Has it been three weeks already?

The pictures here are of the soccer field and my host sisters - can you spot them?-, a cultural dance the night of Dia de Independencia, my host mother- in her beautiful garden- and my good friend, Oscar, and last, y definitely least, the baño (bathroom)... for Abby to remember the adventures of using the facilities. (Click on the picture to enlarge)


















Gracias a Dios (thanks to God) I am here in Azacualpa and have most of my sanity. As I write this update it is hard to comprehend that I have been here three weeks already. Still my spanish is quite poor but I have been blessed with some tutors here. I will say that as I continue to struggle, the relationships that seem to build themselves, do not recognize language barriers. The children in my host family (including some of their cousins, half-siblings and neighbors) have both been my teachers and my friends. The youngest ones talk to me just as if I can understand every word they say when most of the time I can´t. My companions in the office have been a little frustrated at times with my inability to understand them... after the third time they repeat the same phrase, which I already told them I don´t understand. Still, things are coming along.

It is incredible when I think back to my expectations and naive understanding of where I was coming and the work that I would be doing. I half expected a much different world, not just a different culture and language. I have learned a great deal already about managing the environment here and different methods of farming. At times, with the exception of the language, when driving through some of the pine forests of the mountains, I think back to my time in Oregon. Or when driving through the fields of corn or cow pastures, I realize that things are not so different here. The small villages up in the mountains are made up of the same type of people you and I are. I quickly lost the disillusionment of seeing people as anything other than who they are instead of what they have or do not have. They experience the same joy that we do and I often wonder who is happier in the end, those with more or those with less... but one thing is clear, those with less are often much more willing to share what they do have. This is a convicting topic, I think, for many of us. How have we treated visitors, not only to our house and our town, but to our country? to our churches? People have literally gone out of their way to get me something they only ASSUMED that I desired. How many of us do that with people in our lives?

I will say that for me, the living situation has been quite an adjustment. I learned soon after I moved into my ¨own¨ room that I was actually sharing it with many flying and crawling creatures. Well, last week I had to have a talk with these roommates. I told them all that as long as they did not bite me, crawl on me or just freak me out, that for these ten months I could tolerate them, with the help of a fan in my room... thank the Lord. Well apparently the city of Azacualpa was unaware of this compromise and came through the streets (and even into the houses with gas powered pumps that spray a sort of insecticide). The word is that the hurricane may have pushed many of these mosquitoes from the east side of the country our direction and that it has been a bit worse than usual. The bites are not what they worry about, its the dengue fever that can lay a person up for a few days that they are trying to avoid. For me the shower and the toilet are the two most vulnerable areas for mosquito bites. Also last night when I went to the bathroom, I was unaware that anyone else was using it and as I opened the door, was almost trampled by a large, equally shocked, cockroach.

Doña Maria, my host mother, is an elderly woman who is extremely attentive and has a heart of gold but also is well respected in the community. There is no one that I would rather live with... and it helps that her back yard is adjacent to the soccer campo where they have games every Sunday. Instead of paying the entrance fee to watch from the bleachers, I climb the mango tree with a few of my young friends and watch the game perched in the tree. Last weekend, the power went out again, as it seems to daily, during the game and when it returned an hour or more later and we returned to our perches, it seemed as though everyone had just waited at the field for it to return. This surprised me for 2 reasons: 1) most of the time the power takes a lot longer to return and 2) it showed me how many people´s weekend revolves around the game.

This is the younger of the 2 sisters, Jisbela, in her beautiful ¨Independence Day¨ dress her mother made for her.


I am anxious to find my place here. I look forward to speaking comfortably and understanding more about the environment, religions, family, and culture...not to say that I have not already had algun conversaciones sobre los topicos. I could most definitely keep going, but to keep you thirsty for more, I will leave you here for now. Where is your passion??? Don´t suppress it...

Finally on my way to Azacualpa

Maybe time for an update...

I have just finished up language school in Copan with Sarah and received some frantic emails about the hurricane (thanks for caring, though). We are back here in San Pedro Sula, now. We just had a short weekend of team meetings (all those on the MCC team currently in Honduras- there are 10 of us) and were able to build some friendships that will be strengthened through out the year. We all went to a local soccer game last night at the stadium, which is one tier about 50 rows up on 3 of the 4 sides. The stadium was kinda empty because the teams playing were not intense rivals so it wasn't much to talk about. Still the game, for me, was awesome. I'm looking forward to watching a lot of soccer and playing when I can.

The families that you see here are my host mother, Dona Tina (who cooked excellent meals for what seemed to be the entire city of Copan) and her Daughter (who's name I never could get). The other is some other memebers of the family and Sarah's teacher (the stud in the blue named Luis). The little boy, Giovanni (3 yrs old) was fun to watch and try to understand. We became good friends though.

This morning in church I had somewhat of a realization. As usual, I was trying to identify words or phrases that I heard in the service, and trying to not let my mind wander, which it tends to do when you can't understand much. In one of those wandering moments I realized that I shouldn't be frustrated after these 2 weeks of language school because I still can't understand much or still can't remember the Spanish words for things I'm trying to say. This is the area that I need to have faith in while I'm here: that everything will happen in God's timing so that He gets the credit for it and not me. So while I could be jealous of how well Sarah is doing with her ability to communicate, I must not compare and instead lean a bit more on Him, whose power is made perfect through our weaknesses.



Tomorrow at 6:30 am I am being picked up to head out to Azacualpa and get set up with my host family, who I'm sure you will hear much about this year. It's been a little hard transitioning so much these last few weeks that I'm more than ready to settle in and get to know some people who will be around for more than a week or two. My job assignment has a lot of potential for flexibility and having just connected with the other members of the team, I am excited to hear about the work that they will continue to do in their respective destinations.


One thing that I was reminded of this past weekend was something that I meant to mention earlier in my time here that was pretty special. The first day that we arrived in country, Darrin (the husband half of the couple that make up the country representatives), his son (Simon), and Jeff (my ¨boss¨) picked us up from the airport. Julie (the other 1/2 of the country rep couple) didn’t feel well because she was pregnant (due in 2 weeks) and it was a pretty hot day, so she elected to ¨sit this one out.¨ After a full day of hanging out in the city, it was decided that I would be sleeping at Jeff’s while Sarah stayed in the spare room at the office. That night he received a call to come over to Darrin and Julie’s to watch Simon. I learned the next morning that Julie had a little girl that night... our first night in-country!!! That’s such a privilege and must be some sort of record. That day, one of our activities was to go meet little Lucia and her alleviated mother. Thanks for the special greeting guys! Was anyone else welcomed as wholeheartedly??


My updates from here on out will be much less frequent but please feel free to write me an email if you can't leave a comment on here. Thank you all for your support, prayers and friendships. Hasta luego amigos!

Day at the Ruins

Hey there everyone...

No classes today but I still got up on schedule and met some friends (Sarah & two others from the school) and went to the famous Copan Ruins. There is so much history in this area, making it a tourist trap but also attracting many Hondurans for vacation and class trips. The word is that many more Hondurans have ever been to the ruins than have been to the other tourist attraction on the north coast, an island called Roatan. The island are so much more expensive than here but honestly there is more of draw here also due to the fact that the majority of locals could most likely draw ties to the ancient civilizations, either the Mayans (architecture shown here) or the Lincas (who resided further south and east. The Mayans of Copan were estimated to be the most artistic and historically well recorded of all the Mayan world, which spans all throughout Guatemala and into Mexico. It was incredible to think of how much work and the level of sophistication and discipline they had to have to build these amazing structures. We saw many temples, residential areas, and statues that represented the various rulers and historical events carved into these porous, yet solid (seeing that they¨ve lasted almost 15oo years and some longer) with use of dear bones, flint and other rocks. The intricacy of the carvings is unbelievable!

I also am, as I¨ve mentioned before, in language school right now. The school is called Guacamaya, the Mayan word for the Macaw, the national bird of Honduras. Speaking of flying creatures, the picture of the bats (sorry mom, I know your fear of these ugly creatures) was taken just after I almost had my head taken off by one when I intruded upon their sleeping quarters down in a little "shaft" in one of the ruins trying to see where it led. Needless to say, as soon as I heard the flapping of their wings I was out of hole redfaced and trying to control the racing of my heart... (sorry the picture's on its side)

When I returned home I was given a meal that I have had twice since I¨ve been in country. Along with the traditional rice, tortillas, and (the atypical) mashed potatoes, was a small fish...head, tail, fins, and all. I¨ve learned that using your fingers to eat and using the tortilla as a utensil is the norm and much easier than trying to be polite and using a fork to delicately pick the meat from the bones. Its very flavorful after being fried up and I enjoyed it thoroughly.

Also I'd like to refer all of you to Sarah's blogsite ( sarahsalt.blogspot.com ). On there she has other pictures and some stories

that we have probably shared together since we go mostly everywhere together...Don't worry boys (Riley, Tim, Pookie, Danny, Kenny, Tyler, Mike, Nicolas, and Dirk), she's only a friend!

Also I guess many of you haven't been able to post comments on my blog so if you want my email....get it from someone else!!!

no just kidding you can use the whereseve2 at hotmail. Thanks for the love and the prayers. (i'm gonna need it this coming week as I start my last week of language school and leave next week for my assignment location in Azacualpa.

Hasta mas tardes!

Can anyone find the monkey face in this picture?