We're Here!

We're here! After 4 hours of flying, 2 1/2 hours of driving, we made it safe and sound and it's wonderful to be back. Our flights were on time, went smoothly and we had great company.

Our team at 6 AM in our "beautiful" yellow shirts

When we arrived at our gate in Atlanta, it was easy to spot the other mission teams who were going to be joining us on the flight. Being the extrovert that I am, I decided to go chat with a group. They were from Alabama and headed to the north coast of Honduras. They were very friendly and seemed to be no strangers to the place. I asked to quickly pray with them before boarding our flight and they were more than happy to do so.

When we landed in Honduras, the flight attendant welcomed us and asked all the passengers to  applaud all four mission teams on the plane. We had just hit Honduran ground and I already knew that God has big plans for this week.

Missionaries Richard and Mark greeted us once we got through customs, loaded up our bags and joined us for lunch. Kevin and Derek got a little adventurous and went for a national food chain, while the rest of  stuck to the good ol' American hamburger at Wendy's.

I had the excitement of riding shotgun in Richard's van. You haven't really experienced riding in a vehicle, until you've ridden in a vehicle in a developing country.

Double yellow lines?
What do those even mean?

Speed limits?
Do they even exist?

"Exciting" is really the only word I know to use to describe the adventure.

Upon arriving at MEDA, we were promptly greeted by the missionary families who live in the compound. Even the little kids came running up to us, shaking our hands and introducing themselves.

This is Iris, Mark's soon to be daughter, once the adoption goes through. She recognized Charlotte and Chloe from their last visit to Honduras. She was not at MEDA the last time I was here, but her brother Elvin was and he loved hanging out with us. He has since been adopted by another family at MEDA. I'm excited to get to know Iris and her 6 brothers better. (That's right, 6 brothers, they all have super biblical names and they're awesome)

We got to enjoy spending time and fellowship with the missionary families and Hondurans through an intense game of volleyball, "Honduras style," meaning kicking was totally allowed. It was a bit scary, but made the games much more entertaining.  

We loaded up in this awesome vehicle as well as a SUV to the church for dinner.

Dinner consisted of tortillas, refried beans, sausage links, eggs and fried plantains. If you've never had fried plantains, you're missing out. Melvin's (the pastor) wife Alejanda and several church ladies served us all with a smile. After expecting dinner two hours prior, I was so thankful for their kindness and willingness to serve us.

I've studied and learned about Latin American cultures in classes and it will never cease to amaze me how "dinner at 6" really means 7:30 or 8. Showing up early or even on time can be offensive, because of the value they place on relationships and spending time with others. It is very nice not having to stress out about being somewhere on time and embracing the collectivist culture. My tendency to plan and be prompt about everything can often get the best of me. Just enjoying my time talking to Mark's family has been great and I don't have too much time to do that.

Our motto for the week is "be flexible and intentional." While we're here, we want to come alongside the ministry that is already established in Honduras and support, encourage and aid them in any way we can. In order to accomplish that, we much be flexible with what we do and intentional about how we do it. I've been asked to teach on Monday at the schools where we'll be doing our puppet shows. I'm nervous, but I'm trusting in the Lord to provide me with the right things to say and best way to speak the gospel.

Tomorrow we go to the church to help with some outside maintenance as well as with the youth group in the evening. Today was fun, but I'm anxious to see what God will reveal to the team this week.

The puppets are best friends for the next week. They speak Spanish and we don't.

At the "treetop rest stop"

Disclaimer: If anything looks weird or different from normal, Blogger has changed to Spanish, because of my location. I don't know Spanish, so I'm just working off my memory of where I think buttons are on here.