Life. Families. Goodbyes

When I left my home to come to Honduras, it wasn't that difficult to say goodbye to my parents because I had been away for a year already on another missions program. I didn't realize how different this would be, to be away from them, life is different than what it was back then. I now have a handful of new family members that I didn't have to say goodbye to 3 years ago. I'm missing out on a lot of things that are happening back home.

I'm here in another country that I never would have imagined back when I left the first time. I am seeing new things, meeting new people, speaking a new language and learning to work with new people. It is quite a challenge at times, but rewarding all at the same time.

This past week I got an email from my Dad, that made me miss home a lot. The familiar of my usual day-to-day routine just seems so inviting right now. But I am here for a reason and meeting the people I am meeting for a reason. I'm living with a family that is not my biological family, but they are still my family.

Each time we leave a ministry that we've been at, I don't like saying goodbye. It is just so sad to think that I may never see them again. But like what Kristen had posted in one of the recent blogs, one of our friends said "If we don't meet again here, we'll see each other in Heaven" Such an amazing statement.

Always be thankful for those that you have in your life. They are there to help you grow and learn new things about yourself, and about life.

Hermanos En Cristo (Brethren in Christ)
We are all family in Christ!

Nikki

 

Some of our small group went out for Baleadas last Saturday

 

Nixon and I sharing Lunch

 

My host sister and I last week at a Birthday Party

 

Kristen and her host brother

 

Myself and a Sister in Christ

 

Mama Sonia

 

Papa Jim with a Brother in Christ

 

Brynne with a Brother in Christ

 

Hanging out with some sisters

 

Kristen and a Sister in Christ

 

Papa Jim and a Brother in Christ

 

Katlyn with a bunch of Siblings in Christ

Sisters in Christ

 



My "STEP" Sisters

 



 

 

My "STEP" Parents

 

 

My Dad

 

Mum and I

 



A Week

A week, it passes by all too quickly when you spend it in a tropical place, when you are caught in a habitual net, or when you perceive it through your rear view mirror. When looking into the future, a week can seem like a lifetime-- seven days and never ending. When there are only a few of them between you and something you desire, they feel like an eternity, and immeasurable expanse of time. It's like running on a treadmill expecting to get somewhere; like swimming in the middle of the ocean.

I feel helpless, my head barely above the water. About to drown despite my efforts to fight the depths that drag me downward. Boats pass offering a false sense of hope. I cry out desperately, but they can't fulfill my deepest desires and leave me feeling even more vulnerable than I did before. I want to give up, I want to submit to the force against me. I can't do this alone, but my Savior walks on water.

-Kate

Stepping Forward

It has been awhile since we have written. You may start to call us slackers, but we spent our past week in a part of the mountains that barely had electricity, let alone Internet. And it was beautiful.

Last week the team made the long and treacherous trip to a tiny town in the mountains of the Honduran/Nicaraguan border. Our mission: to evangelize and teach kids´ club. With our faith in our Spanish waning, a flat tire, and interesting sleeping arrangements, we weren´t exactly thrilled with the week to come. Little did we know that we´d fall in love.

Our first couple of days started out a little rocky. None of us had ever evangelized before, let alone in another language. Feeling out what was expected of us was a challenge. And I had to eat a fish...with a head...and eyeballs. If you knew me, you´d realize just how amazing that is. I DON´T eat fish. Well, now I can say I ´´didn´t.´´

2 Corinthians 2:14
But thank God! He has made us his captives and continues to lead us along in Christ´s triumphal procession. Now he uses us to spread the knowledge of Christ everywhere, like a sweet perfume.

A sweet perfume. I can tell you that after climbing all over those mountains, we sure weren´t smelling very sweet, but I pray that our words did.

It can be very easy to get discouraged in times like these. With everything stacked against us, it almost seemed futile to even be there. The seed we were planting is a tiny one, and without being able to watch it grow  and see the harvest, our motivation began to wane a little. But, we are called to it, and though the seed is small, it will grow great, like the mustard plant (Mathew 13:31-32). It says in Zechariah 4:10 ´Do not despise these small beginnings, for the LORD rejoices to see the work begin, to see the plumb line in Zerubbabel´s hand.´´ This reminded me of something Sandy told us in training: the promised land was given in inches, not miles. Though it may be small, we are doing something.

As the week went on, we got more comfortable and each of us found joy in our little mountain home. I can´t express how much I loved it there. The open sky, the silence, the simple life; my heart got to wander among the wild things. I felt at home. Getting to take a horse for a ride to Nicaragua may have helped that along a bit. ;)

While saying our goodbyes Friday night and Saturday morning, the pain of loss started pulling at us. We had made friends there. We had adopted the life as our own, the people as our own. It was like I was leaving home all over again.
Thank the Lord for wise people, though. On our last night after service (in the middle of the street), Edgar, a fellow evangelist, came up to say his goodbyes. Not only his smile, but his words touched my heart then.

¨If we don´t met again, I will see you in heaven¨

Now, I´ve heard this before, but in that moment, how profound! This family that we´re accumulating all over the world will be with us again one day.

2 Corinthians 5:0 "Our hearts ache, but we always have joy..."

This week, we are working at a Christian bilingual school and are making another round of friends. Our heavenly family keeps growing, pray that we continue to do so as well. :)

Kris

Comfort

We are now over half way done our time here in Honduras!

Last week we traveled to Costa Rica on a 17 hour bus ride, in order to renew our visas. It was a different experience being there, because their Spanish is a little bit different than what the Spanish is here in Honduras, it was a nice challenge to try and pick up on some new words and sayings. 

On Sunday it was time to make the 17 hour bus ride home. We had to wake up at 2:00am, as the bus was leaving at 4:00am. We made a stop at 6:30 to get some breakfast with the other passengers that were going to Honduras as well. We made new friends from Germany, Australia and Tennessee on our ride. It was about 3:00pm on the bus and we still had not gotten lunch, we were wondering what had happened and found out an hour later that we were supposed to get fed on the previous bus, but since that bus was running late, it never stopped for lunch. We were running on about 3 hours of sleep and one small meal at the beginning of the day. These roads that we are traveling on are not flat either, so we were dealing with motion sickness on top of it all.

It was not comfortable. 

We arrived home a little after 9:00pm and we hadn't eaten sufficient food in 14.5 hours, so we went to Jim and Sonias house for the night to get some food in us and try and rest up for the coming week of ministry.

That never happened. 

We woke up sick! Most of us saying that it's been "the sickest we've ever been". We left Jim and Sonias and went out to lunch but felt terrible after eating. Our host families were trying to figure out how to help us (thank God for them! They were such a blessing during the time of sickeness) we couldn't do ministry because we were just feeling under the weather, and we were away from home, away from family, away from comfortable. 

It's not easy being away from home when you're sick.

Why do we want comfort? Why do we need comfort? 

When I come to the moments in my time here, thinking "It would be so easy to go home right now." It just drives me to not want to go home. I don't want to go back to easy, or to being comfortable. I feel like being here in another country has been the most challenging thing in my life so far. I can't just draw back on the familiar that I've been so used to my whole life. 

Matthew 10:39 Whoever finds their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life for my sake will find it.

When we are here in another country away from what we've been so used to for 18-21 years, it is sometimes easy to forget that God has us here for a reason. There is a reason why we are away from familiar and comfortable. 
 

The other morning when we arrived at Jim and Sonias house for the first time since we got sick, Sonia shared from the Word:

 

Psalm 3:5-7

I lie down and sleep;

I awaken again, because the LORD sustains me.

I will not fear though tens of thousands

assail me on every side.

 

Arise, LORD!

Deliver me, my God!

Strike all my enemies on the jaw;

break the teeth of the wicked.

 

The Lord sustains us! He is here with us no matter what we're going through! The time might be rough for us as we miss the comforts of the familiar that we've grown up with. But both then and now, God is with us, walking beside us and carrying us when we no longer have the strength or energy to.

We've really appreciated our host families during this week as they have been using whatever resources they have to help us during our sickness. It is a home away from home.

Prayer Requests:

- Pray for all of us as we are still on the mend to being healthy.
- Pray for us as we are heading to the mountains next week to do door-to-door evangelism for the first time. Pray that God will give us the words to speak and the people to meet.
- Pray that homesickness will subside.

Nikki

A nice bowl of chicken noodle soup with potatoes and rice to help us when our stomachs were still weak.
 

Step By Step

Starting last week, this idea for a blog has been starting. We are all children of God and He is walking with us each moment of the day.

One Saturday this month we all went to Katlyn's host home for a birthday party for her host mom. We noticed that Katlyns host sister, Katlyn, Brynne, and I all had similar shoes on. So us being the girls that we are, had to take a picture to remember this:

We were visiting a village to see the buildings that have been built for the people there. As we were spending time with one of the men that lives in one of the houses, we noticed his shoes.
For some reason, this man has left an impact on me.

At the one ministry that we were helping at in Choluteca, they were showing us where the men were making cement blocks to make buildings out of. They are in an open field mixing the cement and framing the blocks in the hot sun. They are wanting to build a shelter to keep some of the sun away during their work day. This is what I saw when I was walking through:

This is when we were helping at an orphanage (the same area that they made the blocks). This particular day we had brought water balloons to play with the kids. This is one of the little guys standing on a stone as he was trying to reach the water source to help fill the balloons.



And at the end of that week we stopped off at the beach. I knew that I needed some time to process the past week. It was a different experience than what we were used to and the weather was so different than what we are used to here in Tegucigalpa. Jim asked me if I wanted to go take pictures, because that is what I enjoy doing most to help process. So I started walking through the sand, down the beach and wherever I could see something new. And then came the point to turn around and go back to the group. In the sand, this is what I saw:

This reminded me of the "Footsteps" Poem.

 

And then came today. We were at our ministry for this week (construction) for about an hour when the pastor asked Brynne and I to come with him. Not being able to catch everything he was saying, we didn't know exactly what we were going to do. So we asked Sonia what the pastor had said, and he had asked us to help go pick up Yoni.

 

Yoni is a 19 year old man that one year ago got shot and is now paralyzed and in a wheelchair. We met him yesterday for the first time. He came to the worksite (which happens to be the local BIC church) and he spent time watching, reading his Bible and listening to the Worship music that was playing. So today, we went to pick him up from his house. Brynne, the Pastor and I went into Yoni's house and had to lift his wheelchair over a step that was one foot high and outside. When we got outside, the Pastor had me push Yoni's wheelchair down the dirt road to the church. I don't know if Yoni will ever walk again on Earth. I know that he is praising God no matter what situation he is in.

 

I want to get to know Yoni more, to ask how he really feels.

 

I know there's more to this post, maybe another day I will add on to this.  Always remember that God is with you no matter where you are or what is going on in your life. You also have brothers and sisters in Christ.

 

-Nikki

 

Psalm 23

1The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing.
²     He makes me lie down in green pastures,
he leads me beside quiet waters,
³     he refreshes my soul.
He guides me along the right paths
    for his name’s sake.
⁴ Even though I walk
    through the darkest valley,
I will fear no evil,
    for you are with me;
your rod and your staff,
    they comfort me.

 

• Pray for my new friend Yoni. Pray that even though we cannot speak the same language, that we can form a friendship in Christ.
• Pray for our team as we will be needing to leave Honduras next week to renew our Visas. Pray that everything will be fine and that we will grow even closer to God in our next half of our time here.
• Pray for those that when things get rough, that they will remember who created us and who is walking with them every day.

 

Día del Amor y la Amistad

Happy Valentines Day! I'm sure love is on everybody's mind today so I thought I'd blog about it too. Plus Br gave me the idea so I guess I should thank her.

 Well, if you haven't heard we spent the last five days in the hottest city in Central America, Choluteca. We spent most of our time at the local CNI (Clinica del Nutrición infantil) hanging out with kids and trying to burn some of their energy. Unfortunately, they ended up tiring us before they were even remotely out of energy. On the very last day at the CNI we decided to have a piñata. At the time it sounded like a great idea, but in the midst of the chaos of screaming and yelling we all regretted our original plan. At one point I had all of the children lined up against the wall as best as I possibly could, sending them one by one to the piñata for their turn. One girl, who had already had her turn, walked up to me and tried to tell me that she hadn't gone yet. I told her that I knew she already had her turn and she looked me in the face and said "MALA." I turned right back to her and told her to sit down. She refused. I asked again. She refused again. This time I demanded that she sit down. She repeated herself, "MALA!" I didn't hold back and I'm not proud of it. I said it right back to her, "MALA." 

On the way home that evening Brynne and I were listening to her ipod. I heard the following lyrics:

"In these bodies we will live, in these bodies we will dieAnd where you invest your love, you invest your lifeIn these bodies we will live, in these bodies we will dieAnd where you invest your love, you invest your life"

At this point my mind went directly back to the situation from earlier that day. In that moment I didn't love her, I didn't even like her, but maybe she needed love in that second and I kept it from her. If I'm not investing love into people's lives, what am I investing? If even a "missionary" doesn't show God's love, what kind of example is that? The song continued...

"Awake my soulAwake my soulAwake my soulFor you were made to meet your maker"

I realized that I don't even know how to completely love God, so how am I supposed to show his love? My heart's cry this week and for the weeks to come is that God awakens my soul. In Matthew it says, "Love the Lord your God with all of your heart, with all your soul and with all of your mind." I need to learn what that kind of love is and I pray that God will reveal it to me so I can be an example to others.

Sending love and hugs!
-Kate

Time and Time Again

Just two short weeks ago, Nikki spoke to us about time. It's funny how things repeat, because that is what God's been speaking to me about, too: time.

Ecc. 3:1-8
For everything there is a season, a time for every activity under heaven.
A time to be born and a time to die. A time to plant and a time to harvest.
A time to kill and a time to heal. A time to tear down and a time to build up.
A time to cry and a time to laugh. A time to grieve and a time to dance.
A time to scatter stones and a time to gather stones. A time to embrace and a time to turn away.
A time to search and a time to quit searching. A time to keep and a time to throw away.
A time to tear and a time to mend. A time to be quiet and a time to speak.
A time to love and a time to hate. A time for war and a time for peace.

This week was our time to speak, our time to love, our time to laugh, and even our time to cry. It was a good time. Our STEP director Vicky came down to visit for the week. We've been showing her the life. ;)

Next week we go to Choluteca to 'entertain' children at a Nutrition clinic and orphanage, so this week has been our preparation time. We're working on puppet shows, skits, and activities for the kids. And we've also gotten to spend time with Vicky, a good friend for all of us.

Vicky's coming also brought us a listening ear; she gave us all our time to lament. I honestly did not know where I was or how much I had to say until I started talking. I don't hate it here, quite frankly I love it, but this is the longest I have ever lived in a city in my life and it's getting old. You throw in the back problems and you get a pretty cranky Kristen.

Lamentations 3:7
He has walled me in , and I cannot escape...

The city can press in at times, its vastness its own prison. At times like this I'd climb on a horse and go for a run, or hit the track and enjoy the freedom of moving and working and pushing myself. But I can't run anymore. I can't jog anymore. I am constrained to walk, and even that doesn't feel very good. It's disheartening, but then I came across this:

Romans 5:3-5
We can rejoice, too, when we run into problems and trials, for we know that they help us develop endurance. And endurance develops strength of character, and character strengthens our confident hope of salvation. And this hope will not lead to disappointment. For we know how dearly God loves us, because he has given us the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with his love.

Endurance. That's a word that sounds familiar. I used to build up my body's endurance with every step, every mile. Well, now is my time to train and grow, and build endurance again, but this time in another way. It's time to exercise my spiritual muscles. Being physical is easy, I've always been a brute, but being weak is hard. It is in our weakness, though, that He is strong.

Well then, LORD, grant me the strength to be weak.

I need not worry, I believe he's teaching me, that's why I am here. Lamentations 3:22-24 "The faithful love of the LORD never ends! His mercies never cease. Great is his faithfulness; his mercies begin afresh each morning. I say to myself, "The LORD is my inheritance; therefore, I will hope in him.'''

and on that note:

Psalm 119:50
You promise revives me; it revives me in all my troubles.

Habakkuk 3:17, 18-19
17 Even though the fig trees have no blossoms, and there are no grapes on the vines; even though the olive crop fails, and the fields lie empty and barren; even though the flocks die in the fields, and the cattle barns are empty,

-Even though I physically can't do it all anymore, and I miss the open spaces-

18 yet I will rejoice in the LORD! I will be joyful in the God of my salvation!
19 The Sovereign LORD is my strength! He makes me as surefooted as the deer, able to tread upon the heights.

-Kris

Our lovely Vicky is leaving us today. Please pray for her safe travel. :)