A Family's Pilgrimage

Moving Back

2012-01-25T07:10:00.000-08:00

If anyone is still reading this, I apologize for the stillness of my blog over the last year. It’s not because I have given up blogging, it’s that I couldn’t talk about what we have been going through…what was really on the hearts and minds of the Diaz family.

Last June on our fundraising trip to the United States it became apparent that God was calling us back to the United States and back to Washington Cathedral.

When we moved to Honduras four years ago, it was without a return date. We sold and gave away everything we had in the States (which wasn’t much). When asked, we told people our plan was to serve in Honduras 3 – 5 years, then we would reassess (but in our hearts, we were thinking more like 10 years).

Then last year something began happening that surprised us. God began whispering “pastor” to Rey….and he didn’t know quite what to do with that. In June 2011, church leaders met with us and we learned of the trouble that Washington Cathedral was in financially. They asked us to come back and help – long term.

We called Pastor Jeony from the United States and tears came to my eyes as he generously and without hesitation encouraged us to go….if the church needs us, then we must.
Honduras is a country that tops the lists of violent crime worldwide. It has more problems than it knows what to do with. And it has become home.

But, just as I told a volunteer who was weighing the risks to come: “If God says, ‘Go,’ and you say ‘No;’ you may be swallowed by a whale.” So we will go, back to Seattle…a field that seems harder to till than the openness of Honduras.

In four weeks we will pack our bags and get on a plane, as we are so accustomed to….but this time to stay. I think I can speak for my family when I say that our heart strings are too entangled to figure out which to loosen, which to firm up and tie more tightly. The good news is that we are keeping our house here in Honduras, and our jobs require us to come back a couple times a year.

But this family’s pilgrimage will certainly look different…May God be venerated.

Holidays in Honduras

2012-01-24T07:05:00.000-08:00

December is a time for family and for graduations...and this year was extra special.

We spent Thanksgiving in Washington with our friends and family, then came back to Tegucigalpa just in time for AFE's first-ever high school graduation! In a community with an average of only a third-grade education, nine bright young people are headed for college.

There was a lot to be thankful for this year.

When we returned to Honduras, Jesi Ordonez had snuck into our house and decorated for Christmas!

AFE's 6th grade and kindergarten graduation.

AFE's High School Graduation

Elijah's Christmas Performance at Preschool

The North American's Guide to Semana Santa in Teguc

2011-04-25T16:59:00.000-07:00

The week leading up to “Pascua” is much different from the Easter I am accustomed to in the United States. To me, Easter meant decorating brightly colored eggs, buying new Easter clothes (the frillier the better), and then on Sunday morning attending a sunrise service among fragrant lilies with a Easter brunch following afterward.
Things couldn’t be more different here in Tegucigalpa. Instead of protesting the differences, I decided to fuse the two customs together this year into a new Diaz family tradition. Here’s how it worked out for me, and my guide to celebrating Semana Santa in Honduras for North Americans.

DO:
Think ahead when it comes to dying eggs. Thinking ahead means asking someone to bring you an egg decorating kit from the US (because it will be cheaper than buying from Mas x Menos). Thinking ahead means boiling the eggs ahead of the day you want to do it…because the likelihood of power-outages is quite certain in my community.
Think ahead about Easter clothes. The weekend leading up to Easter, most of the stores (including the stores in the mall) were closed. However, Zara never lets me down.

DON’T
Go to one of the big, overplayed beaches. Last year we went to Los Delagitos in the South. It took an extra hour to get there because of the traffic….An hour trapped in the hot car, sweating out our need to go to the bathroom. It was so crowded with people, trash, thrashing music that a headache was always near. It was still fun, but we found a better option this year.

Expect to relax at the Mayan’s pool. This is one of my favorite spots because of $15 massages, ice-cream delivered pool side, and a beautiful environment to sun bathe. However, during Semana Santa my oasis becomes a latin frat party. There was a 20 foot tall blow-up corona and people videotaping girls in bikinis. My massage therapist rubbed my back to the beat of “Danza Kurudro” – the antithesis of relaxing.

DO
Check out Amapala. It’s not easy to get to the beach beach…You must park a ways away, board the hectic dock, crowd on to the right collectivo boat, and then jump in the back of the truck to arrive at one of the less-popular beaches (this takes roughly an hour). But it is worth it! I can’t reveal my secret spot, but I’ll give you a clue: it has black sand! The best part about it is that the moment we arrived on the uninhabited beach, a restaurant owner invited us to put our things down as his table under his make-shift tent. He asked what we would like for lunch, when we would like it, and our music preference. The water was perfect, the sand was perfect, and the company was perfect. It was a great day!DON’T expect to find your Easter service back home. Church attendance is so low this week, in fact, that our Spanish service was canceled. Thus, my advice to you is:

DO embrace the Catholic tradition. Palm Sunday they hand out palm branches all over the city. People tie them to cars, carry them around. I’m not sure what else. Next year I’m parking myself in mass at the Cathedral Metropolitano to see what happens. I also find the Good Friday celebration and funeral march down town instructive. There is a tangible grief that permeates the crowd. Good Friday is an important part of our Christian tradition that sometimes gets somewhat overlooked in Evangelicalism.

All in all, I discovered that my American tradition of decorating eggs and receiving things from the Easter bunny came from some pagan goddess of fertility (including the name, “Easter”). Yet “Pascua,” (as they call it here in Honduras), comes from the word Passover…the original holiday leading up to the resurrection of Christ. So perhaps I have some things to learn about this celebration.

So there is my guide to celebrating Semana Santa in Teguc (based on three years of experience). I would love to hear other expat comments about their experiencing during the days leading up to Pascua in Honduras.

Christmastime and Giving

2011-01-31T14:24:00.000-08:00

This Christmas Elijah would be three and was beginning to understand the concept of presents. We knew this because after his third birthday party he asked for “mas regalos?”
A note of explanation here. Rey and I share the view that wealth and materialism and toys and things provide dangerous possibilities of entrapment. And greed (although one of the more popular cardinal sins) is actually idolatry. This being said, it was time to take radical action in Elijah’s development.

As presents began to accumulate under our plastic Christmas tree, Elijah began to get more and more excited. So one day I took him into his room and I said, “Elijah, look at all of your stuffed animals in your toy hammock. Look at all of your cars, books, trains, and action figures on your shelf. You know Yoli, Eibyn, Daniel and Jimmy at AFE? They don’t have any of those things. They don’t have any toys in their house. They don’t have a Christmas tree. They are not going to receive presents for Christmas.

"How about you give each of them one of your toys, since you have so many?”

A light dawned in his eyes. He promptly presented me with Bob (his favorite stuffed animal heasleeps with every night) and said: “Yoli.” Tears leaped into my eyes. I didn’t expect Elijah to understand this concept let alone display such generosity. So I did what many mothers would do. As Elijah was sorting through his toys, deciding which ones to give away, I snuck Bob underneath his bed instead of into the “AFE” box. Generosity should only go so far, right?

At AFE’s Christmas party Elijah handed out his toys to his friends. And came home with a new toy himself. Denis, (who most will know at AFE as “sweet little voice”) gave Elijah the one Christmas toy he received (from a donor), a “Mater” toy truck. And so the cycle goes. Generosity begets generosity. And we can’t out give God. And it sounds like I need to learn this lesson even more than Elijah.

Trick 'r Treating, Robinhood Style

2010-11-02T19:24:00.000-07:00

Our friends, the Gibson family, were kind enough to invite us to trick or treat in their neighborhood this year - the only neighborhood I know of here in Teguc that does that sort of thing on Halloween. Elijah received SO MUCH candy that I decided to do a little "reverse trick 'r treating" this year. The next night, Baby Batman (Elijah) and I went around to our neighbors here in the Miller and gave out his candy to the neighborhood kids.

They were delighted, he wasn't so much, but I think its the start of a great tradition, right up there with "Tone-Deaf Carolling."

Thanks!

2010-11-02T19:21:00.001-07:00

Thanks to Ashley Phifer, who gave Elijah his new favorite toy!

The Lengths I Will Go To..

2010-10-18T17:33:00.001-07:00

Now why do you think I would draw this picture?

And then show it to my son?

Preschoolers' Identification with Characters

2010-10-16T15:28:00.000-07:00

Lighting McQueen is out. Batman is in. But not just any old Batman, “Baby Batman.”

I’m not exactly sure how Elijah grabbed onto this character. He hasn’t seen any good Pixar movies about Batman. He doesn’t even have a batman action figure. All it took was the introduction of the character on a pair of pajamas and a humming of the theme song from the 1970s sitcom: “Nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh…Batman!” Whoever wrote that little tune is a genius.

Every day now he puts on his black shirt with the batman symbol, a black cape that his Damma brought him, black boots and pants, and flexing his wiry muscles, exclaims with pride: “I am Baby Batman!” And Rey and I are capitalizing on this obsession.

Today we were able to accomplish the unthinkable: get Elijah to sit still for a haircut. We simply told him it was a “Baby Batman hair cut” and he would be able to wear a black cape like Batman while he was getting his hair cut. He fell for it. Additionally, Rey persuades him to wear what he wants him too by telling Elijah it’s a Baby Batman football jersey.

Is it manipulative? Of course. But I like to think of it more as marketing our parental guidance, which is all for Elijah’s good (except for the football jersey. I see little good in that).

I am also using this character identification for Christian discipleship. Whenever it is time for Elijah to go to bed, he does so eagerly if we tell him a Baby Batman story first. Today Baby Batman found himself in the lion’s den after his friends at school made fun of him for praying before lunch. But God saved Baby Batman from the ferocious “Yellow Roars” when Baby Batman prayed to God and trusted him. And after the story, my own Baby Batman was eager to pray himself…”Dear God….”

The way I see it, young children are going to latch onto a character that they pick up from the surrounding culture. My job is to mold this idealization of Batman into someone who fights for justice and protects the weak, as opposed to the “dark knight” that is more advertised and popular. I expect that the same thing can be done with the princess obsession that is smothered like pink cotton candy around every child’s store. A princess is one who is good and kind to all, not one who defined by her physical beauty and possessions. Good luck, parents.

Three Years Old

2010-09-01T19:35:00.000-07:00

He is three years old now. And he loves Spiderman, Batman, and “Puperman.” His favorite Dee-dee-Dee is “Yellow Roar” (Madagascar). He has little friends at AFE and church, and is nowhere near being potty trained.

He is learning language, both Spanish and English by repetition, which makes it hard to get good answers out of him:

“Did the rat go in your bedroom or in the office?”
“In the office?”
“It went in the office? Are you sure it didn’t go in your bedroom?”
“In your bedroom?”
“Forget it.”

I will miss this time when kisses take away my owies, and seeing an imagination that keeps him occupied for thirty five minutes in the bath giving “Woody” and “Buzz” voices. What a joy to watch his little personality develop.

My Two-Year-Old, My Hero

2010-07-24T15:27:00.000-07:00

In June my family had the opportunity to experience something common to most American children, but few Honduran children even dare to dream about: visiting the mecca of childhood, Disneyland.

Rey was graduating with his doctorate in Intercultural Studies from Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena. Since we were only an hour and half away, why not pay a visit to a few theme parks?

It was the trip of a lifetime. The grandparents came along, as did Tim, Sarai, Alex and Malachi.

In addition to the inexplicable joy of meeting his heroes (Buzz Lightyear and Lightening McQueen), Elijah delighted in the rides, the scarier the better. Nothing was too fast, no airplane or flying elephant too high. I even tried to sneak him onto rides for older kids. His height helped him, until the workers at Legoland asked him how old he was. Not only could Elijah not lie (I wonder where he got that from?), but he was too shy to respond to the question. We had to exit the line, which was embarassing.

Elijah did sneak onto to one ride he should not have: the giant slide. I don't know what I was thinking letting him go on that; I'm scared of that dippy slide myself. Despite my trepidations, the first run occurred without incidence. Elijah stayed in his gunny sack and safely slid to the bottom with a huge smile on his face. The second run did not end so well. GP (my dad) went with him and I'm not sure exactly what happenned, but they both ended up tumbling down, out-of-control, until they formed a wimpering pile at the bottom. Elijah had a little rug burn on his side, but I think Grandpa was more scared than him.

I learned my lesson (I hope), about letting a two-year call the shots. But the fact remains that I am so proud of little Elijah's courage.

When it comes to driving, Elijah takes ofter his dad. He has some control issues about letting other people drive.

Martha Stewart's Appeal to Feminists

2010-04-26T15:40:00.000-07:00

When I was ten years old my mom tried to teach me the basics of housekeeping. Although she worked full-time she still served as the primary care-giver because my dad was the primary mess-maker. She took me to the laundry room to explain why it’s important to separate whites and colors and then later at dinner, on which side of the plate to set the silverware. “Mo-om! (I wined), “This is so mindless and irrelevant! I don’t care which side the fork goes on! I’m going to change the world!” (Yes, I talked like that when I was ten).

I held true to my promise and nearly flunked home-ec in junior high. My teacher completed my sewing projects for me because I convinced her not to ruin my GPA with the grade I deserved. Then in college I somehow managed to stay presentable for four years despite the fact that I threw every delicate and color into one load at once.

Twenty years later I am married to a supposed male feminist who is as clueless about good housekeeping as me. And the little life-sucker that we birthed has chosen me as his primary care-giver. Twenty years later I picked up a ragged “Martha Steward Living” magazine at our development project and took it home because magazines in my first language are hard to come by.

Suddenly a light dawned. We don’t have to live this way!

I don’t have to go around with stains on my shirts if I would just learn how to do laundry! If I cleaned my refrigerator once and a while we wouldn’t be so grossed out to eat what’s inside!

With titles such as “Grilled Vegetables 101” Martha Steward appeals to us third-wave feminists, who know all about 101 classes from our universities but still don’t know the basics about grilling vegetables. Thank you, Martha. Now if someone would just write some articles on “Parenting 101.”

Poop, Tears, and Amoebas

2010-04-15T15:42:00.000-07:00

For the past several months I have been suffering from symptoms I self-diagnosed as IBS. (I won’t go into detail but if you’re really curious what I’m talking about you can google the acronym.) I considered my discomfort part of the cost of living and working in Honduras and ministering to dump-dwellers. Then one morning I woke up to see a wiggling 3-inch worm in the toilet after I used the bathroom. I was so disgusted by the thought of what this meant that I immediately woke up my husband and demanded that he call our doctor with tears in my eyes.

After a lab the doctor determined that I was llena: llena, llena, llena (one llena would have sufficed) with amoebas, the kind that live in some type of fecal matter and get passed into our digestive system when we put something dirty into our mouths. Ugh. Perhaps a worm living inside of me would have been better. After his diagnosis the doctor chastised me: “You know Elise, you really need to work on your hygiene.” Me, work on my hygiene? Does he know who he’s talking to? He is telling an OCD North American, who has several bottles of Purel stationed around her house, one in her car, one in each purse, who also bleaches every vegetable, the water in her reserve tank, the sink, the counters before she goes to bed, the floors of her house…that I need to work on my hygiene. I felt like saying: “YOUR COUNTRY needs to work on IT’S hygiene!”

Soon it was determined that Elijah and Rey also suffered from these amoebas. And the cause of our bloated, engorged stomachs was explained. When I returned home I took a look around our house and was chagrined to admit that perhaps our doctor was right. Although I sanitize all the time, how clean can we be when we rarely have running water? (A series of unfortunate events has made it the norm that our reserve tank and pila are often empty). Also, our bathroom sink has been broken (despite several attempts to fix it) pretty much since we’ve moved in. So if we do have running water we must wash our hands in the kitchen sink. My eyes darted around the place to see every possible infection-point and my eyes welled up in tears again. My family has been getting sick; Elijah is barely eating, all because I have not been doing a good job of taking care of them. I am doing the best I can, but how can I do any better under these circumstances?

In one moment I felt so much. Frustration: I know what to do to take care of my family but I can’t do it. Lack of control: How is good hygiene feasible when we can’t count on running water all of the time or the sanitation of food we purchase? Injustice: rich children do not suffer from amoebas. They have running water every day. The food their parents purchase at high-end grocery stores is not infected. Then it occurred to me. Perhaps this is a tiny bit of what they experience: the roughly 2 billion mothers who live on less than $2 a day , who struggle to feed and care for their children, suffering from anemia, malnutrition, and a host of parasites that live in their bodies. Yet, despite my sudden sense of empathy, the different between me and the majority of the mothers of the world is profound (85% of the world’s population lives in developing countries ). I can get medicine to kill the amoebas. I can take precautions so that we won’t be infected again (hopefully). And, if I really want to, I can move back to the United States or to a nicer home in Tegucigalpa so that my family doesn’t have to suffer. I have options. Most families trapped in poverty do not.

Sometimes visitors ask me how I can subject my child to the dangerous conditions we experience living and working among the poor. The truth is that this is how the majority of the world lives. How can I not?

http://www.globalissues.org/article/26/poverty-facts-and-stats

Semana Santa

2010-04-05T15:29:00.000-07:00

My plans for Holy Week were very much in line with my North-American heritage: take advantage of the time off to get caught up on work, then fix a formal Easter dinner on Sunday for my family and some favorites at AFE, complete with flesh flowers and an Easter egg hunt.

Of course my plans flew out the window. Not having a babysitter made work impossible. The scorching heat encouraged us to do like the locals: search for water to swim in. Then as Easter approached and I began to prepare for my big dinner, we lost all of our water supply at home. There was no way I was going to attempt to cook a big dinner without water. We went out to eat instead. Elijah still had his Easter egg hunt, with a surpise guest. A neighbor came by, a little bit high, to show us this snake he caught.

All in all, it was an Easter I will never forget!

Learning the Art of Hanging Out

2009-11-21T15:03:00.000-08:00

On Friday I left AFE after my Pilates class. I left AFE because I wanted to begin my work on their sponsorship program, but couldn’t that wait until later that afternoon? I also left because I don’t know how to hang out – Honduran style. I realized this when I got home and couldn’t get any work done because Rey had taken the internet. Why wasn’t I at AFE hanging out with the kids?

I know how to hang out American-style. It often involves doing something at the same time, and talking about our leisure activities. We might go out for lunch, go shopping, or go to a movie. I was especially good at hanging out with American teenagers (in my mind, at least), since I was well-informed about every WB drama, Justin Timberlake song, Face book app., etc.
Hanging out with AFE’s Honduran teenagers is different. My great opening line: “what did you do last weekend?” brings the response: “nada.” They really did do nada. They are poor; they don’t have the means to go out to eat, go shopping, or go

to a movie. They probably didn’t even leave their neighborhood. They may have spent a lot of time drawing water from the spring to wash their clothes by hand, sitting around and talking with their friends and family.
So I don’t know exactly what to talk about, but I keep trying. My problem is complicated by my less than stellar communication skills. Even after nearly two years here I can’t always understand the kids at AFE, who speak a broken, informal sort of Spanish. I have, however, polished the phrase: “Olvídelo.” (Which means “Forget it” when they don’t understand me.)

However, hanging out in Honduras doesn’t mean the conversation always has to be rolling. Sometimes people come over to our house to hang out and just sit on our couch, not saying anything. To me, this is incredibly awkward. My American upbringing drives my mind into quick intensity, trying to think of every possible conversation opener, just in case the conversation wanes again. Why can’t I just be content to sit there, to share company together, listening to children playing outside and the breeze rustling the trees? I feel comfortable doing nothing by myself, but why is it that I absolutely can’t do nothing with others?

I am still working on the art of hanging out. It is a humbling process, yet I know it will reap great rewards. Hondurans are teaching me that one of the greatest gift we can give others is something we Americans seem to value about all else: our time.

Halloween in Honduras

2009-11-04T13:11:00.000-08:00

We began the night at a Halloween Party in the Gibson’s community. Elijah dressed up like a puppy, I as a kitty. When he saw my cat ears and whiskers, he began giggling with delight. He immediately knew what I was and was enchanted with the idea that we could dress up as animals. He started making cat sounds: “meow!” “meow!” and then I began making dog sounds: “ruff ruff!” Douglas, one of Rey’s disciples at AFE, must have thought we were crazy as this was his first Halloween experience.

The party at the Gibson’s community lacked for nothing a good Halloween party should offer. The kids were dressed up in amazing costumes. Michael Jackson’s Thriller set the mood. There was a smoke machine, lights, and even a catwalk for the costume context. We could have been at a Halloween party in the States, except that everyone spoke Spanish.

Before the party finished we headed back to the Miller community for a church rally. Apparently Halloween is an evil holiday in Honduras and many churches gather for prayer meetings on this night. Our church, Amor y Vida, was not having a prayer meetings as much as a small group rally. I think Elijah actually had more fun here. It had all the elements of Elijah’s ideal party: brightly colored balloons, cheers and shouting, singing and dancing. Elijah sweated the night away in his furry puppy costume, waving a balloon and clapping at the appropriate times. After our skit, we headed home to put Elijah to bead. And just as many new parents do, we fell asleep as soon as Elijah was in bed. Overall, it was a good bicultural celebration of this American holiday.

Grandparents Week of Fun

2009-11-04T12:07:00.000-08:00

Last week my parents were blessed with supernaturally cheap flight tickets to come visit us in Honduras. I was especially excited for my dad to see how we live since he had yet to visit us here. Elijah recognized my parents right when they got off the plane. He spent a week loving and playing with them. By the end of the week he was saying "pee pee" for "GP" and "abue" (abuelita) for damma. Not sure why Elijah is chosing to speak to my mom in Spanish, but we'll take it!

Most of our good pics were accidentally erased by one family member who thinks himself particularly savy with technology...but here's a couple of us preparing for Halloween and visiting the children's museum here in Teguc.
By the end of the week everyone but Elijah was completely exhausted!

The Pains of Toddlerhood

2009-10-13T14:36:00.000-07:00

How can such damage occur in 30 seconds?

A minute before nap time I thought to throw meat in the crock pot to give it the allotted time to cook. But time is measured differently when there is a toddler on the premises.
It started with a simple bottle of soy sauce, strangely misplaced[1], and teetering precariously on the counter. As I reached for the balsamic vinaigrette with one eye on Elijah, suddenly the glass bottle was tumbling to the floor. CRASH! Glass and soy sauce everywhere.

Naturally, Someone wanted to come to me through this new, glittery black path. A sideways chair served as a barrier as I began to sweep and mop up the damage. Then stopped. Wherever did Elijah find matches when I can never locate them?

“No!” was explained, a couple of tears wiped, and then he was sitting on the couch, innocently enough. I thought it safe to throw the raw beef in the crock pot. I was wrong. Bump..bump..bump…I glanced his direction again. Elijah had the miniature arm of our tiny Honduran kitten in a vice-link grip and was using it as a lever to hit the furry little head against the wall.

“Nooooo!” In one bound I was over the chair-barrier, prying Elijah away from the kitten with raw meat all over my hands. Wailing ensured, and continued until I turned on the facet and allowed him to “play” in the water to wash away raw meat…perhaps glass and soy sauce?...and kitten fur. The kitten nursed his wounds quietly in a corner. Will he survive a tremendous toddler?

Finally it was time for a nap. This is how the struggle went down: I turned off the water. The toddler got a crazed look in his eye, lifted his stool above his head, and ran screaming as if into battle. I waited quietly in his room for the spirit to pass. Suddenly he appeared with a big smile on his face. “Ball-ball” he said sweetly. (He thinks it’s hilarious to call me “ball” instead of Mama, and Rey’s encouraging it). Soon all was forgotten as tiny arms griped my neck, and his eyes sparkled as he planted slopping kisses all over my face. As I laid him down to sleep, I noticed small shards of glass sticking out of my feet and blood running down my legs.

[1] This “reorganization” is not limited to soy sauce, it also includes a cell phone, turned to “silent”, stuffed under animals in the crib, a full bottle of milk in the Tupperware drawer, day planer with the cereal, I could go on and on.

Supermarket Run

2009-09-23T15:17:00.000-07:00

Mel is back. He has managed to come climb mountains, forge rivers, and then sneak into Tegucigalpa on his arduous quest to regain power (I hope you can sense my sarcasm at his dramatic antics). Now he seeks asylum in the Brazilian embassy, throwing his country in chaos once more.
Since his return became public yesterday, we as a country have been on “house arrest” – a toque de queda, they call it here. I suppose its purpose is to keep people from demonstrating. Rumors circulate about six protesters killed by the police today. My dad, who seems to have an opinion on all things political and historical, tells me this is standard practice for a country in Honduras’ situation. But couldn’t they just take away the right to assemble, instead of the entire country’s freedom? The desperate poor are unable to work, the sick unable to visit a hospital, children unable to attend school. Today they lifted the toque de queda for several hours to allow people to go grocery shopping. This allowance must have had the same semblance to everyone else as it did me: if they are lifting the curfew for a couple hours to allow us to stock up, they must not have any intention of restoring our freedom soon.

A run on groceries. A run on gas. Fortunately, we – the Diaz family – are some of the few with (a) a car to get to the grocery store at a reasonable hour to wait in line for it to open; (b) the means – a credit card – to stock up if this toque de queda continues indefinitely.
This simply demonstrates, in my mind, another example of the abundance available to us as Americans, and the hardship facing by the poor majority, aggravated by clumsy politicians.

O Mel, if you really care about your people, why not wait for the elections in November, and let us live and work in peace?

Birthday Parties

2009-08-28T11:59:00.000-07:00

I admit when I was back in the States and I saw a well-crafted invitation for the birthday of my friend's son, I felt a stab of envy. My resources would be limited in Honduras as to the type of party I could give Elijah for his second birthday.

I don't know why I allowed this brief thought of discontent to enter my mind. (1) Most children here in Honduras don't even have birthday parties! Let alone presents. (2) Since we've been here, God has been providing for us and blessing us more than I could ever ask or imagine.

That said, Elijah's second birthday was a testiment to the love our community and how priviledged we are to be here.

A Pilrgrim's Progress

2009-08-28T11:30:00.000-07:00

It’s amazing what good screens on the windows and reading up on food handling safety can do for the psyche. When we returned to Honduras our number one priority was to fix some things so that I could feel comfortable and not be distracted from the work God has for me here. We put a mosquito net over our bed so that I would stop waking throughout the night and imagining bugs all over me (it probably wasn’t my imagination). I’ve added new precautions to our family care – like boiling water when I wash dishes, putting the leaking meat in another plastic bag at the grocery store, throwing things out of the refrigerator when the power is off for a day – and so far none of us have gotten sick since we’ve been back.

Simple things, but they make life so much more livable for this American princess. And now I can focus on the things at hand: like making sure every single junior high student aces their English class; like organizing a sponsorship program for AFE to help raise funds for operations, like seeing to it that everyone in our family is growing spirituality and not wasting this amazing opportunity God has given us.

It doesn’t matter where you are in the world, which season of life you find yourself in; spiritual disciplines remain integral to everyone’s spiritual growth and formation. Thus, these are the new disciplines we’ve built into our daily lives: (1) my personal Sabbath – Friday mornings: a couple of beautiful, cherished tranquil hours ALONE with no one tugging on my leg, mamamamamamama. (2) My small group for fellowship: Saturday nights. Rey watches Elijah for me and I cross language and culture to find companionship in the family of God. (3) Morning breakfast: Elijah and I consume the Word together with our cereal. (4) Worship: although there is a sala cuna available, I feel like it is good for toddlers to participate in corporate worship, perhaps they can sense the spirit of God there despite their limited intellectual development. (5) Intercessory journey: what better way to use the time walking to a rapitito than to pray for those we are serving?

Mothers: which spiritual disciplines have you successfully built into your lives, now that your time is not your own?

A Disquiet Peace

2009-08-18T12:38:00.000-07:00

Once it became apparent that Mel Zelaya´s political posturing was nothing more than hopping back and forth over the border, yelling ¨Na-na-na-na-nah!¨ to the press, Rey and I decided that we could safely fly back into Tegucigalpa. When we arrived and began the drive through town, most of the walls and street corners were marked, painted over, and then marked again - evidence of the many demonstrations. I looked with interest at the graffiti, correcting spelling errors in my mind, and chuckling at some of the more creative artists: “Pinocheletti,” “Fuera Golpistas” It all seemed a little one-sided. ¨That´s because Mel´s supporters a rag-tag bunch and very poorly behaved,” our driver commented.

The opinions here vary as our weather in August. “The political protestors are paid off, with Chavez´s money!” “Both ‘presidents’ are ladrones!” “The news is wrong. It wasn’t a coup d’etat. The removal of Zelaya was done legally, in line with Honduras’ constitution, not the United States’ constitution”. I, personally, don’t know what to believe. History will tell, perhaps, what really happened.

In the meantime Honduras enjoys a disquiet peace. Life goes on as normal, giving the weekly political demonstrations a wide margin. The curfew keeps people off the streets at night, when it is in effect. We look forward to the November elections, hoping they will bring back international aid to this poor country. I try to put a happy spin on the crisis to my Honduran friends: at least the world now knows of this small country, south of Mexico. “Yes,” they reply, “they know that we are politically ailing…but not of the beauty and greatness that lies within our people.”

Exile

2009-07-29T13:03:00.000-07:00

Exile -

4.prolonged separation from one's country or home, as by force of circumstances: wartime exile.

On June 28th 2009, the day before we were scheduled to fly back to Tegucigalpa, the military barged into the Honduran president’s bedroom, and demanded, at gun point, that he leave the country.

The embassy suspended all travel to Honduras the following week. Protests filled the streets, two people died and thirty were injured. The president attempted to fly into the Tegucigalpa airport but was not allowed to land. Both sides of the controversy attested that they were going about things in the most “democratic way,” and yet the country – our home – remains in political upheaval.

We keep delaying our flight. What will happen to our new country, our friends, our work at transformation in the garbage dump community? Our plans for the summer have been thrown out the window. Work teams canceled. We wait here, at my parent’s house, and kill time in indecision. We work on what we can, by the internet, but we remain with one foot raised high, unsure of which direction to head, in limbo.

“Mortals make elaborate plans,
But God has the last word. “

- The Message, somewhere in Proverbs.

The National Religion of Honduras

2009-04-18T08:10:00.000-07:00

Sometimes visitors from the United States ask me: “Would you say Honduras is primarily Roman Catholic?” and I find myself replying: “No, I would say it is primarily Soccer-Fanatic.”

When Honduras plays a world-cup qualifying match in the city, I don’t need to turn on the TV to know if we have scored a goal. The cheers rise up from the barrios and resonate in the farthest corner of Tegucigalpa (which is where I live, in the outskirts, in the campo).

When Honduras isn’t trying for the world cup, there are two main teams, two main loyalties in the city: Olympia and Montagua. It’s like the civil war, in which families were divided (“one wore blue, one wore grey”) – except in this case: one wears blue, the other red.

The loyalties run so deep that actual gangs have formed around these teams. Olympia’s gang is called “the ultra faithful” and Montagua’s “Rebel." The gangs are so bad that you can’t wear your favorite team’s jersey to the game because you risk getting jumped.

Yesterday we got caught in the middle of a “marcha” of one of the Team Gangs. Apparently Olympia and Montagua were playing in the city (we had forgotten) and people took the streets, waving banners, singing, and stopping traffic. Our car was stopped in the middle of this chaos…the ultra faithful simply marched around us, lifting the banner over the car creating a tunner. Rey and I made sure to clap loudly and cheer to show that we were Olympia supporters and not to accrue their anger.

In 1969 there was actually a war fought over soccer. El Salvador invaded Honduras when things heated up over a World-Cup qualifying match.

All of this being said, Elijah has beeen affected by the national religion of Honduras. Every evening when the heat of the sun begins to subside, he goes out to the main square of our community to play soccer with all of the neighborhood kids. He can dribble the ball, score goals (from about 2 feet away), and his method of re-obtaining the ball if it is stolen is to cry until he gets it back (we’ll have to work on that). Of the few words he says, “ball” and “goal” are some of the favorites.

I am happy that Elijah is learning soccer and making friends, I only hope that we are back in the states by the time he old enough to join a team gang!

Why I will never be on Reality TV

2009-03-23T20:16:00.000-07:00

Our life as a missionary family would make a good TV show. There’s drama and adventures, unusual characters and comedy (Rey), and the camera loves Elijah. However, my day today exemplifies why I will never be on a Reality TV show (if I was ever invited).

I woke up too early (thanks, Elijah), and my first thought was of the inch of dirt in our water tank, and the unsettling reality that when I bathe, wash dishes, and my hands to be “clean,” I’m really washing everything with dirty water. This put me in a bad mood.

Faced with a day of incarceration stretching before me, I turned on High School Musical and lay on the couch while Elijah found ways to make the house messier and messier.

By 11am I had worked up a sufficient scheme to regain the car. I would take Elijah on a Rapidito to AFE, where I would then pick up the car, a couple of things from the grocery store, and return home. However, when I arrived at AFE I discovered that Rey had taken the car seat out of the car. Naturally I did not see it sitting by the door when I left.

Soon a ½ hour trip had become two hours (after going back to get the car seat, giving the teachers a ride into town, etc., etc) and we were infringing on the Red Zone: nap time. I should have given up then.

By the time we made it into the grocery store parking lot, Elijah was just closing his eyes for a nap.

“Elijah, wake up! I’ll give you ice cream if you just stay awake long enough for us to get home!”

(The 1 ½ - 2 hours that Elijah naps at home are a sacred time. Sometimes I actually get to read the Bible without it being snatched away and pages torn out. I guard this time religiously, although it rarely seems to happen. Thus, I am considering switching my devotional book to a children’s illustrated, cardboard bible. And now you see the depth of my spirituality as a new mother.)

Consequently, we missed his nap again today. But I am getting ahead of myself.
The ice cream was not the best idea. Elijah discovered that it was much more pleasurable to wipe it all over the grocery cart than eat it. I think he is a budding artist.

So, the reason I will never go on Reality TV is this: it might catch the twenty days of the month in which I, and my family, are sufficiently put together. But more likely it will catch moments such at these:

- Me licking the dirt off the ice cream so that Elijah wouldn’t eat it.

- Blaring Kanye West on the ride home, to an impressionable toddler. Yes, he may learn to swear, but I hope instead he learns: “That..that..that which won’t kill us, will only make us stronger!”

- Me with disheveled hair, sweating, with washable marker all over my white t-shirt, grumbling at Rey

The irony of my determination to never go on Reality TV, is of course, that I divulge my dirty little secrets on a public blog. But we laugh and learn, right?

Rotavirus

2009-03-12T11:25:00.000-07:00

Last Thursday evening Eliljah began vomiting…and it hasn’t stopped since. On Saturday after a sample of his stool (diarrhea) was examined, he was diagnosed with “Rotavirus,”- a familiar word, but something I had yet to understand.

Now that I do, I know that if the Rotavirus were a person, I would immediately knee it in the stomach, slap it in the face, and spit at its feet.

Apparently Rotavirus infections are responsible for approximately 3 million cases of diarrhea and 55,000 hospitalizations for diarrhea and dehydration in children under 5 years old each year in the United States. In developing countries, the Rotavirus causes over half a million deaths worldwide every year due to dehydration caused by diarrhea (http://kidshealth.org/parent/infections/stomach/rotavirus.html).

In Honduras, the Rotavirus is epidemic, and easily passed as germs stay on objects touched by infectious children for two days.

On Thursday Elijah began vomiting, on Friday he was diagnosed, but on Saturday, though he was thin and weak, he seemed to show signs of improvement. He walked around and showed interest in playing. However, despite his apparent improvement, he began to refuse to drink liquids. By the doctor’s orders, Rey and I forced Pedialite into his mouth with a syringe every 10 minutes. When night fell and Elijah went to bed for the evening, Rey and I were less vigilant with the forced rehydration therapy. We figured he needed his sleep and did not want to wake him every ten minutes. . In retrospect, this proved a dangerous mistake.

The next morning when we took Elijah to the doctor for his daily injection of medicine, his condition suddenly deteriorated. His eyes seemed to shrink into this face, his lips were chapped, and when I asked the doctor if we should take him to the hospital to get rehydrated he said “yes.”

Our doctor in Honduras goes above and beyond many doctors in the States. We didn’t know where the closest hospital was (now that we live in Linda Miller) and it’s difficult to navigate Teguc since many of the streets are unnamed. Our doctor led us to the hospital in his car, to a pediatrician he knew and called ahead of time, asking him to come to work on a Sunday just for Elijah.

In the car Elijah’s condition worsened and I was beside myself with fear for his life. His eyes could not focus and he was fading in and out of consciousness. He was as limp as a doll and his heartbeat so faint that at one point I couldn’t feel it.

“Elijah, Elijah!” stay with me! My reaction to Elijah’s condition was practically giving Rey a heart attack, who drove like a mad man following the doctor through the winding streets of Tegucigalpa.

When we finally reached the hospital the pediatrician met us at the door. Things that Elijah normally would fight over (like taking his temperature) were easy because he was so listless. He had lost 4 pounds in three days and his face was so small, all eyes.

Putting the IV in Elijah was not as difficult as I expected because Elijah was so weak. After 4 hours of rehydration he began to look better: his eyes were no longer shrunken into his face and some color returned to his cheeks. The doctor said that he was “moderately dehydrated,” and the danger was to see if he would keep urinating and his kidneys functioning properly.

Four days later I am relieved to say that Elijah is 100% better. He is eating, drinking, (and urinating) normally again, and playing with all of rascaliness we once knew. He still has weight to put on to get back to normal, and is still at a lower energy level than normal (which is about what I can handle!). But he is healed, thank you God.

I feel so blessed that we have the means to take Elijah to a doctor, and the hospital, and the huge support we received from everyone here. Thank you for your prayers.

Casa del Campo

2009-03-07T11:48:00.000-08:00

The wind rushes through the aluminum roof and candles flicker. I step outside to the pila to wash dishes and catch a glimpse of the sun descending behind the trees.

My counter top is a rustic, handmade table from the market. I awake to the crow of a rooster in my front yard and buy mangos from a street vender on my dusty walk home.
Although seeds blow in and litter my kitchen table, uninvited guests with too many legs creep in, and the electricity comes and goes like the water,

I am growing to love my casa del campo.

New Community

2009-03-01T19:06:00.000-08:00

Last Wednesday was the big moving day and just as Rey predicted; it was much easier than I anticipated. We had a lot of help. A friend lent his flatbed truck. All of the young men from AFE showed up to lend a hand. The teachers of AFE spent a day cleaning our house in the Miller in preparation for the move. The Ordonez family helped us unpack and Jessi took charge of the movers and directed them where to put the furniture. Although we only began the moving process that afternoon, Rey, Elijah and I were able to sleep in a well-arranged house and clean sheets in our beds that evening. The next morning we awoke to a knock on our door. The neighborhood kids had already staked out the house and the possibility of a new place to play. Two little boys in particular have not left our front porch since we moved in – William and Lester. Jessi warned me that they are the buggers of the neighborhood, but I am so far delighted by their antics. They remind me of Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer – complete with Spanish freckles and falling apart shoes. Elijah too has grown to like them, as long as he gets a break every once and a while. Our other fast friends are Lisy and Evelyn, who come to the Amor y Vida church. Lisy is a skinny little girl that reminds me of myself and her friend Evelyn is a nine-year-old teenager. Yesterday we went on a walk around the community on a fruitless search for ice cream. Although ice cream was impossible to find, the girls invited me to see a dead body in a neighbor’s house. (He died of natural causes. Not sure why they were storing the body there instead of in a funeral home). I declined the invitation.

Not only have the neighborhood kids staked out our place, but also some of the AFE kids have already dropped by. We have had such a constant stream of visitors, in fact, that Rey advised me to set up some boundaries. When he lived in the inner city during his time of ministry in “Gainsville Outreach,” he learned to strike a balance between serving the community and preserving his time alone with God. Thus, when the gate is open, come in to play! When it is closed, our family needs some quiet time together. From the isolation of where we were living before, what a delightful change!

Elijah's social and linguistic development

2009-02-18T12:28:00.001-08:00

In a week we will move to our new home in “La Miller,” as they call it here (the Linda Miller community, near AFE, in which Jeony and Jessy Ordonez live). We are moving there for several reasons, and one of which is to help Elijah’s social/linguistic development.

Elijah is 18 months old now. He is happy, healthy, and right on track with all of the development milestones, but there are still two things I am slightly concerned about. One, he doesn’t appear to like anyone other than Rey and I (many of you may have noticed this). He grunts at people when they venture near, if they keep coming, he turns away and yells. He has always been especially close to mommy and daddy, and slow to adapt/withdrawing from others, but it seems more extreme now. Rey and I believe the reason is partly due to his temperament, but mostly to our living situation. Elijah is isolated in our home all week (because it’s dangerous to go outside in our neighborhood) until we go to church on Sundays. Things are worse when I attempt to bring him to AFE, he shrieks in terror as the kids approach him.

In the Miller it will be safer for me to take Elijah outside, there are tons of other little children his age, and many young mothers available for me to befriend. We hope that this socialization will iron out Elijah’s shyness and that he will open up his “circle of trust” to more people than simply Rey and I.

Secondly, Elijah does not speak many words, though he understands nearly everything in both Spanish and English. He has his own way of communicating, through leading Rey or I to what he wants, pointing at things and saying “nuh” (his own, made-up word), or shaking his head “no” fervently. But still, at 18 months, the only sensical things he says are “mama,” “dada” and “ball.” I have read that spoken language arrives later in bilingual children, but I am also hoping that our move to the Miller will help Elijah’s to develop more spoken language.

Despite these small concerns, Rey and I are delighted by Elijah’s personality as we see it emerging as the older he gets. He has a great sense of humor, is a very loving, empathetic child, and also extremely active and tough. He is constantly taking risks, physically, and finding new ways to slip by me and do Olympic-style stunts. So, if you are praying for Elijah, please pray for his social/linguistic development and also his continuous safety.

The one thing they learned from me..

2009-02-18T12:13:00.000-08:00

With the increased enrollment at AFE, I have been recruited to teach classes in addition to my work in communications/donor relations. Teaching English seemed a good fit for me because since I am still studying Spanish, I happen to know all of the Spanish words for grammatical things.

So far, I have only taught two classes. The first class was a little rough. When I told the class that I would be taking over, one girl rolled her eyes. The rest stared at me and looked bored.

However, the second class was a lot more interesting and I am certain that the students at least learned one thing from me.

We were practicing the “th” sound – a very difficult sound for Spanish speakers – when the wrong sound slipped out. It came out as “ffffuuu” and ended with a “cckk.” Unfortunately, the young lady knew exactly what she said. The rest of the class didn’t but suddenly became very interested.

“Elise, you’ve got to tell us what this word is so we don’t say it by accident!”

“We promise we won’t say it if you tell us what it is!”

“What does it mean? It’s better that we hear it from you than from someone else!”

They were very convincing. I compromised. I spelled the word phonetically in Spanish for them, but I warned them that I would automatically deduct 20 points if I ever heard it or saw it written anywhere. As to the meaning, better they don’t know.

My class of twelve is full of very eager learners. I encourage everyone who visits to speak English with them and to give them the chance to practice their new skills. Please, however, refrain from allowing them to practice the one word in English that they know for sure.

A Bloody Mouth

2009-02-14T13:09:00.000-08:00

I was chatting with the ladies in AFE’s office when a small girl ran in: “A Rey ya los sacaron!”

A dental brigade had come to offer free dental services to the community, including Rey who was up to have his wisdom teeth removed. When he told me he planned to do it the night before, I asked him if the brigade had everything they needed for anesthesia and he told me, “Oh, don’t worry about it, Pastor Jeony will help me with the anesthesia.”

As you can imagine, when I heard that Rey had just undergone the operation, I ran to find him and make sure everything was okay. I found my husband down stairs, spitting blood on the ground and smiling with the biggest, bloodiest smile I had ever seen. I felt my knees grow weak as he mumbled through the gauze:

“Ah veel grey!”

“What?!”

“I feel great!” He took out the gauze and flashed me his bloody smile again. Apparently, they didn’t give him anesthesia, just localized numbness, and it didn’t hurt at all. After twenty-four hours Rey was back to his coke-drinking, joke-telling self, with little more to show for the minor surgery than four gaping holes in the back of his mouth. No swelling, no pain, no dental bill.

I said a quick prayer of thanks to God, but made sure to keep my mouth closed when I greeted the dentists, just in case they got any ideas about serving me as well. I must admit that my husband is brave.

Giving and Greed

2009-02-14T13:02:00.000-08:00

Good food often becomes a scarcity in our house by the end of the month. This is because I have not yet found the rhythm of Honduran cooking and grocery purchasing. I use a disproportionate amount of our grocery budget on American products, which are much more expensive, but they are all I know. This is another thing I hope to learn in the Miller: how to cook and grocery-shop like a Hondureña.

In the meantime, I start rationing fruit and snacks (which tend to get gobbled up most quickly) as we near pay day. One luxury that we sometimes have in our home is pop tarts. They are much more expensive in Honduras and can only be purchased at a fancy grocery store which carries American products. We have discovered an especially delicious variety of pop tarts called “cookie dough” that remind me of fresh chocolate-chip cookies when they pop out of the toaster.

One day I came home to find the box of cookie dough pop tarts empty. Rey said he had not eaten one, nor had I. I know Elijah wasn’t the culprit because they were up too high and he isn’t allowed to have sweets anyway. That left one person: the nanny!

Now, what would you do in my situation? Naturally I couldn’t ask her about them. What would I say? “Did you eat all of our pop tarts?” “Please don’t, they are just for us!” How bad does that sound, even if I am secretly thinking it? So I hid them, behind the towels in the linen closet.

Today I am feeling guilty. The guys from AFE came over to hang out today, as they do many Saturdays, and one young man bought all of us lunch! I imagine that cost him his spending money for at least the whole month! How can children who have nothing be so generous, and I, who have so much, be so greedy?

I am still wrestling with what to do with the pop tarts. The Bible’s prescription for greed is to give away more than is comfortable (Matt 19:21-26 ). I think God might be asking me to give my beloved pop tarts away.

Renovation

2009-02-02T10:36:00.000-08:00

We are in the process of gutting out and lathering paint over a quaint cottage in Villa Linda Miller, the community near the Tegucigalpa Dump in which the directors of our project, Pastor Jeony and Jessi Ordoñez live. Many thanks to Michael Miller, our housing hero who graciously lent the place to us. It has a lot of potential, but it also needs a lot of work.

As I discover piles of dirty diapers in what will soon be my backyard, a toilet that needs extracting, and many holes to be filled and closed off to critters, I am simultaneously reading about another sort of renovation….the renovation of the heart.

Dallas Willard talks about removing the underlying conditions that create destructive feelings, thoughts, then actions in us. This process of extracting the dirty appliances that are not of good use is much deeper than simply managing our words or behavior. This involves scraping away layers of old paint to discover the quality of the wood beneath. And I am beginning to ask myself such questions:

(1) Why do I often feel the need to impress those around me?
(2) Why am I never satisfied, but always wanting more?

Renovation is a lot of work. Perhaps, when it comes to heart, a process that never ends. But is a joy to see the original and potential beauty behind the creation unfold.

Pics of our Time in Washington

2009-02-02T10:34:00.000-08:00

Our Time in Washington

2009-02-02T10:26:00.000-08:00

Our time in Washington was as warm and exquisite as well-done Christmas card. Sarai’s wedding was a beautiful culmination of many prayers for her and Alexandria’s future. On Christmas day, snow fell outside and Elijah enjoyed his first snow man, and I a long-awaited Starbucks coffee.

Additionally, there seemed to be divine leading in terms of what Project Transformation will become (projecttransformation@blogspot.com). Rey and I found ourselves unified in our vision for our future and how long to remain in Honduras (God willing).

With an end to our family’s pilgrimage in Honduras in sight, but not near, I feel an even greater impetus to buy from Jesus the gold refined in the fire I see here…and clothes designed in heaven, and salve for my eyes so that I may see.

The Justice of God

2008-11-12T14:23:00.001-08:00

Followers of my family’s pilgrimage will remember the story of the malviviente who assaulted Elijah and me on our way to the park. After the attack, I mused at the futility of his actions, because the earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it. Psalms 37 promises that though the wicked draw their swords (or knives, in this case), their swords will pierce their own hearts and their bows will be broken.

Well, two days ago my sense as to the attacker’s future was fulfilled.

Oscar, a friend of ours from the Micah Project, was jogging through that same park when three young men came up to him with knives. They demanded his cell phone and began to attack him when Pastor Jeony, the director of our project, happened to drive by.

“Jeony, help, I’m being assaulted! ” Yelled Oscar as the car passed. Jeony immediately began pursuing the attackers in his car. He threw the car into reverse and chased the attackers down the street. They ran down a narrow street, difficult for a car to manage, and then down a steep flight of steps. Jeony took a different route and cut them off. When he met them on the street below, he jumped out of the car and began pursuing them on foot. I’m not sure what his plans were once he actually got a hold of the three men with knives…or why they were so frantically running from a pastor in a suit!

Fortunately, the Teguicgalpa police (whom never seem to be in the right place at the right time unless there’s a bribe is involved), saw the chase and arrested the three men. They returned Oscar’s cell phone and the leader of their gang, who has a long record, will be behind bars the longest.

Now, who do you suppose the leader of this gang was? He can be distinguished by the tattoo on his left shoulder blade. It was the same man who had assaulted Elijah and me roughly five months ago!

I have always believed in a just God, although I only expected to see that justice in the afterlife. How beautiful that God intervenes today to bring about justice for his people. I do not think it was a coincidence that Pastor Jeony happened to drive by while Oscar was being assaulted, nor that the police witnessed the chase and arrested the same criminal that robbed me. A small crime, when so much worse goes unpunished, but I am thankful and still learning about the justice of God nonetheless.

Integration

2008-11-11T07:33:00.000-08:00

A basic principle of mission work is to live like the people to which you minister. They have a name for this: “incarnational ministry.” It comes from the idea that God took on flesh and moved into the neighborhood when Jesus came to earth. We are to do likewise.

Before we left for Honduras, mentors spoke prophetically into our lives: “Rey and Elise, you two are to be ´bridge people´´, to link people from the United States to Honduras. Thus, when we found a house close to the same square footage as our condo in the states, with clean tiled floors, running water, and a garage for our car, it seemed the appropriate place to host mission teams and volunteers from the states (which we have been). But of course, we are hosting more than Americans. A natural integration with the people from the garbage dump has begun to occur.

On Saturday, Rey, Elijah and I were delighted to have nine surprise visitors – the adolescents from AFE who had taken a bus downtown and walked all the way to our house just to hang out for the day.

They entered humbly, with apparent awe, at how large and beautiful our house was in comparison to their own (most families of AFE live in a 500 sq ft shack, all together in one room). They seemed amazed that Elijah had his own room and that we washed our clothes with a machine.

Incarnational ministry. After nearly 9 months here, the nexus of our ministry and our hearts has shifted. I was the one embarrassed now, that we had so much as they so little. Our “country house in the city” served as a good transition home for us; now it is time for us to live more like the people to whom we minister.

Please pray for the right house to become available so that the Diaz family we may live closer to those we love.

Dirt under My Fingernails

2008-10-28T19:04:00.000-07:00

When I first visited the Tegucigalpa Garbage Dump three years ago I was surprised how hard it was to keep my lunch down as I watched vultures fight over raw meat.

When I came to AFE on a mission trip two years ago I held it the whole time so that I would not have step foot in the “bathrooms.”

When I moved here nearly a year ago I vowed never to drink from the well at AFE that provided the only water for the surrounding community (to avoid the possibility of Montezuma’s revenge).

A week ago I found myself filling up buckets at that very well, glorying in the beautiful bubbles that sprayed from the facet and the sound of the water wooshing into the bucket. A city pipe had broken and my house had been without water for a week. To continue with our day-to-day activities we had been purchasing bottled water from the grocery store to shower, cook and wash dishes, and even flush the toilet. It was getting very expensive and I was starting to lengthen the time between bathing, flush only when absolutely necessary, and recycle dishwater. Needless to say, the bathrooms at AFE began to seem clean in comparison and as I filled up buckets from the well, I noticed that I had dirt under my fingernails.

At that moment all of the times I had judged the cleanliness of those around me sprang before me, with the conclusions I had jumped to as to why they did not appear as “clean” as me.

I believe Jesus once said: "Don't pick on people, jump on their failures, criticize their faults— unless, of course, you want the same treatment. That critical spirit has a way of boomeranging. It's easy to see a smudge on your neighbor's face and be oblivious to the ugly sneer on your own. Do you have the nerve to say, 'Let me wash your face for you,' when your own face is distorted by contempt? It's this whole traveling road-show mentality all over again, playing a holier-than-thou part instead of just living your part. Wipe that ugly sneer off your own face, and you might be fit to offer a washcloth to your neighbor.” (Matthew 7:1-5)

The other day we took a team of Americans to visit the garbage dump. Half of them stayed in the bus because they felt too uncomfortable or disgusted to enter the garbage where the people work, where some of our AFE children still hang out. Forgetting that I was in their seat three years ago, I found myself silently judging “those privileged Americans”….May God help me.

Elijah's Adventure

2008-10-17T21:11:00.000-07:00

On Wednesday she slipped her little hand into mine and my heart warmed. Valesca and she sister, Katarine, always seemed to be dancing as they skipped around school, their eyes dancing too. The mother in me longed to wash their dirty little ankles and brush their unkempt hair. But I am not their mother, just their teacher and friend.

On Thursday I got the news that Valesca and another little girl were hit by a car as they crossed the street after school. Impossible to imagine…that someone could not see them on the road…or that no one was not holding their hands as they crossed, taking extra precaution to wait until the hum of oncoming cars was long past.

Thankfully, Valesca’s only repercussions from this tragic event were a hairline fracture in her vertebrae, sentencing her to a month of bed rest, and the experience of blatant disregard from the hospital staff because she was one of “the dirty ones, from the dump.”

This afternoon Colleen, Rey, and Elijah and I piled into our car to visit her with coloring books, a stuffed bear, and a priceless candy ring-pop. The rain fell softly as we turned onto the dirt road to see Fausto and Katarine running to greet us. The jumped in to lead us to their home, too confident in our SUV’s ability to wade through mud a foot deep and climb hills at a 20% grade. Soon it became apparent that if we were to continue, it must be on foot. I slipped Elijah’s rain jacket over his head—"Boo!"-- and then handed him to Rey to travail the sticky, slippery path before us.

Climbing the steep embankment would have been difficult on its own; it was the kind that required strong grips on grass, sure footing, and had to be done on all fours. Add a foot deep of mud, and the disability of carrying a toddler, and I don’t know how we did it. I do know, however, that my fashion boots were perfectly suited to the task since they were modeled after riding boots. I think I was the only one who did not lose a shoe in the climb!

As we climbed, Elijah smiled back at me over his dad’s shoulder. He looked so cute in his hooded rain jacket. When I fell too far behind he cried out for me, already watching out for me although he was the one that needed watching out for!

Finally we arrived at the two small wooden shacks mounted precariously on a precipice. Chicks clucked at our feet as Valesca’s aunt greeted us suspiciously, but bade us enter. It took a moment for our eyes to adjust to the room without light, without electricity. The remnants of late-afternoon sun filtered through the boards making up the walls, leaving enough space for large bugs to enter, I imagined. But there lay Valesca in her bed, as still as I’d ever seen her. She seemed in good spirits, smiled at Elijah, and was delighted by her gifts. While we chatted Elijah made friends with another baby his age, trapped in the arms of an aunt or cousin.

Soon it was time to leave. I kissed Valesca on the forehead and we began to climb and descend the sticky slope once again. Rey fell down in the mud a couple of times, but kept Elijah safe (perhaps imagining him as a football?) and Colleen leapt up the trail like a billy goat.
When we returned home in the evening I washed the rain off Elijah with a warm bath, then tucked him into bed in a room that was twice the size of Valesca’s house. Elijah fared well with his first ministry adventure, but I couldn’t help but wonder who tucked Valesca in at night and whether the cold would seep through the boards of her house.

Venom in Our Veins

2008-09-13T07:40:00.000-07:00

In the evenings I have been reading the young adult novel Twilight. It’s about a girl who falls in love with a vampire. Ah, the joy of guilty pleasures. Without ruining the story for you, people become vampires when they are bitten by another vampire. The venom from the vampire’s fangs begins working its way through the your body until it has taken over and you become the walking undead, cold and a slave to their lusts. Sometimes I feel like I have venom in my veins: restless, irritated, and unsatisfied. And this reminds me of a metaphor spun by Jesus, about a strange occurrence long ago, foreshadowing something important.

Thousands and thousands of years ago, an ancient people group wandered in the desert and were attacked by venomous snakes. When their leader prayed for them, God told him to create a snake out of bronze and lift it up on a pole. Anyone who was bitten could look at it and they would be healed. Jesus referred to that story when he said:

“In the same way that Moses lifted the serpent in the desert so people could have something to see and then believe, it is necessary for the Son of Man to be lifted up— and everyone who looks up to him, trusting and expectant, will gain a real life, eternal life.” - John 3:14, The Message

I don’t know why or how it happens, but whenever I look to Jesus, I feel the venom seep out of my veins, the fog lift from my eyes, and I can see again. Pray with me that every morning, every day, we would look to Jesus.

What Happens When You Break Open?

2008-09-06T13:36:00.000-07:00

"While Jesus was in Bethany sitting at the table in the home of Simon the leper, a woman arrived with an alabaster jar of very expensive perfume made from pure nard. She broke open the jar and poured the perfume on his head. Irritated, some who were there asked one another, "Why was the perfume wasted like this?" Mark 14:3-4

On a day to day basis I am broken open. My family is so blessed and well taken care of here in Honduras, yet the typical struggles of acculturation still plague me from time to time (fleeting thoughts of homesickness, times of uncomfortably, sickness, loneliness, struggling to raise Elijah without the support of family nearby). Just like the alabaster jar, made of rock, so my body, made of earth, breaks from time to time.

As I am breaking open, those around me get to sense what is inside those deep places of my heart and mind. I am afraid to admit that those deep places do not smell so good; I do not emit the aroma of Christ most of the time. Instead, it is the scent of dark corridors that have never seen the light, where moths and fungus live.

In Saint John’s account of the breaking open of Mary’s earthen vessel, it says that “the whole house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume.” (12:2-4). Those lacking a kingdom perspective commented that it was a waste to pour such beautiful perfume on Jesus.

My prayer for my life is that as I continue break open I will begin to emit the aroma of a beautiful perfume, and hear the people say: “what a waste to pour that over Jesus.”

What happens when you are broken open?

Diaz Family Update

2008-08-30T14:56:00.000-07:00

In the absence of any stories about near brushes with death (thank God), I thought I’d just give a general update with how all of us are doing.

Rey -
Is preaching on “being thirsty for God” this Sunday at Amor y Vida, teaching English at AFE, receiving more and more financial pledges for the project through email, trying to find ways to get more kids out of the dump, forming a coalition for a housing project, making relationships of political importance, (his nick name has become “Mr. Big Stuff”), yet still getting little viruses here and there, which keep slowing him down. Please continue to pray for health and protection for him as he goes into the dump to minister. Rey is very pleased to be able to watch Gator football games online. He has even met some gator fans in Honduras!

Elijah –
Is one now; and toddling around the house saying “Oh Wow!” with his hands on his head, and babbling profusely. I think he is going to be a story teller like his dad and cousin Alex! Today (Saturday), we played outside in a kiddy pool in the beautiful, 88 degree weather. He enjoyed splashing around and filling and emptying a cup…ah, the little things. The only deterrent to his happiness is my attempt to wean, which is not going very well at the moment. The only foods he will eat are bananas, beans, and cherios, and he has been putting up a historic fight. Any suggestions?

I am working toward finding a way to bring Elijah with me to AFE. My dream is to be able to convince mothers of the dump to bring their babies to the nursery since I will be doing it too. However, certain things need to be in place for me to bring Elijah (namely, a more hygienic facility, with screens on windows for mosquito protection, communicable diseases treated, Elijah more independent from me and not screaming like a banshee every time a AFE kid approaches him…) We’ll get there, eventually.

Me –
I am feeling better since my bout with food poisoning and am back to never sitting still. Now I am just trying to eat constantly to return to a healthy weight. In the mornings I work on the AFE website (check out my progress: www.afehonduras.org) and study Spanish on my own (my teacher accepted a new student in my place when I was absent for two weeks). I’m also working on creating a second financial report and newsletter for AFE and Project Transformation.

In the afternoons Elijah and I work on language acquisition and other stimulating activities like reading enrichment, botany, and music appreciation among others. Except when I just sprawl out on the floor, exhausted, and Elijah attacks me. I tell Kelly she gets to see the "Real World, Honduras" during this times.

Speaking of Kelly Glenn –

She is an excellent teacher to her kindergarten class and has maintained good health despite my attempts to feed her junk food. She, Elijah and I, have had many adventures together because something interesting happens every time I get behind the wheel and we leave the house!

The Ordonez Family –
Are doing great as well. It seems that Jessy will go through as a kidney match for Daniella and they have a date for the surgery: September 23rd. Please keep them in prayer.

That’s it for now, thanks for all the prayers and support!

Sun, Sand, and Sickness

2008-08-24T13:39:00.000-07:00

The first week of August our family had the opportunity to attend a retreat/conference on the Caribbean Coast of Honduras. I had been looking forward to this trip for a long time, dreaming of turquoise waters, white sand, and the beaches in the Swiss Family Robinson Movie.

However, perhaps God, or the mysterious forces of irony, found humor in this situation because I was stricken with food poisoning and bed ridden the entire trip.

It was my own fault. I thought I was Catracha enough to eat the Honduran delicacy of fried fish at any old restaurant on the beach. I was proud of myself for looking past the head and the eyes that stared back to enjoy the meal. I will never eat fish again.

I will spare the details of what happened to me the next morning (and continued to happen for several days afterward). But despite my suffering, Elijah was the one who really had a hard time during my sickness. Yes, he got to play in the pool and on the beach, but with me out of commission and daddy watching him, he ate only sweet rolls for two days straight.

I even had to go to the hospital because I was so dehydrated (I couldn’t even keep water down) that I couldn’t produce milk for Elijah. When I returned the rascal had two large goose eggs on his head (Rey wasn’t sure what happened) and a golden tan (my instructions for sun screen must not have been followed). Luckily, Kelly Glenn offered her support through the experience, changing poopy diapers, and singing the “big poopoo” song to Elijah.

Anyway, we all survived the experience: Rey, with a new appreciation for motherhood, Elijah, looking more and more Honduran by the day, and me with only 98 lbs left of me. So, if you see any recent pics of me know that I do not have an eating disorder and am eating as much cake and ice cream as possible to get back to normal! :)

Sneaking Out of Sick Bay

2008-08-24T13:01:00.000-07:00

The hospital in the small beach town was horrible (coming from beautiful experiences at Evergreen). I watched an old man hawk loogies on the floor of the emergency room. And waited and waited and waited. Finally I was put on reclining hospital bed with an ill fitting sheet, stained by something brown and excrement-like. They hooked my up to an IV and the heebie-jeebies and I sat there…trapped for four hours. So I called Rey: “Come and pick me, I feel MUCH better.”

“No!” He responded. “The doctor said you have to have that IV for four hours!”

I sat back down, despondent. The lady next to me moaned. She began fighting the nurses and yelling. Her daughter, a beautiful Garifuna woman, began jumping up and down and yelling: “Jesus! Jesus!” I deduced that her mother must be dying. More and more family came and cried over the suffering woman. I tried to be invisible to not interrupt their private moment, although I cried with them. Then things became quiet and the family left, except for the daughter who had called out for God.

I tried to catch what was going on around the bed next to me, in another language, while still working at invisibility. I think her daughter was saying good-bye to her mother. Her mother did not move. She must have passed away. I breathed a sigh of relief that the ordeal was over, but felt such empathy for them. I asked the daughter in my broken Spanish if I could pray for her. I thanked God that Mama was up in heaven with Jesus. Though the woman I prayed with said, “Amen,” several times she seemed kind of confused.

When I opened my eyes the woman I had just blessed into heaven was staring back at me. I guess she had not died after all! I sank into my dirty cot and worked even harder at invisibility.

Soon my first IV was up so I called Rey again: “Come pick me! The doctors said I can go!” (My doctor had actually peaced-out of that place and no one knew what to do with me). He came to rescue me, begrudgingly, knowing that I was skipping out prematurely

We paid 5 Limpiras (about 25 cents) for that emergency-room visit because the hospital had lost my record and no one knew what to charge me. Rey and I got out of there fast and did not look back.... until the next day when I was still sick from sneaking out early.

Pickled Elijah

2008-08-15T18:53:00.001-07:00

What can I say? Elijah loves pickles.

Driving in Teguc

2008-07-26T08:40:00.000-07:00

Watch out for pedestrians crossing through several lanes of traffic, but don’t slow down or they will come in front of you.

Be alert to taxi drivers and motorcyclists, who are above the rules of the road. Be ready for new lanes to form or broken-down sedans worming their way in and pushing you out of the road. Be on the look out for for potholes large enough to fit a small family inside. Slow down as you approach a cross street because there are no stop signs, and who has the right of way? Don’t slow down no matter what as you climb a 45 degree incline, especially in the rain. Make sure all passengers in the front seat have their seatbelt on. Have your drivers license, proof of ownership, passport copies, poof of residency, and lawyer’s number accessible when passing through a police check-point.

Rey jokes that driving in Tegucigalpa requires of set of something women lack…which explains why most do not attempt it. I am proud and excited to be one of the few females learning the roads, drinking in the adrenaline high of driving in Teguc.

The Signs of Toddlerhood

2008-07-16T12:09:00.001-07:00

In a month we will celebrate Elijah’s first birthday, Honduran-style with piñatas and mondongo soup. Already the signs of toddlerhood signal a new era. Finally, in the eleventh month of his life, Elijah's first tooth – “the fang”— sprouted from his sharp little gums. He has begun to tell people (and objects) off, with his favorite non-sense phrase: “Nah-nah-nah-nah-NAH-NAH!” And yesterday he took his first real steps, double-fisted with stuffed animals…stepping excitedly from the couch to the love seat, and then into my arms.

They say the time flies, and I guess it does in retrospect, but it seems like ages ago that my arms ached from holding our tiny baby in the cradle position. In those first months without sleep, while I watched a thousand TV shows so that I wouldn’t move a muscle and Elijah could rest peacefully on my chest, I eagerly awaited the next era.

That next era is here and I can’t help but look fondly on the year preceeding it. The adventure and discomfort of pregnancy. Becoming teary-eyed because I was so hungry…but nothing was appealing. Hearing Elijah’s little-bird heartbeat for the first time. All of my worries and prayers lathered like lotion over my growing belly. My beautiful shower thrown by Sheryl and my mom. The entrapment of a month of bed rest and finding creative solutions to escape. Prelaboring in the bedroom while Rey had a party in our living room. Then the actual labor, as close to dying as one can get without actually experiencing it. My “natural birth-plan” thrown out the window; give me the *&#@ epidural!” (Just like on TV). And then excitement as I wound my way to the final stretch of the marathon, Rey and Dr. Partida urging me on…throwing every ounce of sweat and energy into the task at hand, until a furry little cone-shaped head was visible. He had black hair then, just like his dad. And it took a moment, I think, for him to realize he was in a new environment, because the awaited cry was slow in coming as he blinked in the bright light. Then it came, “little big-voice” wailed his first note, and my little alien was laid on my chest. Slimy, bloody, but I didn’t care. I had been waiting for him.

So many people came to see him, the little prince of the church. Rey slept with Elijah his first night so that I could rest unencumbered. And the next three months were spent clumsily slipping through parenthood, making embarrassing mistakes like putting the diaper on loosely (so it wouldn’t be tight against his little body), and wondering why every brand of diaper leaked. Through it all Elijah survived, and I am amazed that God entrusts little babies to us. Isn’t that just like God to risk with faith in us? I wonder why we have so much trouble having faith in him…

Anyway, I love my little Lijah-bear. And I am excited to get to know him even more as his personality grows and develops.

Every Day an Adventure

2008-07-15T11:16:00.000-07:00

We embarked on our second journey to Honduras with decidedly less trepidation than at first. We were to fly all night, then make another journey from San Pedro Sula to Tegucigalpa….home. There were fewer tears at the airport this time, though our stretch away from family would be twice as long.

At the 11:55 pm take-off time, Elijah was already tired. We sat in the middle of the plane, alone among strangers. The airline had made some mistake in Rey’s ticketing so they moved only him to first class and wouldn’t allow him to switch seats with us. As Elijah squirmed in my cramped lamp, I wondered how to nurse him with the teenage boy gawking next to me. Then a stewardess called me from the front: “Excuse me, miss?”

“Me?”

“Yes, you. You have been upgraded to first class. Please come with me.” Envy was smudged on the faces around me. Who is she? Who does she work for?

I work for God.

Elijah and I snuggled up in the spacious leather seats, next to Rey. The next flight was similar. The flight attendant upgraded us before we could even ask.

We arrived in San Pedro Sula and waited in the thick humidity for the familiar teal truck, unique in Teguc, easily spotted, and always with several smiling faces inside.

When Jeony and Brian arrived it felt good to see our Honduran family again.

We spent the rest of the day in the long voyage back home. I changed clothes three times on the trip as we passed through different climates. Soon we were in deep rain, wiping the fog off the windows with a discarded La Tribuna. We stopped for crazy corn…some hot cinnamon drink that I have since been dreaming of…and a delicious lunch of freshly caught fish over Honduras’ only large, natural lake.

When we finally pulled into our callejon Rey, Elijah and I took tentative steps into our house, not knowing what to expect from a month of vacancy. Had the bugs taken over? Would there be electricity and water? My small garden had become a tropical jungle in my short absence. Rey followed me around with a broom and dustpan as I pointed out cockroach carcasses in the dark. Then we all fell into bed, content to be home in Honduras.

Homeland

2008-06-10T10:41:00.000-07:00

Three months I spent wasting away for Washington – dreaming of the smell of the rain, the freshness of the air, and nursing a cappuccino in front of a fire. I am here now – in the land of grey skies and green trees - and my heart beats in Spanish worship. I dream of the smiling faces at Amor y Vida holding their arms out to Elijah. My body craves long walks with heavy burdens and mangos with chili pepper. The quietness and tranquility of the suburbs felt peaceful at first, but now its empty and I long for the buzz of traffic and chaos.

Why can’t we be content where we are? I am learning to drink in the love of my family and place, because each home is short-lived.

“Redistribution comes from community, not before community”

2008-05-17T11:33:00.000-07:00

While I don’t agree with all of Shane Claiborne’s analysis of social problems, I do agree with his statement above.

Only 3 ½ months have passed since Rey, Elijah and I stepped off a plane into our new world, but already I am learning that everyday life for Hondurans is an entirely different scenario than what I am used to in the states.

o Many people here wait on income like we do the water (it comes whenever it feels like it). Sometimes it arrives gushing, sometimes not at all…and you learn to conserve when you have it.

o When the world is reckless with the environment, it touches those in developing countries more deeply in food riots, natural disasters, and seasonal change affecting the foundation of our economy.

o Enduring discomfort is less important than family and friends (because life is short) and you will stand for two hours in 100 degree weather to see your pastor get married.

Sometimes I think I am living in solidarity with the people of Honduras…but Rey and I have a consistent income that we can count on. If we overspend on groceries it means we have to eat food that we don’t like, or isn’t very healthy, but we still get to eat. If Elijah is sick and we don’t want to wait hours to see if the pediatrician will arrive to the clinic, I can call and get advice from an excellent nurse in the states.

Living in community with those of a different economic bracket and culture turns a mirror onto yourself to see the privileges into which you were born…moving your heart to want to redistribute those resources more fairly.

I ask my friends the same question Shane Clairborne posed in his book: how many people in the states actually know a person who is truly poor, personally? If not, why don’t we?

Dia de la Madre

2008-05-12T13:57:00.000-07:00

This weekend I participated in the celebration of a fellowship that is exclusive, very costly, yet easily entered: motherhood. It is exclusive because half of the population will never join this club, try as they might. So far it has been the most difficult, frightening, yet fun adventure of my life! Though costly, this fellowship is easily entered because many join by accident (although I did not).

I call it a fellowship because I experienced great camaraderie and secret in-group smugness with women I had little else in common: mothers of the dump. About 200 gathered on the lawn below the mountain of garbage of Friday. Some had taken the occasion to clean up, put on lipstick, and tie a bow in their hair. Others came straight from work with flies circling overhead.

Pastor Jeony Ordoňez delivered a fitting message comparing God’s love with the love of a mother, sacrificing for her children. Rey turned to me and asked: would you sort through garbage to buy food for Elijah if you had no other option? I would.

And they were beautiful to me: laughing with their friends and smiling with pride as their children performed songs and dance. Strange how small moments will change your life, define your identity, and tie you with people of another world.

Living by Prayer

2008-05-12T13:11:00.000-07:00

“And pray in the spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints” – Ephesians 6:18

- That the young man, high on glue, would not disrupt the mother’s day presentation. That Rey would be healed from his cold on a very important weekend. For Elijah’s continual health and protection. That the police would give up their attempt to win a bribe and allow us to continue to church (so that Rey could give the message). That I would find my lost keys.

I pray about little and big things every day. And everyday I see answers – to me, little miracles. The glue sniffer wandered off without stealing any mothers' presents. Rey was healed. Even though Elijah pulled the mosquito net down and wrapped it around his neck, twice, he was unharmed. The police let us go without confiscating our licenses, passports, or our money. I found my keys.

I thought I knew Spanish when I came but I am learning it more thoroughly than ever before. I thought I knew dependence on God when I came but I am learning it more thoroughly than ever before.

In many circumstances I feel powerless here: powerless to stop crime and corruption, powerless to avoid illness and injury. But my God is powerful. And I think as Christians we walk around with the credit card of an astronomically rich man in our pocket, complete with letter authorizing us to use it, but we don’t use it. Perhaps we aren’t sure that we have it or that we are authorized. Or maybe we think we can get by on our own resources.

What adventure and joy in knowing that we cannot get by on our own resources– but that God will supply all of our needs.

Pushing Through

2008-05-03T12:27:00.000-07:00

I have come to think that many of the beautiful, worthwhile things in life come with a moment in which you consider giving up. I have heard that marriage has such moments (though I have never experienced one), and so do great dreams, and tasks from God. Even though Jesus shares our burdens when we are yoked with him, in the scriptures it seems that suffering goes hand in hand with walking with Christ.

Last Sunday I briefly fantasized giving up. It’s funny how little things set us off. Elijah was acting up at church so I had him outside in the 100 degree weather when a huge moth flew into my hair. We went back inside and a woman spilt hot coffee all over me by over-exuberant clapping. That’s it, I thought. I want to go home. (In reality it was the week without water coupled with the armed robbery I had just experienced that was wearing on me).

Before I could explore my idea of giving up any further an oft repeated phrase popped into my mind:

“When faced with a mountain, I will not quit! I will keep on striving until I climb over, Find a pass through, tunnel underneath, or simply stay and turn that mountain into a gold mine with God's help."[1] (Thanks, Dad!)

How much would we gain if we pushed through those moments in which we consider quitting?

Since that moment, little signs tell me that I have begun to adapt to life in Honduras. My legs are muscular for the first time in my life (from climbing the mountain of stairs to our street). I was listening to regaton music and I could actually understand some of the words! And I have begun to kill spiders and bugs on my own! (This is a HUGE accomplishment!) Stupid things, but signs that I am adapting.

I am excited to find the gold mine of blessing that I know God has for our family in Honduras.

[1] “Possibility Thinker’s Creed” by Robert H. Schuller

Malviviente

2008-04-29T12:32:00.000-07:00

El barón sauntered down the stone road ahead of me as the sun began its descent into the nearby mountains. His new jeans and baseball hat were immaculate, but his stature and facial features gave away his indigenous background and the poverty that was only a generation away. His swagger and tattoo gave away how he planned to overcome that poverty.

After the next bend he was striding toward us: a young mom with baby in a stroller.

“Dame tu celular!” - “Que?” This time he lifted up his shirt to reveal a machete tucked in his waste.

I stared in his eyes and handed him a cell phone that had been slobbered on and thrown down too many times by Elijah.

“Dame tu dinero!” – “No tengo dinero. Solamente llaves.”

Then he left, confident in his score.

Though I was frightened that he might follow me home and discover more booty, I had to smile at the futility of his actions. The knife in his belt made him feel powerful for a moment.

I thought of Elijah on his quest for a “no-no.” Now that he can crawl Elijah thinks he owns the world. When he gets his hands on something that’s not for baby – perhaps one of Rey’s books for school – I let him think he can have it for a moment, than promptly take it away. His perceived power is limited by my control over his world.

“The earth is the Lord’s and everything in it,
the world, and all who live in it…
Who is the King of glory?
The Lord strong and mighty,
the Lord mighty in battle…(Psalm 24:1; 8)

“The wicked draw the sword and bend the bow to bring down the poor and needy, to slay those whose ways are upright. But their swords will pierce their own hearts, and their bows will be broken” (Psalm 37:14-15).

The knife in his belt made him feel powerful for a moment. But I feel fortunate to be on the side of the One who owns the world.

So embarassed...

2008-04-16T12:40:00.000-07:00

As a mother, I need to communicate certain things in Honduras that I never learned in language school. For example, some times it’s necessary to say: “Excuse, I need to nurse the baby now.” How do you say “nurse”? Why can’t you just say “the baby needs to eat?”

One day I brought Elijah to AFE. When it was time to nurse I began looking for a private location since there was an American team there (I have adopted Honduran customs in regards to nursing but I figured having Americans around require more discretion). Some of the Honduran construction workers saw me looking around and, being gentleman, asked what I was looking for and if there was anything they could do to help. I told them I was looking for a private place to feed the baby and they promptly led me to one of the classrooms. But then they followed me into the classroom and stood smiling in front of me, asking if there was anything else they could help me with. “No, I just needed a PRIVATE place to feed him, thank you.” Awkward moments passed as I waited expectedly for them to leave and they waited expectantly to help me in anything else.

Elijah missed his lunch that day and the following day I promptly asked our nanny how to say “nurse the baby” in Spanish. She told me to say: “Déle el chichí.”

So I’ve been saying “déle el chicí” everywhere: in the pastors’ meetings…to our Honduran friends Jeony and Jessy….to friendly strangers I meet in the street. Today I said it to my Spanish teacher, a very refined member of the Honduran upper class. With horror on her face she exclaimed: “Don’t say that, it’s vulgar!”

I looked up “chichi” immediately upon returning home. I can’t even bring myself to write what it means (I’ll leave it up to your imagination). However, for our purposes I’m translating the phrase: “Give ‘em tit.” I am so embarrassed about what I have been saying to my Honduran friends! I thought that after 28 years of creating very embarassing situations, there was nothing more that I could do. I was wrong.

Growing Up

2008-03-28T12:46:00.000-07:00

I think it has finally happened. He wakes up at 6:00 am, puts on khaki pants, loafers and gel in his hair. I haven't seen the Gator attire for several weeks now. He comes home at dinner time and washes the dishes when we're done eating. He has many stories of important meetings that happened that day. He plays with Elijah then goes to bed early.

From the time that he forgot his wallet on our first date...and jumped up from the table during a fancy dinner because someone mentioned some football game...I think over the last four years Rey and I have grown up a lot. And Rey, in particular, seems very adult-ish lately. Perhaps becoming a father and moving your family to a developing country does that to you. But I still see traces of his rascalliness every now and then (and also in Elijah!)

Thus, WC/Jr High Camp, I think its now safe to invite Rey back sometime!

"Herbert"

2008-03-28T12:43:00.000-07:00

You may have heard that we have some sort of animal scampering across our roof (inside) every morning, faithfully at 6:00 am. It sounds like he’s the size of Harry Potter, our cat. I'm not sure what kind of animal he is (or how to extract him) but I have named him Herbert.

Recently Elijah has begun squealing with delight after I put him down for a nap and close the door. The other day he sang, played, and squealed for one whole hour before falling asleep. What does he do in there? I have no idea.

Today the thought occurred to me: Elijah loves animals. What if Herbert sneaks in his room to visit him every time he is alone for a nap? What if they are secretly playing together and Elijah is so delighted by his presence?

Any thoughts on what sort of animal Herbert might be?

Semana Santa in Tegucigalpa

2008-03-28T12:36:00.001-07:00

“There were always people hanging around, natives and tourists alike,
waiting for the latest tidbit on most anything” (Acts: 17:21)

Semana Santa in Tegucigalpa culminates in the procession of the sarcophaguses on Good Friday. Easter morning is less important. In fact, most people take advantage of the time off to head to the coast and miss church on Sunday. Good Friday draws foreigners and locals to the town square to see the beautiful fombras, made of sawdust, which the funeral procession will walk across on their march through the city.

With our desire to immerse ourselves in Honduran culture, Rey, Elijah and I sat in the town square with everyone else awaiting dusk and the beginning of the procession. Every bench, every railing, every stair became a seat for someone. A one-legged man preached with a horse voice to an inattentive crowd. Sharp, young Mormon missionaries extended a hand in greeting…until they learned we were in a similar profession. A barefoot man with wild hair and beard muttered loudly to himself and drew attention. Blond gringas stood out in their vacation attire. A homeless woman, eight months pregnant, covered her face as she sat on the street. Honduran children with stocking caps to protect themselves from the “cold front” ran and played and got into trouble.

Finally the procession began, with tiki torches and solemn men in black. A 20 foot, intricately designed coffin slowly worked its way out of the mouth of the cathedral, and its carriers strained under the weight. The sarcophagus had a gothic design and a prominent symbol displayed: a flaming eye in the middle of a triangle. On each corner perched a paper-maché angel, its mouth open in agony. At the site of this coffin a little shiver ran down my spine.

The funeral procession began and I looked around for Jesus.

The town square was bursting with clashing ideas, spiritual expressions and yearnings. Was Jesus here among us? What would he do if he was? Would he address the crowd: “Uh, no need for the coffin, I’m actually alive!” or sit down with individuals? Which ministers of the gospel would he praise, which would he rebuke? Whose needs would he meet, whom would he challenge?

The same spirit that was in Jesus supposedly now resides in me. But I was at a loss, did not engage, only observed. This, I am sure, is something that Jesus would not do.

Elijah Learns to Crawl

2008-03-24T15:04:00.001-07:00

Incarnational Motherhood

2008-03-08T14:11:00.001-08:00

March 5, 2008

At Fuller Seminary I learned an important missionary/ministry principle: “incarnationally living.” Some may recognize this word from the oft-repeated doctrinal phrase: “Jesus is the incarnational son of God.” Essentially it means “in the flesh” and refers to Jesus’ ministry of descending from heaven to earth, leaving his throne room and throngs of worshippers to muck around in dirty sandals with a rag-tag group of disciples from an oppressed people-group.

At Fuller when I heard that the only way to cross-cultures was to live as the indigenous people lived, accept their customs, poverty, way of life, I thought: “Awesome! That’s how I’m going to live and minister!”

We attempted to organize our first mission trip for WAC around this concept. We came to poor villages of Honduras and sleep on concrete floors in little houses, went a week without a shower, and used spider-infested out-houses. From this experience I deduced that incarnational living was sort of hard, but definitely worth it and inspiring. The best way to show people we care for them is to live among them, like them.

The other day I was sitting in a hot, dirty closet in AFE, with Elijah laying in a crib that belonged to the babies of the dump. Flies buzzed around and Elijah’s sobs cut through the thick air. I was distraught at what I was subjecting my son to. Incarnational living in fine for me, but it is much more difficult to put Elijah through it!

We have been looking for a high chair for him. Rey came up with the idea: why not just buy one from AFE and then they can use the money to get a new one! No way. If there is anything that needs to be clean and germ-free for a baby, it’s a high chair. They come in direct contact with their food and their mouths as they teethe on the tray.

Essentially, I want Elijah to have better things, to be more comfortable than the babies of the dump. My value of incarnational living stops with my son. Why can’t I be like the Father and sacrifice my son’s comfort for the sake of others?

An Uncomfortable Gringa in Honduras

2008-03-08T14:07:00.000-08:00

February 26, 2008

The other day I asked a question: how comfortable should a Christian be surrounded by poverty in Honduras? Over the last couple of days I have discovered a more appropriate question: how uncomfortable can a gringa be from the poverty in Honduras?

The bug infestation in our “country house in the city” has not gone away. In fact, I’ve been told by Hondurans that we need to keep the geckos in the house to eat the cockroaches. And I’ve seen the trail of baby ants in other houses no matter how clean and realized they are just something I will have to learn to live with.

We also don’t have water because I guess the city turns it off every couple days during the dry season (which is most of the year). Our reserve tank doesn’t work. It is much hotter here than I remembered and after a very sticky, stinky day for baby and me, a sponge bath with bottled water was a great luxury. We are living by the rule: “if its yellow, let it mellow…if it’s brown…take it out!” (If you’ve been here you remember the plumbing system can’t handle toilet paper).

As I get more used to real life here—not the sort of life you experience on a vacation or a mission trip—I realize what simple treasures are available to us in the US. Just the fact that you can get real parmesan cheese at the grocery store (instead of powder), choose from several different breeds of tomatoes and many different sorts of frozen foods if you don’t have time to cook, and find baby wipes that feel soft on baby’s bottom and a cushion to change him on. In the US when you leave your garbage out all of it is picked up instead of leaving a trail of refuse in your neighborhood. There is so much available there: from nice, used furniture in good condition, to low priced “luxury items” like microwaves and toasters.

Unfortunately (or some will say fortunately) for those in Washington, real life in Tegucigalpa is making me rethink how our work teams experience Honduras. I am thinking of finding a way for our teams to stay in places that don’t have maids to keep away the bugs and don’t always have a proficient water supply. And having the teams make their own food and wash their clothes in a pila. In fact, I should just have everyone camp on our very empty living room floor! Luckily for the Adult trip next week, their accommodations have already been confirmed at the nice retreat center in El Hatillo.

Ladies' Man

2008-03-08T14:05:00.000-08:00

Feb 25, 2008

I think most would agree that Elijah is an exceptionally cute baby. However, his cuteness is particularly acute here in Honduras. I hope that his head remains big only in size, not in view of his personal esteem.

The other day Rey and I were walking downtown and at every corner a lady would call out: “what a doll!” (in Spanish, of course). “Que precioso! Que lindo!” “How good to be the mother of that baby!” Elijah basks in the attention and looks into the eyes of everyone we pass expecting it.

We were at the discount store and I looked to see what he was smiley and giggling at and a group of teenage girls were pointing and waving. He turned his head the other direction and began smiling and giggling once more. What caught his attention over there? Another cluster of teenage girls, “making eyes at him,” as they say in Honduras. He turned his head back and forth, back and forth, to flirt with each group of girls in turn until I eventually walked him away.

From all off the attention he’s receiving, I’ve noticed that Elijah has a type of admirer that he favors above them all: pretty girls. I see him following them with his eyes and turning his head as they walk away. At first I thought he was doing this in anticipation of complements on his cuteness, but I’ve noticed that even if the girl pays him no mind, he still stares at her…if she is young and beautiful.

With the slight tan Elijah is acquiring (no matter how much sunscreen I put on him), his love of dancing and hip hop/R & B music, I am afraid that I have an emerging ladies’ man on my hands. Luckily I have a few years to dream up wetting-the-bed-stories to tell the girls that come calling.

Country House in the City

2008-03-08T14:04:00.000-08:00

February 23rd, 2008

On the second day of our search for a home Michael Miller ran into his former landlady from his first move to Honduras ten years ago. She told him of a house she was renting near “La Leona” (the park that overlooks Tegucigalpa) for only $350/mo!

This turned out to be a divine appointment for us because we were about to sign contract on a rather dirty place near the dump with tiny, windowless bedrooms that would not be good for my psyche.

Instead we are living in a lovely country house, surrounded by gardens overlooking the city. Two spacious bedrooms, filled with light, two bathrooms, and a little office. There’s also a small kitchen in which you feel like you’re outdoors and an enclosed porch with a beautiful view of the city a sunset. I haven’t even mentioned the two best parts of our new home: my own garden that I can create and manage, and a location that is a short walk to downtown Teguc!

We moved in two nights ago with little more than a bed and a crib for baby. Our first night was rather rough because unbeknownst to us, the cleaning lady had left many unscreened windows open and we spent the night letting uninvited guests into our new home. These guests included a centipede that reared up when Rey attempted to kill it, a huge spider that jumped at me when I was giving Elijah a bath, a cockroach that made Rey do a little dance, geckos that scampered when you turn on a light, and ants and baby spiders trailing everywhere. We spent the night huddled under mosquito nets and I woke up every hour to take care of Elijah who I think sensed our anxiety in the new place.

Luckily, the next day we discovered the opened windows and Raided everything. Since then the only Indiana-Jones style encountered have been dead cockroaches turned upside down (from the Raid) that we found in the morning.

This morning I woke up feeling happy and comfortable in our new home. Bright sunlight poured in the windows and I was created by the smell of calla lilies that Rey found for me the day before. I don’t feel that it is extravagant or too nice for us; this is the place I have been dreaming of for a long time. But still the question besets me: how comfortable should a Christian be surrounded by poverty in Tegucigalpa? And, because the world is so interconnected today: how comfortable should a Christian be in Redmond or Kirland?

Changing Your Diet

2008-02-14T10:06:00.000-08:00

January 15, 2008

Through our church community I have had the opportunity to talk to people that are very passionate and knowledgeable about health and wellness. They informed me that a lot of us have unhealthy eating habits. We think we are satisfied on things like over-processed white flour and saturated fat and high fructose corn syrup – things we don’t even realize are hidden in the convenient foods we eat! While we might feel okay on this diet day-to-day (because we are used to it), we are missing the extra energy and vitality we could have if we ate more nutritious foods….and our poor diet will have long-term consequences for our health.

Why am I talking about this?

I mention this because as I read Psalm 119, I see a writer who is desperately hungry for God. And it’s rare for me to meet someone in my day to day life who is as desperately hungry for God as this ancient writer. Why is that?

“My soul is starved and hungry, ravenous! –
insatiable for your nourishing commands.” (119:20)

I think in the US today we fill our selves up with junk “spiritual” food. We are satisfied with the many entertainment options available to us, the things we imagine buying, the gossip in the lives of people around us, the excitement we feel around someone we are attracted to, the flipping, flipping through channels, website, magazines, etc. I think we fill ourselves up with these things and then don’t feel particularly hungry for God. But just like real junk food, this spiritual diet is keeping us from the abundant life we are meant for and will have long term consequences for our spiritual health.

“Divert my eyes from toys and trinkets,
invigorate me on the pilgrim way” (119:36)

So how do we change our unhealthy eating habits? The health experts informed me that we go on a “cleansing fast.” We take all those things out of diet that are unhealthy, and might even experience withdrawal in the beginning, but the outcome is changed habits and changed hunger. And then perhaps, we can say along with the Psalmist:

“I cherish your commandments-oh, how I love them! –
relishing every fragment of your counsel.” (119:48).