Some favorites…

This post has nothing to do with Honduras :)

Jeremy and I have been joining the Clow family every Tuesday night to watch the new show, the Voice.  And I must say, we’re hooked.  So, I wanted to share with you a couple of favorite artists and songs. 

I love laid-back music, hence why I’m drawn to all three of these artists.

Javier Colon… I actually found an old CD of his and bought it.  His voice is amazing!

Dia Frampton… She is amazing because she is creative and so talented.  She puts a twist on everything she sings and makes it her own.

Xenia… This girl is only 16 and has one of the most unique voices.  I love it. 

driving

Today I let Edward (age 4) steer my car while I was driving.  I think it made his day.  And I’m sure the look on his face made mine :)

Sometimes culture shock looks like…

wanting to break your door down.

Have you ever read the book “Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day”?  This poor kid is having one of those days and at the end of every page he says, “This is a Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day… I think I’ll move to Australia”.  At the end of the book he mom says to him, “Some days are just like that… even in Australia”.

This book may just sum up my feelings towards life the last week or so.  In general life is good.  But all the little situations that I don’t know how to handle here just about to put me over the edge.

I had car trouble.  I paid someone to fix it.  I had car trouble again.  I ended up stranded and didn’t know how to find a tow truck.  Our house doesn’t have water after 9 at night and I have to leave dishes overnight, which I hate.  I’m sweaty, but church lasted 3 hours and I didn’t get home before 9 to take a shower.  We never have water in one of our bathrooms and now the kitchen sink won’t drain.  I don’t know how to find a plumber.  Our landlord isn’t timely, neither is the fix-it man.  The list goes on…

And then the door broke.  After all the other things we got home last night and the door from the kitchen to the back patio won’t open.  This is where the washer is, our clothes are, the fan for the kitchen plugs in, Jeremy has to walk through there to get to his room… I mean we just keep this door open all the time.  But the lock is broken and it is stuck.  We try a screwdriver, knife, fork, brute force, nothing.  Ugh. 

My normal personality (the one where I have perspective):
”No problem.  We can walk around to get to the back of the house.  It will probably only be for 24 hours.  We can get someone to help us fix it.  Its not a big deal.  No worries.”

My culture-shock personality (total frustration):
”I see no way that we will EVER be able to get this door fixed and I’m frustrated.  Jeremy, can you just break the door down?”

Honestly, I was willing to pay to have an entire new door and doorframe and sleep without a door on the house that night just to have the stupid door opened.  Thankfully, my roommates are less frazzled than I and didn’t think that was a good idea.

John came today and fixed it.  Not a big deal.  But we still don’t have water and I think my nerves are still shot.

Culture shock is real.  It happens people.

But some days are just like this.  It could happen anywhere.  Even in Australia :)

Surprise singing

Last night I went out to Armenia with the team for church.  As I walked into the church the pastor greeted me by saying… “Ahh, buenas, la amiga que canta!”  In other words… “oh, good evening, the friend who sings!”  Hmm, where is this going.

“Did you bring your guitar?”
"Actually, its in the car b/c I was taking it home”
”Oh!  You are going to sing.  You can plug it in up front.”
”Oh… okay”

So with Honduran style reverb and all, we got to sing a couple of praise songs in Spanish.  It was actually great b/c we were able to sing some things that our 17 person team from the states knew in English so they could sing along.  We also sang lots of their traditional songs as well.

I made a crucial error.   I stood on stage from the beginning of the service waiting my turn to play, b/c no one tells you these things.  This meant every time they started singing one of their songs (which I don’t know), they would look at me as if to say, “why aren’t you playing along?”  “Umm… b/c I have never in my life heard this song before…”  One lady asked me afterwards, “why didn’t you play to my song, I wanted to sing to the guitar?”  Well… sorry… I think I need an Armenia church music lesson before this happens again…

Car Wash

I’ve mentioned before that we have kids come to our door all the time for food.  Recently I found out that they collect plastic bottles to sell at the recycle.  Well, that’s easy.  So now we’re collecting plastic bottles to save for them.  The workers at the project drink lots of water and soda, so I’m going to start asking teams to gather up all the bottles and save them for me.  I love things like this.  Its such an easy way to be helpful in such a tangible way.

One of the groups that comes has started coming by almost every day and we’ve had to tell them we will only feed them once a day.  Other than that, they get water or sometimes popsicles :)

Anyway… today it was raining, pouring actually.

They came by today in the rain carrying two umbrellas and saw my car sitting in the rain.  They really wanted to wash it, even though it was pouring.  So… alright.  For $1.50 they actually did a great job.  It made me laugh that they took off their shoes and shirts to keep them dry while they worked… even though they walk all over town.

So, introducing Jeffrey, Ever, and Kevin. :)  Kevin is the youngest and was given the job of holding the umbrella so Jeffrey didn’t get wet.

After they were done they each got 10 lempira (about 50 cents) and a sandwich and popsicle.  Except Jeffrey because he was already here this morning.  But I love that Ever ate half of his and shared it. 

When I asked them what they would do with it they said they were going to buy Baleadas down the street, except Ever, he wanted rice and chicken… of course :)

While they ate we read a Bible story and they said they wanted to read another next time they came.  These kids are so patient with my poor pronunciation!

Anyways… hopefully the first picture of many.  We love these kiddos.

The make-up day

Complaint: It is impossible to keep clocks in this house on the right time because the power is constantly going out and resetting them!

Due to the clock problem I woke up at 5:11 this morning and my alarm was off so I was afraid I was going to oversleep.  So I got up to find a battery operated clock, reset it, and then couldn’t go back to sleep.

BUT… that means I had done almost my whole to-do list for around the house before 9:00.  Then I had a meeting this morning with someone about the girls’ home, met with Kiyomi, went and saw another house, and got two new tires all before 1:00.

This day is so productive that it may make up for the fact that Thursday I did nothing.  I went to see a house, got stranded on the side of the road for over two hours, and bought my third fan belt of the week for my car.   So frustrating.

Now everything is running correctly, I’m home with time to rest, and the power is even on so its cool sitting in front of a fan.  What a great day!

EEEEEzza

Yesterday was Evan’s birthday and got to spend almost the whole day with the Clow kids!  We had a blast.  In the morning we made homemade pizzas and Evan decorated his with pepperoni in the shape of an E.  So the kids declared the day EEEzza day!  Then we went and hung out at the pool and played football and just enjoyed each other.  So fun.  Here’s some pictures!

Definitely easier than making tortillas!

The process…

Before cooking…

End result = delicious

A people belonging to God

Ephesians 2:14-20

“For he himself is our peace, who has made the two groups one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, by setting aside in his flesh the law with its commands and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new humanity out of the two, thus making peace, and in one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility. He came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near. For through him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit.

Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people and also members of his household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone.”

1 Peter 2:9

“But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.”

These verses tell a story of redemption, my story.  It’s the story of the rescue of someone too foolish to even know that they needed a way out.  But it’s the story of a rescuer who didn’t wait to be asked, but who came and sought me out and turned my heart towards Him and gave me a new identity and hope for the future. 

This morning I was being judgmental.  Sitting in my bed, I was thinking about how frustrated it makes me when people are too prideful to ask for help or even too prideful to admit that they are in a season of life where they are needy.  It infuriates me when people try to blame their situations on everyone else and don’t take responsibility for their own actions.

And yet, isn’t that what the Lord saved me from… and isn’t it what He has to keep saving me from?  Many our the days when I think I’ve got it right.  When I think I’m not needy and when I make all kinds of excuses for myself.  Sometimes I even make myself believe that my sin is better than God’s plan for my life and I’m too prideful to see anything else.  Too many times I think that I’m right.

So I’m thankful for a God who doesn’t give up on me.  He just reminds me every time that He is GOOD, and that He LOVES me.  And He reminds me that I am His.  I am part of His family, I have a new identity. 

“A people belonging to God that you may declare His praises………”

Baleadas

Easily my favorite new food and also a very traditional Honduran dish.  There are baleada restaurants all over the place and they are not expensive and also delicious! 

Now that I can make my own tortillas (well, now that I hope I can make my own tortillas :) ), I can make my own delicious baleadas.

So… what are they?  I’m sure you’re curious.

Homemade tortilla + beans + cheese + eggs = delicious.

Then, if you want to make it really awesome you add chicken or sausage or avocado… yum :)

Puedo hacer tortillas!

Today I had a cooking adventure with some Honduran friends.  I actually didn’t have my camera, and since I was covered in flour and shortening, that was probably a good thing.  But here are some pictures Mike caught for me.

When I got there we started by making empañadas.  This is a bread dough stuffed with all different kinds of goodness.  Our were cinnamon and cream cheese… yum!  Mine were not very pretty when I started, but got better over time.

Then we made corn tortillas, which is what I’m doing here.  They are super easy, by the way.

Then lastly, we made flour tortillas.  These are delicious.  I’m not kidding, they are my favorite thing in Honduras.  They are thick and yummy and I needed to learn how to make them, dough and all.  So, Teresa was patient with me and actually measured things for me so I could try to learn.  There was still a lot of adding a pinch of this and just a little more water… but in general I think I’ve got it.  I’m going to try on my own tomorrow.  But the dough is the easy part.  After that its like watching guys at a pizzeria.  They just throw the dough back and forth hand to hand making perfect circles.  I made some really cool map shapes, but not many perfect circles.  I need some practice :)  And the daughters in the family just laughed at me b/c they’ve been doing this as long as they can remember.

All that to say, it was really fun!  And this week’s short-term team got to help too.  They made their own tortillas for their lunch!

On ministering when you don’t want to…

Yep, I said it.  There are times when I just flat out don’t want to do it.

Yesterday I woke up at 5:30 in the morning feeling terrible, bad headache, nauseous, just bad.  Then I rode a pretty rocky ferry for an hour… that didn’t help.  When I got home I called Erin and she brought me some medicine, because she’s awesome.  While she was there the precious kids that we love stopped by.  Bethany made them some oatmeal and took it outside b/c I did not want to get off the couch.  Finally I mustered up enough energy to take them some water and say hello.

Well, they were carrying around a bag of clothes that they had dug out of various people’s trashcans.  And since they were going to be walking around awhile they asked if they could leave it in our gate and come back for it around 4.  Of course, I said, and why don’t have some dinner for you?  I was of course thinking I would be feeling better by then.  They left and I promptly feel asleep for the next 3 hours… whoops.  By the time I woke up I still didn’t feel good or have the inclination or really time to cook much of anything.

So what happens when you don’t feel good and precious kids come to your gate anyway?  You end up ordering pizza, reading the Jesus Storybook Bible, and sitting on the driveway chatting for an hour.  It was the best thing I’ve done all week.  And I loved every second of it.  I still went to bed at 8:30 last night, but it was worth it.

It just reminds me that the Lord doesn’t wait for us to be at our best to ask us to be obedient.  In the middle of our weakness, our unshowered, nauseous weakness, He just asks that we obey and share what we’ve been given.  Maybe its food, maybe it’s a word of truth.  Nothing life shattering happened yesterday except a kick in the face reminder that life is not about me.  And if I can’t get my butt of the couch to love on kids that have been digging through the trash all day then I don’t really understand the love the Lord has given me.  So I’m thankful He brought them to the gate.

One day soon I hope to get a picture of these sweet kids to share with you.  For now just pray for them.  They are coming back soon for food and another story :)

Blown Away

After team #1 came through we had some time off before hosting our second team of the summer who arrive today!  We’re so excited about this team from Gainesville, FL who will be working with us this week!

Since we had some down time I decided to take the advice I’ve been given and enjoy the fact that I’m going to live near one of the coolest reefs in the world for the next couple of years.  Scuba diving has always terrified me, the whole breathing under water thing just didn’t sound very safe.  But there is a great deal out on Utila to get your basic training, so Jeremy and I headed out there to try it out.  We both really loved it, although I think he loved it more since he hasn’t come back yet :)

Aside from having some good brother/sister time, I really was blown away by the whole experience.  I just keep coming back to being totally in AWE of a creator God who put every detail into place.  So many things that I haven’t ever seen and don’t even know exist are working together in perfect unison to maintain a beautiful and well-designed creation.  When you go underwater you see a whole new world.  And its such a small glimpse… I look at coral and I only see what’s going on on the surface and big enough for my eye to see.  I see small fish that form a cleaning station to clean bigger fish and know they have to work together to get the job done.  Its just amazing all the details.  And to think that God spoke all this into existence by His very words.  It truly is a miracle. 

So today I am reminded of the Lord’s power and creativity and His unmistakable goodness to let us sneak glimpses of it.

Oops... small editing note...

If you're in the Cary area and would like to come by on Wednesday, July 6th, please RSVP to my mom, Darcie Innes at (919)460-6008 or by email at wolfpackfans@earthlink.net.

Thanks!

Newsletter–June 2011

June 2011

For the team from Faith

Thank you thank you!

We’re so glad you came and hope that we see you again :)  Keep us in your prayers! 

Here are some pictures from your week.  Feel free to take them and post them on facebook or print them off.  Enjoy!https://picasaweb.google.com/117906650266616543965/SummerTeam1?authkey=Gv1sRgCNTX_6y88Jbk_wE#

So thankful…

Tonight I’m so thankful for the Lord’s provision. 

“Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.”  Ephesians 3:20-21

Immeasurable more than all we ask or imagine… its true.

The first time…

The first time I went on a mission trip I went to Haiti.  I had no idea what I was doing or how to love the people there.  I didn’t engage well with people, I didn’t speak Creol, and I don’t remember anyone’s name.  I was overwhelmed.  I saw people living in shacks and sharing space with their 15 closest relatives.  I saw floors that were made of dirt, but carefully swept so that their house would be “clean”.  And I was overwhelmed and blown away with the “wrongness” of it all.  That it wasn’t right that I lived where I lived and they lived like this.  I was exposed to witchcraft for the first time as we would sit on our compound and hear the drums and screams going.  We lost power at 6 at night, went to bed early, and woke up with the sun.  We ate the same food pretty much all week.  Honestly, I was ready to go home.  But it changed me.

Its been a long time… but the Lord started capturing my heart even then.  I pray that He would begin doing that with some of those who come through Honduras this summer as well.

And I need their perspective.  I need those new, fresh eyes who have never seen this before to remind me to be overwhelmed.  It is hard and so shockingly different than what we are used to and how we grew up.  And there is a wrongness to that.  It is shocking that 6 people live in a one-room house the size of my living room.  It is wrong that kids go without food until malnourishment makes their hair turn yellow.

I have ceased to be shocked all the time.  But I have also started to see that this isn’t all of who these people are.  They are so much more than what they have or don’t have.  There is a spiritual and emotional part of their hearts that needs to be known and fought for and taught and nurtured.

Anyway… just pondering today.  Thankful that the Lord uses our glimpses into the nations, even when we have no idea what we’re doing, to increase our heart to see the Gospel go out to the world. 

more than pictures

Some of these children are stealing my heart.

I’m serious about that.  I love that I can actually communicate with these kids.  Not fluently, not even always well, but we can joke around and really talk to each other.  And I’m getting to know their personalities.  I can tell when their feelings are hurt or when they are being sarcastic.  I’ve met one girl who is about 14 who just cracks me up.  We love joking around with each other and laugh constantly when we’re talking.  They love getting special attention and ask me if I remember their names (which I don’t always yet, but it will come).

Every face has a personality.

I’ve gone on lots of short-term missions trips, I have pictures of lots of little faces from lots of different places.  But I’ve never gotten to really know them until now.  And it really is amazing to get to see glimpses into who they really are.  And I love it.

La pfffff

There is a precious little kid named “Ever” who lives in Armenia Bonito.  Today he went walking into the building and said…

“Necesito la pfffff” (translation “I need the pffffff”)

Umm… that’s not English or Spanish?

He comes back out a couple minutes later with the air pump for the soccer ball.  Of course, the pfffff!

It made me smile :) 

As did the double rainbow that we saw after some really heavy rain this morning.  The water situation here is terrible right now, we have 16 hours a water a day in my neighborhood, but some don’t have water at all.  So the rain was welcome and so was the rainbow as yet another reminder that our God is faithful and keeps His promises!  Praise Him for that!

Conference

Here are some more pictures from the conference this weekend. 

Bill Yarbrough was the speaker for the weekend.

This morning we broke into small groups…

These are some of the kids from one of the families that my team knows really well.  Their mom is going to be cooking lunch once a week for our summer teams.

This is Alisson.  She is five years old and really precious.  She came to the conference with her mom and did amazingly well sitting still.  So during the breaks we played and she shared candy with me :)

Erin made certificates for each of the conference attendees.  They really appreciated them. 

I really loved getting to spend the weekend with all of these people in Armenia Bonito.  Keep praying that they will grow in knowledge of Christ and confidence in His grace.

La Musica

This weekend we are hosting a theological conference in Armenia Bonito.  This is a great time for nationals to come and learn more about Scripture.  Many of them have not had much opportunity to dive really deeply into the Word.  It makes me so grateful for all the youth groups, summer camp, conferences, solid preaching, etc. that I have received.  I mean, honestly, the list goes on and on to the point that at times in colleges I really didn’t want to go to another conference b/c I had been to so many.  What a privilege that I took for granted, just being taught the Word of God.

This weekend Bill is here from the MTW office to share and to teach.  Its been such a blessing. 

Also, I was put in charge of the singing and prayer times.  So I enlisted my brother Jeremy to sing and play, Bethany to sing, and Leo to play the conga drum.  Yep, he’d never played on a drum before, but he did great!  Oh, and the national pastor jumped in on the drum set at the last minute as well.

I was a little nervous before-hand because I had to introduce everything in Spanish and lead the prayer time in Spanish.  I told Bill that he was my panic button and if I forgot every Spanish word I knew I was just going to call him up and we’d just pray for a long time.  :)  But it actually went well for a first time and I don’t think I’ll be quite as nervous tonight. 

Please be praying for the people who are coming to the conference.  We would really love to see the Lord break the chains of works righteousness and allow these people to really know and experience His life-changing free grace!

I don’t understand…

Today I looked at someone straight in the face and said, “umm… no entiendo”, translation, “I don’t understand”.  Let me just let you in on the whole story.  I wish I could tell you in person b/c it would be so much funnier.

All of my days in Honduras have had one thing in common, they contain all kinds of things that I did not expect to happen.  Like the day that the horse drawn cart took my trash pile away.  Or the day that I woke up to men in my backyard fixing my gutter. Or the day that there was a festival, basically in my driveway.  I just am caught off-guard here all the time.  Today was no exception.

I had an appointment with our team’s lawyer this morning.  We were going to go and have some meetings with people who can help my vision for working with young moms come to fruition.  I was excited, and nervous.  This was going to be hours of Spanish, meeting new people, networking… all things that drain me. 

So we go to this one place that is sponsored by the government.  They give all kinds of skills classes for free to anyone who wants to take them.  (Which, by the way, I don’t think very many people know about this, because its awesome and they would be doing it.)  Its going to be amazing once I’m working with girls to send them here and let them learn skills that can help them get jobs.  For example, cooking, sewing, english, hotel work, etc.

We get there and go in to talk to the receptionist.  Of course they don’t have a catalogue of classes, that would be too easy.  So we’re looking at some lists of classes they offer, but they aren’t all written down anywhere.  She’s telling us about the classes and how to sign up.  There isn’t a schedule, they just wait ‘till there are 15 people who want to do it, then offer the class.

So there is sign-up going on for a basic cooking class.  I’m not totally paying attention b/c I’m doing something else, but I see my lawyer writing her name down.  Umm… okay?!? 
So she says to me, “can I write your name down?” 
Which is when I say… “I don’t understand.  Am I going to come and attend this class.” 
“Yep, you and I are going to take this class together so that you can get to know people and learn how the system works.” 
“Well, umm, okay, sign me up.  When is it?”
”We don’t know.  Four hours a day for five days whenever they have enough people.”

Well, okay flexibility.  Here I come :)  I’m taking a cooking class, for research!  I’m sure she had told me this beforehand that we’d be signing up for a class, but somehow I totally missed that part.

So here’s to hoping that I meet lots of people, understand something, and don’t fail every test!