Quick Financial Update

I just wanted to quickly report that I found a job online that may prove to be a good source of income. I'll start by re-writing 20 short articles for a website, and get paid $50 for it. If I do well with these first ones, the work will be ongoing, which means I could be making an extra $50/week, which is AWESOME!

The work is pretty easy, since I'm not having to come up with articles on my own; I just have to reword and play with what's already there. So, I'm really excited about this opportunity, and thankful to God for providing it for me!

Home Again, Home Again... and Thoughts on Christmas

Well, I'm back home. Sorry for the lack of updates. I was without internet access at the house I was staying at, so I only got on at school long enough to keep up with my email and facebook. :)

Last week was pretty boring, honestly. School got crazy, but I realized it was more my fault than the kids, so I fixed that real quick. I spent almost an hour one night praying for each of my kids individually, as well as for their families, and the class as a whole. And myself. The next day was a thousand times better. And today, when it started to get kind of crazy I just started praying out loud for my whole class. There was one kid who was watching me, but I'm not sure if he knew I was praying until I said "Amen." Then, I put my hand up to get their attention, and class continued very smoothly. Prayer works.

I spent a lot of time in worship last week, and I also read a novel. Although it was a secular novel, there were a few parts that spoke to where I am, and I was amazed that God spoke to me through this book. The main character/narrator is a young girl, and at one point, she's talking to an older woman. The older woman tells her that no matter where she is, she has to make that place home. Home has to be where you are. I want to go "home" for Christmas, but I need to be careful as to where I call home. Home is where God has me, and right now, that's Honduras. Because of the Christmas break, I'd only be able to be home for two weeks, and the cheapest flight around that time was $400. But those flight dates wouldn't actually work, now that I better know when my break is.

So, I've decided not to go to Michigan for Christmas. In the words of Jesus, "Whoever does the will of God, he is my brother and sister and mother." So, I will be surrounded with family for Christmas. They'll just be mi familia from Honduras.

The Craziness that is School

Well, a lot has happened in the last few days. I moved to Terry and Shari's house for the week. They're in full-time ministry here, and were incredibly helpful in connected me with people before I moved down. My parents were in a small group with them a few years back, so they've been good family friends for a while now. At any rate, they're in the States visiting friends, families, and churches, and wanted me to stay with Alba at their house. Alba is a young lady from Honduras who lives with them. So, I'm now there to be with her. She doesn't speak any English, so that's been a little challenging, but it's been forcing me to speak Spanish, so it's also really good for me.

School is still difficult, and is actually getting slightly worse as the kids get more comfortable with each other. I did get moved to a much larger room, where all of my students actually fit. There are closets where I can now keep all of the extra supplies, as well as shelves where their books are kept for easy access. The closets are proving to be a bit of a problem because they like to hide in them when I have to leave the room to make copies of workbook pages.

Today, in order to maintain order and get all of my kids to finish their work, I had to close one girl in the bathroom, open a closet door so that two kids couldn't look at each other, and remove one girl from the class to finish the page we were working on. And some of them still didn't finish, so I sent it home for homework with them. It's frustrating, but I get gain some attention when the air conditioner had been off for nearly 20 minutes (and believe me, it gets hot fast in there), and I told them if they listened I would turn it back on. They managed to give me their full attention for almost 10 whole minutes. I was impressed. I don't know if they'll remember any of the English words I was teaching them, but they did remember "boy" and "girl" that we went over yesterday, so that was encouraging.

So, yeah. It's been rather crazy at school. It's hard, too, when all the kids use workbooks, but some of them don't have them. Then, I have to leave class to go make a copy of the page we're working on, and even when I give them work to do, they get up and go crazy when I'm gone. Would it be wrong to duct tape them to their seats? Probably. I've decided to give them a second recess, in the middle of the afternoon classes, where they're expected to sit through two and a half hours of classes. Hopefully, a 15 minute break to run wild in the middle of the afternoon will prevent the half an hour of free time I have to give them at the end of the day, when they've all snapped and are no longer capable of paying attention. I'll have to think of some educational games to play outside, maybe.

Because I have some more free time this week, I'm planning on spending a lot more time than I usually would in prayer and digging into the Word. It's been a while since I really dug in to God's word.

Today I Got Lost in the Grocery Store...

So, this morning I was thinking that I need to get some groceries, now that I'm expected to provide food for myself more often. I had bought some just to have in case I was hungry when they weren't eating, but now I need actual food. Also, now that I've discovered the wonder of my rice maker that makes more than just rice, I want to try some of the recipies I found online.

Then, early afternoon, Dona Elsa asked me if I wanted to go to the supermarket. I tossed some clothes on, brushed my hair, and we were soon on our way. It was just the two of us, and Dona Elsa doesn't speak very much English, though she tries, so it was a quiet ride. I went off on my own almost as soon as we got there, having a list and a determination to find everything on my own. And so I did, with a few unimportant exceptions.

When I was done, I started looking for Dona Elsa. But, it was a decent sized supermarket and EXTREMELY busy. Finding a Honduran woman there was easy, but I was looking for one in particular. I gave up after doing a couple of laps around the store (and stumbling across some graham crackers - yay!), and decided to proceed with checking out and just wait for her by one of the doors, or outside.

I was still looking around for her as I waited in line, but didn't see her. I felt like a kid who'd wandered away from their parent, and suddenly every adult looks like they could be that parent. I wanted to walk around calling for her, but I had enough people staring at me based on my Gringa-ness, so I didn't want any more attention. I told myself that she wouldn't forget me, and it was going to be fine.

And so it was. She found me as I was just finishing up paying, and we went out to the car together. What a relief.

On the way back, I saw a car that was the same color and model as mine, though I think it was a different year. I pointed it out and managed to say something about it being my car and an accident in the US, and we had a major fail in communication, but that's ok. When we got back to the house they got it all figured out. I'll have to remember to show her the pictures of my car before and after the accident on my computer later.

Well, that's it for now. My first experience shopping by myself here was a bit scary but good. I feel more confident in being here after doing such a simple task on my own, but it also didn't require too much communication, except at the register when I just had to read the number when she told me. Big numbers in Spanish are not my friends.

What I Did During My Independence Day Vacation

Seeing as yesterday was the Honduran Independence Day and we therefore didn't have school Wednesday through Friday, there wasn't a whole lot of anything going on this week. That worked out to my advantage, as I was able to finish rewriting a 60 page book in just 3 days. Other than that and frequent facebook breaks, I didn't do a whole lot of anything this last couple of days. But, I did make $50 from rewriting and editing the book, so that's good. I also put in a couple other proposals for some other online jobs that I can do to make sure I have plenty of money when ministry opportunities open up for me.

I did get to Skype with my family for a couple of hours yesterday, which was amazing. I mostly talked with my mom, but also got to talk a lot with my dad and my littlest brother. I also got to see my dog (who didn't even acknowledge me) and my mom's now 3-legged cat, who got very excited when I whistled to her. That was funny.

Although seeing them did make me a little homesick, it was nice to be able to see them, and as I talked about the ups and downs of teaching school here, I was reminded of how sure I really am now that I'm supposed to be here. It's so comforting to know that I have their support, and it's also great to know that I can still see them and talk to them, which makes it seem like they're not so far away after all.

We did talk a little about people coming down to visit. I would love to see a few groups of people come down at different times to do ministry with me, and serve the Lord here for a week. There are lots of ministry opportunities here. The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. I have a facebook page devoted to organizing such groups, so if I haven't already added you, please just send me a request, and I will add you in.

Animal Adventures & LOVE

So, today I had a couple interesting things happen with animals. We were teaching at Los Bordos, where it was insane. I though school was bad, but this is just crazy. The kids that do have notebooks and should be working are talking to each other and totally not paying attention to Lindsay talking, and they're not doing the work that they're supposed to be.

Lindsay was really frustrated with it today, and didn't know what to do. I suggested telling them to leave if they weren't going to work, but she'd already done that and they claimed to want to be there. And there were quite a few kids that were just there to observe and make trouble. I spotted one boy in particular who was just hitting the other kids. He clearly had no interest in learning.

At some point, Lindsay had to leave, and left me in charge of the kids for "5 minutes." Even one minute alone with these kids seemed like it would be too much. She told me to keep an eye on the notebooks, not the kids. As if to prove her fears were legit, one boy literally took off with a notebook and pencil as soon as she was out of sight. I managed to catch him by the arm before he made it out the door and pulled the notebook and pencil from his hand before releasing him to run off. Oh, children.

A lot of the kids that were just there to watch ran off when Lindsay left, and my first order of business was to clear out the rest of them. I quickly kicked out every kid that wasn't working, beginning with the boy in the black striped shirt that was just torturing people. He was very defiant, and didn't think I was going to follow through, but did leave when I put my foot down. He came back several times, but the fifth time he came back, he wasn't as distracting, and actually wanted to find out when the English class was.

So, that was class today.

At some point near the end, there was a crowd gathering outside, and I saw a teenage boy carrying an armadillo. On one of my trips down, I think I saw one run past late at night, but I'd never seen one for real, and never up close. So, I joined the crowd of fascinated kids to get a look at the little armadillo. It was about the size of a guinea pig, or a dwarf rabbit. I had to touch it, and it was sort of leathery, like you would expect it to be. And it was super cute, but I'm pretty sure it was going to get eaten.

So, yeah. My first encounter with an armadillo. It was really cool.

Then, we walked through the barrio, to do something that involved a stack of lumber that a woman had. Nothing was explained to me, so I'm not sure what was happening with the wood, exactly. On the way there, this beautiful torbie cat walked by, stalking a hot pink chick (they paint the white ones, though I'm not sure why). I think she would have caught it, too, because the chick was not as concerned with the cat as he aught to have been, but one of the girls walking with us chased the cat away.

Once we got to the lady's house who had the wood, there was a horse there, hooked up to its cart still, but munching on something green. It looked like it could be leaves from corn stalks, but I'm not entirely sure. I went and stood near him, but out of range of feet and teeth. He seemed to accept that I was there, and I was informed that he would bite me if I got any closer. He proved that by pinning his ears at me when I did take one step closer to get a better look at the harness, which was basicallly just made of whatever string could be found, I guess. I gave him his space, and assume that he bites because he was beaten. Most horses that were abused lash out at people because they're reacting in fear.

The other times I'd been down, I had seen the thin and beat down horses, but hadn't looked closely enough to see life in their eyes, that spark of character that I love about them. But watching this one eat and seeing him react to me gave me hope.

I tend to see the way the animals are as a reflection of the people. When I think about animals in America, I think about fat, spoiled cats and dogs that are treated like people, sometimes so much that their owners pour more love into Rufus and Fluffy than they do the real people in their lives. But the animals know they have value and act like they're the most important part of life. But here, so many animals roam the streets, starving and desperate for anything: food, affection, acknowledgement. It's the same with a lot of the people here, and it shows up most clearly in the kids, who are more likely to display their emotions. The kids there at Los Bordos may not be focused enough to do the school work, but you can see the desperation they have for love.

There's one little boy that has become attached to me, Christian. He's two at the most, but he's big, and hangs all over me, wanting me to pick him up and swing him like I mistakenly did the first time I was there. And there's a little girl, Isol. She's closer to 4, I think, but is small for her age, and absolutely adorable. She's also quite attached to me, and is constantly trying to get me to do the handclap games that she sees the older girls doing, but she can't keep a rhythm and I can't follow her sporatic movements, so our attempts at playing usually fail.

Whenever I smile at them, or just pat them on the head, they light up and give me a hug. It's the same with all of them. There's such a joy that fills them when they feel the love of God that I'm giving them, and you can see it so clearly on their faces. They don't care that I can't speak the language and that I don't understand them, because they do understand one thing: LOVE.

Love is a universal language, and can be expressed by so many ways other than words. I'm so thankful that God is teaching me all about this with these kids. It's something that I can continue to use when working at Los Bordos, but also in every area of life. There's not a single person in the world that does not desire and need love. And there's not a single person in the world that God does not love; He wants us to share that love with everyone we meet.

Work News

So, starting tomorrow, all the lesson plans will be made by me. The teacher's books I'm using have pretty solid ideas and guides for what to do, but it's still hard to know what my kids can handle, and how much time everything is going to take up. And I don't know how much homework is too much for 5 year olds. Maybe any, but I think it's necessary to continue the learning process at home, and I'll hopefully have free time at the end of the day when they can work on their homework, so they might not have to take any home. We'll see how they do with it.

The hardest part about trying to plan based on the suggestions in the books is knowing that I won't be able to do a lot of it, because I don't know enough Spanish to explain it. And some of it is having them just listen while I read something, and I already know they can hardly do that when there are pictures to look at. So I have to change things around, but I think I did a good job at coming up with alternatives.

Also, I had my offer accepted for a writing job online, so I'm now working my way through rewriting a 60 page book on helping seniors learn to date online. It's fun because I'm changing a "how to" book into an "I've been there, so let me show you how I did it" book from the view point of a senior citizen. So, I get to pretend I'm an old woman as I rewrite this book, and tell people all about the success I've had with online dating sites. It's fun, but can be a bit tedious. But, it'll be worth it once I get paid, and it'll make my profile look better so I'll have a better chance of getting other jobs at the same site.

I also signed up for a few different sites that pay you for reading emails with sponsor ads, and for taking surveys. I don't usually get to take the surveys because I rarely qualify, but the paid emails are nice. I probably won't make more than $100 with that in a year, but it's pretty easy and fast, and there are other things I could be doing that won't make me a few cents, so I might as well. Some people do that as a full-time job, and are signed up for hundreds of such sites, but I don't have the time or patience for that nonsense.

So, that's a quick update on my work situations. I've started a group on facebook to get people to come do a mission trip and visit me, so we'll see how that goes. Hopefully I can get a few people out. I do have one friend that wants to come for several weeks in the spring, which is really exciting.