june 30th

June 30, 2010 Tuesday felt like the longest day ever! We started at 8 am today with a walk out of town to the river. We discussed prayer life and what it looks like to us, different levels of prayer and how as you grow close to Christ your prayer life changes. We were then challenged to go off alone and pray with meditation and silence. My experience doing this was wonderful, the song as the deer came into my head. I repeated this song in my head as often as I could remember to, while I tried to stay silent and listen to what God had for me. As I stood on this island in the middle of this river surrounded by green tropical mountains covered with clouds all I could think about was how amazing God’s creation is. I saw a tree who’s foundation had been eroded by the river, This tree still stood over 80 feet tall and was as green as any other tree. Half the tree was laying in the river with it’s roots exposed, still alive and full of trees! The remainder of the trunk still upright was in shambles and you could see strait through the tree in several spots, but it survived!

God reassured me that He is in control of everything, I saw lots of life happening on this river, this tree was dropping it’s fruits to the ground like bombs while butterflies were dancing around, ants carrying leaves that were 20 times their size relentlessly up dirt hills without giving up, Many birds and horses cows and the local Honduran people. But the common theme was that everything was ok, God had provided for each of these living things, the green covered mountains had enough life and care to support every living thing in the area. Jesus said look at the birds and the plants, see how they don’t worry about their food, what makes you think you are less important than they are. We don’t ever have to worry about anything because He is our God and we are his people and He loves us.

The rest of the day was filled with planning sessions and talks about the kids we will be working with, their back rounds, how we need to push them to try new things and expect things out of them because no one ever has before, we were told that culturally nothing is ever expected from the kids. IE they don’t have responsibilities or jobs, and it is not a big deal for them to say they will do something and then not follow through with it because that is just what is normal here. It’s a very simple life here in Copan, most the jobs are feeding the desires of tourist, so sitting in the front of a hotel or in the market to sell stuff, working in the coffee fields to harvest the beans. Everything is slow paced and there is never a rush, they can spend months just to finish one section of road. I saw guys in the river today digging up sand by hand and sifting out the rocks to make cement.

Most of the things we are doing are very new to the culture here, tomorrow night we are having a sleep over with the youth (older kids who are working for us) Sleep overs are un heard of here, kids don’t stay at their friends house over night, so the idea of spending the night at the office was so weird to the kids and their parents, it was not looked down on, just a very strong curiosity as to why! Why would you do that? One of the parents was expressing how it will be so weird for their family not to have their daughter in the house, at the age of 13-16 this is their FIRST time to sleep anywhere other then their own house.

For lunch today we all met up at San Rafael’s for coffee and sandwiches, I really like this place though I should start exploring other places to eat around the city and not stick to one place, I am sure I can find a much larger variety of food and coffee drinks if I explore, but it’s nice to have a spot that everyone likes. The rest of the night is spent in the house resting. We are all feeling dreadfully tired from the long days in the heat. I have still not seen any thing that resembles air conditioner, the milk comes in little bags and they don’t even refrigerate that or the eggs. It’s a very very different culture and I am loving every moment of it!!!