Happy Father's Day

Sometimes I feel so out of it and life goes by so fast. I am very "home" sick for Honduras and my wonderful friends and family, but I know I must continue here and now where God has put me.

I have the most wonderful husband in the world. He helps me so much. I am so thankful that God has given me such a wonderful companion.

I also want to give thanks for my dad. We have had our differences, and life has been rough, but I love him and I'm glad that I'm closer to him than I was when I was when I was a teen.

Thank you Lord for everything you have given me.

Unknown Future

I'm at a place in my life where I'm not sure what to do next. I don't know where God is leading me. I feel like I'm being pulled in many directions,
BUT
then I look back and remember being a teenager. I remember suffering from depression severely and thinking that no one loved me or cared about me. I remember my parents being too busy to pay attention to me. I remember not having friends. I remember eating lunch in the bathroom at school because I didn't have any friends to sit by me and I was too embarrassed to sit alone. I remember planning to kill myself, and giving my life to Christ shortly after. I remember helping in the inner-city. I remember being changed by the children that I worked with and the circumstances that they lived in. I remember signing up to sponsor a child in Honduras, which later led to a trip down there to meet her. I remember being afraid and alone. I remember writing that I was never going to go back to Honduras again at the beginning of the week, and having my heart changed by the miracles I witnessed at the end of the week. I remember deciding to spend time in Honduras after I graduated. I studied Spanish in Copan. I taught English in elementary school near Choluteca. Started college in Illinois. Left college. Went to Costa Rica to learn to teach TEFL classes. Went back to Honduras in la Ceiba to help and teach in an orphanage. Went to teach in a high school near San Marcos de Colón. Overall spend 2 and a half years in Honduras helping and doing various things. Met my husband. Started working on visa papers. Spent various months in Nicaragua getting to know his family. Brought him to the US. Married him.

I just don't know what's next, but it's amazing looking back knowing that God knew what He was doing the whole time and how it worked out for the best. I know that He will continue to do that in my life and that it will work out one way or another.. whether I stay here in the US or go back to Honduras or Nicaragua. I just have to wait for the Lord... and I will gladly, because I know He has my best in mind.

Old Friend

Today I got to sit down with one of my oldest and best friends. We went to eat and sat and talked for a long time. It's nice being able to talk to her about everything. It's interesting how some of our problems are still the same ones that we had many years ago, and some are the exact same battles that we are fighting today. It's a special time to get to fellowship with her. I think this is a small glimpse of how God wants us to fellowship with Him. A mere shadow of the relationship that He wants us to have with Him. It's a beautiful thing.

Please join me in praying for Central America. The tropical storm has effected many people and destroyed many homes.

I miss...

I miss walking all through town to buy food or anything else we needed.

I miss passing more bicycles on the streets than cars.

I miss the world where the only internet people use is at an internet cafe.

I miss washing clothes by hand outside when it's hot. ((Please, don't asking me why))

I miss going to the park every night as a social activity. 

I miss spending all day with the family. 

I miss the family values that were held by the people.

I miss getting on the crowded buses to go shopping every couple of weeks.

I miss food cooked over a fire.

I don't miss the outhouse that usually had a skunk in it at night.

I don't miss the cockroaches.

I don't miss the days when the water would leave.

I don't miss the tremendous amount of mud from the rain.

I don't miss the streets filled with rocks that ruined shoes in a week.

I don't miss the outrageous heat.

I don't miss getting pushed while fighting for a place in line to get on the bus.

I don't miss trying to pass between countries and the expensive fees for Americans.

I don't miss walking somewhere with a guy who decided to urinate wherever he pleased.

I don't miss restrooms where you had to pay to use them.

I don't miss having no electricity.

This Week

Today I watched Dear John.
I'm feeling melancholy as I think about the past year.
Outside my window I see darkness.
Something that's inspired me recently is my sister.
The prayer of my heart this week is that God would mold me into the me that He created me to be.
I am creating an awesome scrapbook of my wedding, although at this point most of my creative "awesomeness" is still in my head and not actually on paper.
I am reading Revolution In World Missions.
I am thinking about betrayal. 
A spiritual lesson I'm learning is how important it is to spend time with God daily and allow Him to direct my marriage. Sometimes I feel like my life is being burned by fire, but then I think of The Crucible, a play that I read in high school and how God is refining my life and my marriage through the trials, making us stronger. He is giving me an opportunity to grow and to cast off the impurities. 
My goal for next week is to improve my prayer life. I want to start praying at all times and in all situations, not just when I feel I need God's help.

Prayer is Powerful

When I was volunteering full time at an orphanage in Honduras, we had thirteen toddlers and three babies. It is a permanent home for the children, because they are considered non-adoptable. Many times their were up to twenty children because of the single mom's ministry that the missionaries were also doing in their home. With just a few workers at a time, any "normal" activity proved to be eventful, sometimes more than other times.

I remember when Jefferson, whom we called "Chele", fell down the stairs. He fell twelve feet and landed on his head, because he was trying to run from the "tia" who was taking care of him. At the time, the stairs were some-what open. The rule was that someone had to hold the little children's hands when they were going down the stairs. Well, this particular morning Chele was feeling very mischievous. He was running from the tia that was taking care of him, with the biggest grin on his face. That was the last thing I saw before he fell down the flight of stairs. His big, goofy, mischievous grin. He landed on his head. When he was picked up at the bottom of the stairs, he wasn't breathing. We called Papá, the missionary who is considered the father of the family, and he picked the child up and tried to give him mouth to mouth. No change. We thought he was going to die, but God had a bigger purpose in mind for Chele's life. David, the missionary's son, fell to his knees and began to pray. We all started crying and praying. Mamá was praying upstairs calling out to the Lord. Papá took Chele to the hospital, meanwhile we had all the toddlers praying as well. They knew something was wrong with their brother and they wanted to help him, so they started praying too. We found out from Papá that on the twenty minute drive to the hospital that Chele turned blue and purple and wasn't breathing. His heart seemed to stop, but somehow he made it to the hospital alive and started breathing again. The took several tests and their was no internal trauma or even a bump on his head. A miracle. Chele was fine. He was alright. He was welcomed home by all his little brothers and sisters kissing his "boo boo" and giving him hugs.

It's interesting that Chele wasn't breathing until about the time that the little children began to pray. I think kids can make all the difference. They are so pure of heart. Children are so beautiful. 

Outhouse Fun

This is a outside a house that I rented in Nicaragua for a little over two months. In the background you can see my outhouse. Trust me, you don't want to see it up close and personal. Today I was thinking about all the interesting situations with outhouses that I've lived through. In Central America they vary from being a hole in the ground, a little pipe sticking up in the ground, to a concrete whole that actually looks like a toilet and is much more comfortable. Well, when I first moved into this little house, I was amazed that the outhouse didn't smell. I found out at night that it was crawling with cockroaches. My boyfriend at the time (who's now my husband) said that we should try to get them out by spraying them with spray. My husband is from Nicaragua, but I don't think he had personally ever dealt with a cockroach problem. They either leave them alone or they don't have them. So he sprayed the outhouse. Well, about fifteen minutes later hundreds of cockroaches come running out and heading for our house. Our house filled with cockroaches in a record amount of time and my husband and I along with three of his little brothers were trying to kill them as quickly as possible. The neighbor's chickens came over and were eating the ones outside as they tried to crawl to safety. There were cockroaches EVERYWHERE. I didn't know so many could possibly live in such a small hole in the ground. I could not use the outhouse for several days because they kept coming up from the bottom and were constantly trying to make their way toward "safety". It was disgusting. I'm not sure if there's a right way to try to get cockroaches out, but this was disgusting and I don't plan on trying it again.

On New Years Eve, we were waiting for the festivities to begin in a small town in Nicaragua at this same house. I saw a skunk in the bushes and Moi (my husband, then my boyfriend) chased him away with his little brothers. About thirty minutes later I had to go to the bathroom. I was afraid because I told Moi that the skunk could be in there. He told me that it wasn't and so I went to the outhouse to do my business. Well, I opened the door and guess who was staring at me, none other than the skunk. We left to go to the bathroom at his sister's house, because I didn't want anyone to get sprayed by the skunk. We came back an hour later, and the skunk was still in the bathroom. For two weeks the skunk visited and lived in our outhouse almost every night. I seemed to be the one that always found him and the left running for the house. I was so scared the skunk was going to spray me! Anyway, I ended up always waking up someone in the middle of the night to have them check the outhouse for skunks for the next several weeks. We ended up living the outhouse door open at night since the skunk could get in anyway, so that it would be easier to check on without getting too close to the skunk. It was an adventure that I would rather not repeat.