entiendes?” every 3 seconds, and they nodded, but I could tell they had never thought about this scripture very much before. Like I did last week with Psalm 27, I had the students write down their favorite part of the passage and why it spoke to them. I think that they are starting to understand that it is possible for God to talk with them through scripture.

While they were writing down the parts of the passage that spoke to them, I handed out little pieces of paper. It occurred to me that they might have questions about God or being a Christian. I’m not a perfect Christian, by any means, but I might be able to answer some of their questions (especially since I have a pretty impressive support system both down here and at home). I only got back two questions so far, I decided that giving them time to think about questions was better than forcing them to write down questions immediately.

Both of the questions were about God’s Love.

• “Why does God love us?”–Edwin Emil
• “What is God’s love?”–Cinthia

Naturally, being a Jesus-loving woman who desperately loves these kids, I almost died. These kids come from some extreme family situations. They are not familiar with the kind of love that I’ve had lavished on me since birth. These children legitimately may not think that God actually loves them. And if he does, they probably don’t think it is all that overwhelming.

So now I am feeling challenged to express to these kids how much God loves them. Since they come from such broken home situations, I have no idea how I’ll do it. Comparing the love of God to the love of a father is a faulty example down here, they don’t have fathers. Only one of these older kids has a father who is consistently in their life. The others either have fathers who willingly abandoned them or have never actually met their father.

How? How on earth am I going to get these wonderful kids to understand that God’s love is real, powerful, and much more than they could ever comprehend?

How can I let them know that God loves them no matter what, even if they don’t think they deserve it?

God’s love is such a big topic. I have no idea what to do.

This is why we do it

Another video for your viewing pleasure. =] I’m in a lot more of this one, prepare yourself for some stunning beauty. (If you can handle it) 😉

Libre

I am not an extremely politics-oriented person. My least favorite class this year was American Government. It just bores me. Before coming to Honduras I researched a little about what was going on in the country, but honestly I skipped over anything politically. It just didn’t seem like it would apply to my, I was only going to be here 3 weeks. So, naturally, Honduran politics were thrown into my face.

We could tell something different was happening this last week. On Wednesday we got caught in the middle of a political parade. People were all wearing red shirts proclaiming “Soy Libre!” Everywhere citizens were selling the Libre party’s paraphernalia. The color of the week was red. Red flags, red shirts, red hats, red horns, everything. It didn’t seem like a big deal. We knew that the political situation in Honduras was unstable, to say the least, and that people were itching for change, but the application of this change became real as the week progressed.

The parades happened almost every night, I think. The party was trying to raise awareness around Santa Barbara. (But since we are Americans who only kind of speak their language, we weren’t totally sure what was happening). The town started becoming slightly more crowded. And, as I said before, the color red was EVERYWHERE. People were excited. “Libertad y refundacion” the posters announced, “Freedom and Refoundation!”

Still, we didn’t really care. We are foreigners in this country, anything they do doesn’t really effect us in the long run (or, we hope not. Because if it does, something is really really wrong.) Saturday, that all changed. Our team went to watch one of our kids’ soccer games. (He was spectacular. Scored 3 goals for the team, totally clobbered the other guys, “Team Evil” I have christened them. Anyway…) and we had to take him back to his house afterwards. His house is right on the edge of El Campo. This is one of the most dangerous areas in Santa Barbara, therefore people tend to steer clear of this general area. If you hear gunshots, you can almost guarantee that it came from El Campo. But this evening EVERYONE was there. There was a massive traffic jam leading up to the entrance. There were tents selling food, giant banners with the party’s slogan, music was blaring, and people were crammed together like sardines. This is not a small area. Imaging the size of 2 or 3 football fields filled with traffic, smoke, music, smells, and shouting, sweating people. There was no way we were getting to Nico’s.

We were a little late to dinner that night. It was a struggle.

That is about the time I realized that the stuff going on in Honduras right now might actually effect me. We heard the sounds of their partying all night long, and we were half a mile away. Fireworks blasted into the night. Loud music blared, people shouted and danced, and it all happened in one day. We learned later that the Libre Party’s presidential candidate was coming to Santa Barbara the next day. All I could think was “So that means this is about to get worse…”

It got worse.

At 4:30 this afternoon we left the orphanage to go get dinner. The main road was totally blocked in a traffic jam. We tried another route to get to Parque Central, but that was even more jammed. Everyone had simply turned off their cars, because they weren’t moving at all. “Yeah, there’s no way we are making it to church on time.” We waited in this line for about 45 minutes before finally getting fed up. Our group decided to just park in a safe place and walk the restaurant.

It’s completely normal for people to stare at us. Every time we ride around in our truck Honduran men yell at us and tell us that they love us. Yesterday a gutsy Honduran motorcyclist tried to touch my leg when driving past our truck. Everyone notices the Americans. Walking through this traffic jam was another experience entirely! Since none of the traffic was moving everyone turned to look at us. People opened their car doors or stuck their entire bodies out of windows to watch us walk by. Our group is made up of 8 girls and 1 guy, so clearly the girls were getting the most attention. Men yelled “Oh my God!” (yes, in English) as we walked by. They catcalled, shouted “I love you!” or “Goodbye!” Every time I accidentally made eye contact with someone they made kissy faces or lifted up their shirt. Some of the attention was a little more hostile. A couple of people in our group were spit on as we walked by. It was a parade of white people, all dressed in their Sunday Best.

Don’t worry, we’re safe. We made it to the restaurant in one piece, and the spit could have been coincidental. But it is truethat Americans are not their favorite people. We tend to involve ourselves in other people’s politics, and our “help” is not always appreciated.

Xiomara Castro, their presidential candidate

It’s fascinating to watch all of this happen around me. Children are waving their parents’ Libre flags. Their presidential candidate’s face is being plastered all over Santa Barbara.We’ve done some research on the party, because we are hoping that maybe it could mean good things for the country. Jury’s out on whether or not it would be good. As far as we can tell, they are all about making things go back to the way they were and punishing the people who hurt them. Lots of revenge, lots of “we’ve been wronged, now fix it.” The candidate is actually the wife of the ex-president (who was ousted a few years ago). The United States is supporting the current president, which means this party is not exactly America-friendly.

The people camped out in El Campo are gone, along with the presidential candidate. But I am curious about what the climate is going to be like around here now that all that is over. The political situation here is just as important to these citizens as the Presidential Election that is coming up for us.

I would say pray for this country. But I have no idea what you would pray for. Continue praying for our team as we get more attention in the city, that we will stay safe. We’re not concerned for our safety. We travel in groups, we stay locked in our fortress at all other times. I have not felt in danger at all, I am just asking for prayer because prayer is an extra layer of safety that’s more powerful than anything we can physically create here.

 

Appreciation

My brother has been my best friend for a few years now. Actually, since I was about 17. I have always known that I could talk to him about anything. He could give me a guy’s perspective on my problems (including the boys I like). He can always snap me out of my own head and remind me of what’s important. I’ve always thought of him as an extremely wise, amazing person, and I am so darn lucky to have someone like him in my life. Being here away from him has been one of the hardest parts of being in Honduras. I can’t just call him when I need him, and sometimes that has really bothered me.

But being here has also made me acutely aware of how lucky I am to have parents like mine. I’m learning this not only from the dysfunctional families of the kids I am working with, but also from some of the stories of my team members. I am going to list just a couple of the reasons why I am so blessed with parents like them (but I’m not going to come even close to mentioning all the reasons why I am lucky to have them).

1. They are still together. I’m not part of a broken family like so many people around me. I have been blessed by being able to see an example of a relationship that works. I’ve seen that it’s not easy, and I’ve seen the importance of having God being the center of your marriage, instead of the “glue” we try to replace him with in this world.
   

   The Rogers Family, 2011

2. They are extremely supportive of me. When I said “Hey, I wanna go to Honduras for 3 months” they were completely on board. Even though that meant I wouldn’t be working this summer, that we would have to find some way to scrounge up around $4,000, and that they wouldn’t get to see me for very long at all. They are letting me find my independence, (and sometimes pushing me in the direction of independence when necessary) but still being there when I need them.
3. When I tell people who my parents are I get good reactions. They have a good name. There are so many people in the world who do not want to be associated with their parents at all. It even embarrasses them when people realize who their family is. I am so blessed to come from a family centered around God, and that people outside of us can see that.
4. We don’t fight. Yeah we have disagreements, and we have times where we don’t get along, but we don’t fight. Some children do not feel safe when they are at home, or they are always walking on eggshells hoping not to set of the monster that’s living with them. In this way I’m so lucky for my whole family. None of us are prone to fighting. We tend to talk things out rationally, instead of letting a situation blow up around us.
5. Have I mentioned that they are supportive of me? Because really, I am blown away by their support sometimes. When I decided to go to Olivet for an extra semester they were proud. When I talk in front of large groups of people, they’re proud. Every time I post on this blog, they remind me of how proud they are. I have no shortage of love flowing from my parents.

How many children have the ability to say all of this about their parents? Even in America it is rare for someone to have parents they trust, love, and respect as much as I do mine. No they’re not perfect, they’re completely human. But I have been blessed with parents who let God govern their lives. I do not do enough to thank them.

So I decided to brag about them in my blog instead.