Bible Study with Y

Friday I did Y's weekly book study with her. She is reading the book "Lies that Young Women Believe". She was engaged in the book and since the book in Spanish several times we just died laughing because there were words that neither of us knew the definition of. She is still in the first few chapters and the book is talking about Eve and how all the lies that women believe go back to the first lie that the first women believed from Satan in the garden. The book quoted Psalm 119:11 "I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you." When the Psalm was quoted she immediately said, we have to look that up and she found it in her Bible. She made me read the entire Psalm outloud (which was a little painful to hear me reading in Spanish :) When I had finished she said "that's beautiful, I love it". And later when Shannon came over she read the verse to her. It's encouraging to see her excited about God's word and applying the book to her life. Even in the 2 months that I've been here I can see a change in her. She's joyful and pleasant to be around and I am excited to get to spend more time with her!
On a completely unrelated note when I got ready to leave later in the day it was like 1:45 and I hadn't eaten lunch yet so I said I have to go I'm so hungry. Well the house mom heard me and was giving me a hard time for not telling her when I got there at 12:30 that I hadn't eaten lunch yet. Y interjects and says "yeah, here at Puerta de Esperanza (which means door of hope) we have hope for food and for water". Several times a day a think, 'This is my job? I love it!' My time yesterday with Y was one of those times:)

Fernando

Yesterday I started tutoring Fernando! He's 14 and has never gone to school. He lives with his older brother and washes windows at the stop light to earn money. He is very excited about the prospect of learning to read and potentially going to school sometime in the near future. He's a little self-conscious of the fact he can't read and doesn't want the other boys at the center (which now has a name...Peter Project) to know so I was a little unsure of how he would do. But we met at the center an hour before the other boys came yesterday and he did awesome. We worked on writing his name and identifying all the letters and sounds in his name and ended with making his name out of play-dough. I'm glad all those Early Childhood Education classes can come in use all the way in Honduras! It's our Monday plan now and I'm excited to see how much he's going to grow and would love to see him in school sometime soon!

After tutoring Fernando in the morning I spent yesterday afternoon going to several government buildings with C from Puerta de Esperanza supposedly finishing ALL the necessary permissions needed from the government to open the used clothing store. But this is Honduras, nothing is that simple, and so maybe today it will all be finished?

BUSY Week!

This past week was a long week! I feel like I was able to get a good insight into the different ministries my teammates have here and understand better what they do everyday and help to discern what I will be doing everyday. This week the drop-in center for the streetkids opened! Right now the center is opened 3 days a week. The kids are able to come and have a hot lunch and hangout and play board games or soccer and receive positive attention from adults and experience the love of Christ. This week the center averaged between 6-10 kids each day. These kids come from all different backgrounds. 2 boys wash windows at the stoplight to pay for their school. Their family is just poor and can't afford to send them but they have a dad who is very involved and was waiting with them when we picked them up on Monday. Another boy literally sleeps on the streets. He has a grandmother who he sometimes stays with but he hasn't been there for a few weeks now. Pray for these boys and pray for Kate and for Hector (a Honduran who works with the streetchild ministry here) that they can reach them.

 Lunchtime at the drop-in center

An Uno game at the Streetchild drop-in center

The second half of my week was spent with Shannon at Puerta de Esperanza, a home she started for young single mothers and their babies. Currently 2 girls and 3 babies live at PDE. C is 19 and is in college. She has a 10 month old little boy, W. Y is 16 and is in beauty school. She has a 2 year old little girl named J. C is in college and is taking an English class I have been helping her some with her homework the past 2 weeks. This week Y decided she wanted to learn English, so twice this week I met with her and we learned some basic English. The first day we met it took her 30 minutes to say a single word in English. All she kept saying was "I can't", "I'm nervous", "I don't even know the letters, so I can never learn English". And while this speaks volumes about her self-esteem the even sadder thing is that she has a 2 year old little girl who is watching her and taking cues from her. 2 days later J was sitting in my lap playing with a toy. The toy was sticking and all of the characters wouldn't function correctly. After trying a few times J said, "I can't". She refused to even try any more she just kept whining and saying she couldn't. She broke my heart. It was something so simple, 2 words she had heard her mother say over and over again, "no puedo". Pray for these girls and these sweet babies. Pray that they would understand and experience the grace of Christ.

J playing with a toy at Puerta de Esperanza

Lessons from Honduras

Things I learned about Honduras today....
#1 The post office gets robbed. Yes, that's right robbed. I went with Shannon to pick up a package today and the lady couldn't find it. After looking for 10 minutes she said, look we were robbed and they maybe stole it. This isn't the first time the post office has been robbed either....(They did eventual find her package, which was really only a card. Probably why it wasn't stolen)
#2 You can go into a copy shop and buy 5 sheets of blank computer paper. Don't need a whole pack? Well come to Honduras where you can buy paper by the sheet. (5 sheets cost us $.10)
#3 Two bags of Kashi cereal will set you back about $15 (yes for cereal, no I definitely didn't buy any)
#4 When the lights go out (which inevitably happens everyday) people flock to the mall to enjoy the generator-powered AC
#5 There are used clothing stores literally on EVERY corner. Great for me when I need shorts cause let me tell you there is no way I can wear the jeans and capris here that I wore in Costa Rica. I would die. So today Kate, Shannon, and I did a little shopping, Honduran style. 2 stores and $30 later I am now  the owner of 6 more pairs of shorts and a tank top. And these are totally things I would have bought in the states. I got some Old Navy, Gap and Target stuff (my 3 favorite stores). Oh and by the way while on the topic of used clothing stores Puerta de Esperanza (the home for young mothers and their babies) is opening a store! Today we went and moved all of the clothing that had been donated along with the racks into the store! Friday hopefully we'll get to paint and then well set the store up! This is an awesome way for the girls to work and become self-sufficient. Pray for paperwork to go smoothly (which would be an anomaly for Honduras) and that a contract could be signed next week so the store can open soon!

Oh southern problems...

So today I helped teach my first English class. I had a group of 5 girls. It was fun, they were all energetic and excited to be there. A few were a little shy about pronunciation but overall it was great. Mike said, and I quote "Yeah, it helps you got all the smart ones." We read a Clifford book (in English of course) and after every few pages I would ask comprehension questions (in Spanish). The teacher in me wanted to ask all these really great questions, however the Spanish-as-a-second-language part of me prohibited some of those great questions from happening. BUT overall the girls understood what was happening in the story and seemed to enjoy the funny parts. Then we moved on to the vocabulary for the day-transportation/travel themed words. It was during this section I realized how thick of a southern accent I sometimes have...for example the words trip, drive, and airport to name a few (I think its the 'i' sounds..). The girls were repeating me and several times I had to stop and re-say the word myself. So in a few years when there are all these Honduran girls speaking English with a southern accent you will know why :)
After our themed vocab for the day we read a Bible passage in Spanish and then read the simple, what would be children's story Bible version in English. Today it was about the "important" man who came to Jesus wanting his son to be healed and who Jesus healed without even leaving where he was. Afterwards we talked about that Jesus didn't even need to see the boy to heal him because he is powerful.
At the end I tested the girls and they all passed for the day, imagine that :)

 

Teaching English class in Armenia Bonito

Jen in Honduras- August Newsletter

                                                                               

 August Newsletter

Short term teams!

Well I arrived in Honduras! And within an hour of me arriving 2 short-term teams from the states did as well. The past 3 weeks have been filled with 6 (YES 6!) short-term teams. The first week I was here there were 2 dentists visiting so we hosted clinic 2 days in the community of La Fe and 2 days in the community of Armenia Bonito. I spent the week translating for the dentists and when it was slow playing with kids who were hanging around.

Dental Clinic in the community of La Fe

 

The second week we had a brigade of medical students so again we hosted clinic 4 days that week in La Fe and Armenia Bonito. I translated, helped to do patient intake, and of course played with the kids J I also got to know one of the girls who lives at Puerta de Esperanza the house for young single moms. Carolina helped us with clinic all week. She is 19 and has a 10 month old baby boy named William. They are both precious and Carolina loves to help and to serve others.

 

Hanging out with kids during a break from clinic in La Fe

This past week (our last week of hosting teams for the summer) was a “normal” week (which simply means we had no dentist or doctors). I was able to go to Kid’s Club (something similar to Good News Club or VBS) in both La Fe and Armenia Bonito. I was blown away by how much the kids are learning and understanding about Christ and the gospel.

My long lost daughter in the community of Armenia Bonito (who knew?)

 

Prayer Requests:

·         Pray for my financial needs. I am currently at 83% of my support so I am lacking about $250 per month.

·         Pray for wisdom and guidance as I try to figure out now that short term teams are gone what exactly my ministry here will look like.

Kid's Clubs, Taxis, and HUGE rocks, oh my

Yesterday I got to go to Kid's Club (something kind of like Good News Club or VBS) for the first time. And I didn't get to go to just one but to 2! In the morning I went to the community of La Fe to their weekly Kid's Club hosted by some of my teammates. A visiting short term team had prepared and had songs, a story, games, and crafts! The kids loved it! The team did awesome and I would say that I helped but really I just held a super cute baby the entire time.

me and Dixiana at Kid's Club in La Fe

kids enjoying thier visors and balloons in La Fe

Dixiana and her little brother (aka the baby I held all of Kid's Club instead of helping:)

Then in the afternoon I went to the community of Armenia Bonita about 30 minutes away to the other weekly Kid's Club hosted by a different one of my teammates. This one wasn't hosted by a short-term team so it was more of a routine and the kids at the end recited the answer to the catechism question for the week. The question was (and I'm paraphrasing because it was in Spanish) "Why did God give us the Bible?" I was completely blown away when not once but twice kids who were maybe 4 or 5 came up and repeated the entire answer without any help or prompting! It was incredible! These kids every week are not only hearing the gospel but are memorizing scripture and important foundational gospel truths!

Then today it was a new adventure. I have been spending a lot of time with one of the girls, C, from Puerta de Esperanza, the home for single moms and their babies. Today C needed to go to the bank to pay her college tuition, Shannon was busy with the teams and couldn’t drive her C was going to have to take a taxi. She doesn’t like taking the taxi by herself so I went along. So C, her 10 month old W, and I get into the taxi in front of where I live. (Keep in mind I have only left where I live with team members in their cars up until this point) As we drive off I ask, “Do you know how to get back here because I have no idea?” To which she replies, “I think so, we’ll see.” (She sounds really confident right!) So we get to bank and both realize that neither of us has as much cash as we thought we did. We spend several minutes checking all the pockets of our bags and are still about $.25 short. So the taxi driver realizes what is wrong and is getting a little upset. Finally, luckily (or guess more by God’s provision), C finds more money in the bottom of her bag, so we pay. We go to the bank everything is great. (We intentionally took the baby even though we could have easily left him with someone because here being old, pregnant or holding a small child means you don’t wait in line.) We go back outside get in a taxi and tell the driver “La Isle” which is the neighborhood/community we live in. We come into La Isle and he asks where to. (There are no such things as addresses here and the streets don’t have street signs with names. So you tell people, 200 meters north of this store, or close to this ball field, or next to the 2 story white house.) C responds “I don’t know exact directions but I tell you when I see it.” He was not loving that answer and after driving for a few minutes threatened to put us out right there. Again by God’s provision, because I definitely have no idea how we finally made our way back, we saw a street we both recognized and were able to direct him. So between the adventure of that this morning and the adventure of going to a local river with some kids in Armenia Bonita and jumping off a HUGE, REALLY HIGH rock(I’m terrible with estimating size or distance, so I have no idea how high it really was) this afternoon I’m trying to figure out what to do next J

As a side note, I am still at about 83% of my support so if you would like to give or no some one who would.....