It’s approaching a week since I completed the STEP program with Brethren in Christ World Missions. I finished on Saturday the 10^th of May and then returned home on the 12^th after visiting family. I want to thank each of my faithful readers for your dedication in prayer and keeping up to date, not to mention the incredible financial support I have received. This will be my final blog about my trip to Honduras and I want to just share briefly what my “returning home” experience has been like.

Upon returning to the USA on the 25^th of April, I stayed with my team at the Harrisburg Discipleship Center for two weeks. HDC provided a good opportunity for debriefing and reflection on our experience, and provided a healthy way to re-enter our home culture. The time was about perfect as I only started getting antsy to finish a few days before the end.

We learned about this thing called “reverse culture-shock”. While I didn’t understand the need for good debriefing and preparation for this, I now do and am so thankful for how the time we spent processing our experience and preparing for re-entry cushioned the landing. Emotionally, spiritually, and physically I feel I have began to re-enter well, though I would like to share a few of the seemingly minor “shocks” I experienced – these aren’t the kind we prepared for.

• While traveling home from Pennsylvania, my sister mentioned that the following day she would have a field trip to Progressive Field. “Progressive Field”, I thought, “where in the world is that?” I quickly scanned through my knowledge base of local baseball and football stadiums and came up clueless. “Umm, where’s Progressive Field?” I shamefully asked. My question was met by both my mom and sister with confusion and surprise, then a smirk of humor and pity for my so very out of touch sports mind. As I was told of this huge change, I was literally shocked as I came to the realization that, “Jacob’s Field is now Progressive Field.” How did the stadium of my favorite baseball team and first sports love change its name in the short time I was gone, and why didn’t they consult me on this?
  

• My next area of, not so much culture shock, but more “change shock” was when I decided that showering would be a good idea on Wednesday afternoon. You see, I chose to skip this daily ritual on Tuesday because --- why not? Upon entering the shower in the bathroom I now share with my teenage sister, I was met with feelings I had never felt in that location. This shower, which I have been using for almost eleven years and was a place of security and warm water, had become a place confusion and terror. I had to dodge falling razors and bottles of every “body condiment” known to man – or woman. In the past, I simply reached for the bar of soap and bottle of shampoo, but now, oh the selection. All the bottles seemed to be screaming names and words at me that couldn’t be anything but French or Italian (couldn’t this have at least been in Spanish?). I had no choice but to use what was in front of me and I am now fearful that all my hair will fall out because I used shampoo for blond hair, shades “honey to caramel”, and my hair is anything but “honey or caramel”. As far as I’m concerned "honey and caramel" are ice cream toppings and coffee flavors, not hair colors – who knew such a thing? At least I know my hair has been triple moisturized and I now smell of every “scent of the rainbow”.

Thanks for sharing in my Honduran adventure and now my Ohio adventures. I look forward to the future the Lord has for me. Please continue to pray for me as I re-enter this country I really do love. Pray that I will adjust well to this “real and changing world” that continues to make me love life.

I will briefly share my future plans. For now I am just trying to find odd jobs to make a few dollars for some upcoming projects. On May 27^th I will be flying to Madrid, Spain to spend two weeks working on a special project for BICWM. I will return to the States on the 10^th of June and begin preparing for a trip I will be co-leading to Tegucigalpa, Honduras. The trip to Honduras (including training and debriefing) will be from the 27^th of June to the 26^th of July. Upon returning I will be traveling directly to Ontario, Canada for a week of relaxation with my family. After that, “solo Dios sabe” (only God’s knows). I have learned to trust His leading and call on my life without looking back and though He is calling me do some things I may not enjoy doing (such as looking for more support money for this Honduras trip), I can’t say no to something I know He has told me to do. Plus, most of what He is having me do fits my skill sets and desires.

Blessings to each of you as you continue to live only for the glory of our Lord.

And here we are one final time!!

Going away party and return trip to the USA.

As I write this, I’ve been back in the states for a little over three days. We arrived at Harrisburg Discipleship Center just before 3:00am on Saturday morning, the 26^th of April. We had a relatively smooth transition through customs in Houston, though I nearly lost my Spiderman pillow twice.

Thursday night was our last night in Honduras, and we had a party and invited some of the locals that we had spent considerable time with and had gotten to know well. We had almost 50 people at the house and were very glad we made invitations instead of giving a free for all invitation. The night started off very adventurous and we weren’t ready on time, but thanks to all those that showed up fashionably late, we were able to have a great evening. The night ended in a prayer in which the locals surrounded us and blessed us before leaving. We were also able to thank them and offer a prayer for their continued ministry in Teguz. As people left and I made one final trip to take people home, I felt both a sense of accomplishment and a twinge of sadness. We all slept in Rachel’s house that night and left in the morning for the airport.

At the airport, we checked in and paid the exit taxes (the normal things), then began to wait. Not to our surprise, but much to our delight nonetheless, we had visitors who came and spent our final hours with us before passing through security at 11:30am. My host brother Lemuel, his nephew Aroni, Lemuel's girlfriend Jeannette, and another friend Alejandra all showed up and spent about an hour and a half with us. Andrea’s host family also showed up for a little over an hour to wish us a “Feliz Viaje” (technically “Happy Trip”, though better translated as wishing a “Safe Trip”). It was great to have Lemuel there and he made his sacrifices to spend time with me. He had an exam that day at 12:00pm that he said he was, “Not really prepared for” and he had skipped two classes the day before to spend time with me and run errands for the group.

Here at HDC, life continues. We are continuing the process of debriefing (we started during the last week in Honduras) and discussing and still learning how we have changed. I imagine this will be a continuing process. I am personally trying to understand where to go next with my life. I am learning a lot about how the Lord speaks and how to respond to His call or answer to “wait”. I imagine my next post will deal with this issue and share some of my feelings and hopefully… insights in this area.

As for now, I am grieving the loss of my right flip-flop. It had never broken in years of service and finally gave in to the pressures of my feet. As long as I can keep convincing myself that those are the issues in my life, I’ll get along just fine.

Our going away party.

How much stuff can I fit in one post and still keep your attention?

It’s hard to believe we are coming home on so soon. We arrive on Friday the 25^th of April in Baltimore, MD at 10:49pm EST. From there we will travel to Harrisburg, PA for two weeks of debriefing. We finish on May 10^th. Yea, it’s done that fast.

It’s been a few weeks since I’ve been able to update you. In those two weeks we did a lot and I want to touch briefly on a few highlights.

On the 9^th (all of these days are in April of course) I spent the day in meetings with several North Americans and some small shop owners here in Honduras. I was working with a ministry here called “Genesis” in a very poor part of the city. The men I was traveling with were partners in an organization called “Partner’s Worldwide”. They give micro-loans to small businesses here in Honduras and other developing countries in hopes to teach and encourage small business. I was able to learn some about the program, meet some Christian business man that use these loans to share the Gospel, and provide help in translation between the partners and some of the business owners. This organization is doing great things and I have to plans to learn more and explore possible future options with them.

The next day we left in the afternoon with the local BICWM missionary, Nate Burt, to visit two church plants outside the city. We traveled to Nacaome (about two hours out of the city) first and spent a portion of the afternoon inviting locals for a service and kids program we had planned. We made balloon animals (a random skill I have picked up, though I only know a dog, butterfly, and giraffe) for some kids and soon had a small army of children following us. We ended up having twenty-two kids at the service and were able to provide contacts for the ministry team in Nacaome to work with. We left the following morning for Catacamas (six hours from Nacaome but on the other side of Teguz) and arrived in time to spent time with the young pastor from that church. We spent that evening as well as the following afternoon inviting locals to a service and gathering contact information for the pastor. We had a good service the next night and were able to give the pastor a number of contacts (address and phone numbers) of people we had talked to about the church that showed interest. It was this trip that showed me the importance of encouraging an overloaded pastor with a visit. Even if we hadn’t gathered contacts for him, this trip would have been well worth it for the health of this church.

Sunday the 13^th, we had a family picnic and we able to share with laughter and tears a little about our experience here. After lunch, I shared with all the host families that I feel I have many families and while I am excited to go back home and see my first family, I will soon be leaving all my Honduran families and another close family called the STEP team. This was tough to say and think about, but I am glad to have been able to share it and tell the families what they have meant in my life. We finished up with games and a good time of fellowship that I believe will help bring closure to this experience.

The following week (14^th to the 18^th) we spent time working at a school for children from the dump called AFE (I have talked about this before in my blogs). We were able to help in the classroom and sorting a lot of clothes that had been sent. While we were sorting we had children and parents from the dump going through the clothes and setting aside what they could use. It was nice to be able to see them benefit while working along side them as well as being able to play with the children (they seemed to like being tossed into the piles of clothes).

On Friday the 18^th, we made a trip up into the dump to deliver about 200 meals and coffee. This was an adventure and God’s presence was particularly noted. I drove with the team up into the dump and parked in the middle of where a lot of these homeless people were looking for recyclables and things to eat. As we exited the van a wave of people surrounded us. We opened the back and as the girls handed out the food and coffee to the children first, women second, and men third, Andy and I stood on each side of the van blocking the reaching and pushing men from the food bin and the girls. Though no fights broke out, there was a lot of pushing and at one point we had to push the crowd back and enter the van ready to leave until they realized that they wouldn’t get food if they didn’t quite. I remember one man in particular of was extremely high on the yellow glue they inhale (a cheap high to pawn off hunger). He was drooling and repeating hitting and pushing me, though the hits were very dull due to his weak body and completely wasted mind. He was easy to push back, but knowing the savage nature of the crowd, it was easy to imagine a situation that could have been much worst. As we ran out of food, we quickly shut the back of the van with the girls in the hatch, and Andy and I got up front and left as quickly, but as reasonably as we could. I am thankful to the Lord for the protection he granted us and it was one experience I am not soon to forget.

With all of that behind us, we spent this most recent weekend at an intense spiritual retreat called, “Pacto con Dios” (Pact with God). We saw lives transformed, worshiped the Lord in dance in some very lively manners to say the least, and saw the Holy Spirit manifested very powerfully. This retreat was powerful but I feel God has had me on a spiritual retreat for the last 8 months and sometimes I just don’t have too many emotions to give or show! All in all, I am thrilled to have gone and jumped in as much as possible, but more thrilled to be done. One part I want to say thanks for was a package they handed out that contained dozens of letters from both Hondurans and some you back home. This was a time of reflection and enjoying good memories. Thanks to each of you that took time to write a letter of encouragement, you may never know how much that encouraged me.

Being that this is my last blog before I return, I would like to give a quick update on my “feelings and thoughts” about leaving. –I have many good relationships here and will definitely miss some people and the friendships and lifestyle I have adapted too, but that being said, I am ready to leave. I am excited to return home and see what God has next for me. Thursday night and Friday will be a time of sadness and tough goodbye’s, but also a time a joy and excitement for a very impacting part of my life coming to a close!

Thanks for looking at this and sorry I had to pack so much information into one post, but that how my life has been lately, packed – and speaking of packing, I need to get started on that.

Also, you may recall me telling the story about Tony. If not feel free to check the April 22 post on our team blog. I would also love if you could take the time to read a blog the Micah House posted about Tony. Click here and scroll down to the April 4^th post called, “Tony’s Triumph”.

The kids program in Nacaome.

A time of prayer for the church in Nacaome and for the traveling we had ahead of us.

Early in the morning we went up to a lookout to pray for the city of Catacamas and pray by name for each of our contacts we had made the night before.

Part of a drama we performed during out service at Catacamas.


I took a horse ride with my host nephew during the family picnic.


My host brother and I celebrating a victory during the games.


Sorting clothes at AFE with many kids rummaging through for things to wear (as well as helping out).

The Micah House and a trip with Tony.

Last week (M-F being March 31^st to April 4^th) went quickly – seriously, I’m not just trying to be cliché. On Wednesday, my mother and sister returned to the states. I had the neat opportunity to be at a park when their plane took off from the other side of the city – it went directly overhead as it ascended steeply into the clouds over the mountain where the park is located. It was weird to know that I had family inside that specific aircraft headed to another county. Oh well, it was great to have them here and I think (and bet they agree) that eight days was just about perfect. We kept a full schedule, both with my work and the constant traveling we did to eat and fellowship at the homes of five different Honduran families. My head nearly exploded as I needed to constantly translate, but thankfully it is still intact and those days were a wonderful boost to my confidence in my ability to converse in this language.

Last week I worked with the Micah Project (I believe founded on the verse Micah 6:8). The MP is a home for troubled teen boys. They accept boys that desire a change in their current lifestyle to a life of hope and brotherhood. They pull these boys from the streets and from families who can’t handle the drug addicted and seemingly futureless kids.

This project was great to work with because while having new kids that are fairly fresh from the streets, they also have contacts with kids that have successfully moved on and have some older boys in the home whom are getting ready to participate in programs such as YWAM (Youth With A Mission) and attend US universities. It was neat to see how many of these guys have made a full circle. I was able to help tutor some girls that stop in for help (but don’t live there) in math and sociology, as well as teach English classes for some of the older boys. I also got to play basketball with the guys in the afternoon and through that time I developed some great relationships with several of the young men.

Thursday evening, my team was able to bring Tony (the boy Karen Wilson and I have been tutoring) to the “Micah House” to see some of his old friends. Tony said he couldn’t remember the last time he went to the city and many people from the local neighborhoods were shocked to see him traveling (Tony is paralyzed and has very limited use of his hands). It was such a blessing to see him in a state of complete joy and fulfillment. Karen said the next day in her class with him, they didn’t do too much in the way of bookwork because he just kept talking about that precious night. This is a situation in which the goal was to bless him, and we were blessed as well, in a way I can’t express.

That was last week in a nutshell. If you wish to know more about the Micah Project – ask! It’s the type of ministry I would love it tell you about in person and it is a dynamic enough ministry that I really can’t explain its impact in this blog.

Thanks for keeping up with my life, at least the little I can share on this page. I look forward to seeing many of you when I return. I fly back into Baltimore on the 25^th of April and finish my debriefing in Harrisburg, PA on the 10^th of May.

Click here to visit the Micah Project's website.

A Week of "Meaningful Oxymorons".

The oxymorons of my week:

- I was in the dumps all week, yet was happy at the same time.
- This past week was absolutely splendid, busy, tiring and relaxing all at the same time.
- It was a week of glorious complications.

Since none of that makes a bit of sense (hence the name, oxymoron), let me explain.
I spent this past week working for a school called “AFE”. That stands for Amor, Fe, Esperanza (Love, Faith, Hope). This school is very special in that it has changed the lives of many children more than your average school. Day after day, family that live close travel to the city dump and work collecting recyclables and search for things to eat. The children of these families are born into this life and know nothing else. They don’t have opportunities for educations, which in my opinion makes it that much harder to escape this life. Without something to look forward to and without an understanding of another type of life, this becomes the normal and these kids grow up (many become alcoholics and thieves) and then have kids and bring more children into this community for the process to start over. AFE is a school that is for these children. I don’t know the details of how a child gets accepted into the school and who can attend, but I do know that the kids can bathe, eat, and are able to live and play with a sense of dignity they have never known. Along with the education these children receive, they receive good sound influence and have the love of Christ and His story explained to them daily. This fits my view of missions perfectly in that we can’t just give a beggar a Bible and leave him hungry and dirty.

The work we did this week (I say we as I worked with my mother and sister and a group from Minnesota) was to help construct a third building that will eventually serve as a high school. It was exciting to see all that has been completed by the dedicated workers and from the many North American groups that have come to help almost every week.

The combination of splendid, busy, tiring and relaxing was because of the following:

- Splendid because my mother and sister came on Tuesday and I was able to share a significant part of my life that I could never explain in words and photos no matter how hard I try.
- Busy because I had to think about where three people were and try to coordinate our schedule with that of the STEP program, AFE, all the families that wanted us to come visit, and my personal desires to spend time and show my family the things I wanted them to see.
- Tiring because of the above and the physical labor of building a structure made only of cement, block, and rebar – all while trying to dodge the hot Honduran sun (truthfully, we had nice about 80 degree F weather to work in two of the days).
- And relaxing because of the time I got to spend just talking and catching up with the most important ladies in my life.

The glorious complications in my life were just the stresses of all of the above coming together, yet the fact that I wouldn’t have wanted it to be any different.
During my week with my mother and sister we were able to eat with several local families, they were able to visit all four of the ministries in our current rotation, we were able to share in fellowship with work groups from both St. Louis and Minneapolis, which helped them keep their sanity I think (due to language barriers with the locals), and they were able to see much of the city and catch a glimpse of our experience here.

I’ll end with a big thank you to my father who allowed his girls to come spend a week with me, and thank you to those who encouraged and helped them make the trip , and a thanks to the STEP team for spending time sharing and getting to know my family (though I hope and know that my mom and sis were blessings to ALL of us).

This week I am working at a boys home that I am sure to have many stories from in the next week. Pray that I can be a model of Jesus in their lives and pray for the safe return of my mother and sister on Wednesday the 2nd of April.



Me and my favorite girls in front of "Iglesia de Dolores" (Church of Pain)


My sis and I cleaning up at the work site at AFE.

We took a trip through the dump to hand out water to the workers and the people searching for recyclables.

Andy, Aroni (would be a host-nephew if you figure it out, though he lives in another house), and me. My sitting dangerously close to the edge may remind you of a team photo the first week in Tegucigalpa - sorry those of you who scolded me, I guess I just won't learn till I fall ;-)

Latin America Missionary Retreat during Semana Santa (Holy Week)

Greetings from sunny Honduras; the same place that has successfully turned me the color of a cooked lobster in only one days time. I received that laying block and mixing concrete on Monday the 23rd, but that experience will have to wait a week as I want to take this time to share a little about the Latin American Missionary Retreat that took place from the 14th to the 19th of this month.
After a day of working on the 14th, we headed up into the mountains to a little tourist town called Ville de Angeles (Valley of Angels). We spent the next five days with the BICWM missionaries of Latin America in a time of refreshment themed, “More Like Jesus – a Lifestyle not a Program”. Joining the full-time missionaries and us were Marshall Poe (Regional Administrator for BICWM), Matt Lewis (a pastor from Wisconsin), and the Whitt's (the Resource family from Matt’s church).
Just as an FYI bit, the missionaries in attendance were:

The Cassel family serving in Mexico
The Main family serving in Columbia also working in Venezuela
The Bert family serving in Honduras
The Thrush family serving in from Nicaragua working with MCC (Mennonite Central Committee)
The Moyer family serving in Columbia

We were very blessed to have the chance to get to know each family and I especially enjoyed making the acquaintance with Mike Cassel (whose 10 year old son taught me a substantial amount on the guitar for only a few days worth of lessons).
We spent each morning in a session lead by Matt Lewis and then headed into a small group discussion which I really enjoyed. We then would spend the afternoon relaxing in our rooms, swimming in the incredibly cold pool (that’s why we only went swimming once), walking about Ville de Angeles, or playing pick up games of Ultimate Frisbee.
In a nutshell, we enjoyed the time with our fellow North Americans. We were able to share funny stories as well as things from our hearts, spend time together in refreshment both spiritual and physically, and each of us got to spend time seeking what the Lord holds next in our lives – or how He simply wants us to get to know Him a little better.

The group before church on Sunday

Nathan Burt, Matt Lewis, and I pouncing on the candy that fell from the piñata used to celebrate Rachel Bowman and Christina Main’s birthdays. I got a lot of candy, but only ate one piece – I promise.


Us at a local park playing one of my favorite sports – Ultimate Frisbee!!

PS - My mom and my sister arrived today (Tuesday) safely and we anticipate experiencing many goods things together over the next eight days. In fact, my mom just edited this blog here in Rachel's house (she's hopes she did a good job ;-)

My week at CEDER.

For information on this, I refer you to www.step0708.blogspot.com. I wrote the blog this week for the team and it was focused on my week of minsitry. Enjoy!

A week with a few kids and a Honduran that has been to IWU!?

This was our first week as a team starting our rotation of ministries. The first place I was at was at “Proyecto Manuelito” (Project Manuelito) which is a project from the church “Amor & Vida” (Love & Life). The tagline is, “Un proyecto de… ‘Amor y Vida’. Para los ninos de Honduras” (A project of... “Love and Life”). For the boys and girls of Honduras. You can find more at: www.proyectomanuelito.org

I also started another role that will continue for the next five ministry weeks (I say ministry weeks because we have a few other things planned in which we will not be working with the various organizations.) On Tuesday’s and Thursday’s I go a little bit outside the city in the mornings to help tutor and work with a young man named Tony. Tony is 20 years old and has been confined to a wheel chair for the last two years after a diving accident broke his neck and he cannot use his legs. His arms have limited motion and while his hands can be moved, he has very little to no control of his fingers. I don’t know the details of the accident but hope to continue to get to know him well enough that he is willing to share with me sometime. Basically, my schedule this week was in conjunction with Karen Wilson as she is helping with Tony as well. On Monday, Wednesday, and Friday I will be spending my entire day at the organization in our rotation that week. Karen will then come in the afternoon and we will be able to work together with what each place needs. On Tuesday and Thursday I will begin my day with Tony, then after lunch I will join Karen at the worksite.

First, I tell a little about “Proyecto Manuelito”. This program is meant for street kids and is a way to rescue kids while they are still young. The place I was working with here in Tegucigalpa is called a transition house. The kids that are new and fresh off the streets spend one year at the house before leaving for the main facility several hours away. The main facility houses eighteen kids right now and they learn to care for animals and manage a farm while they are there. It’s really neat to hear about and I am hoping to go next Friday with a group. At this house in Tegucigalpa they get plugged in to school, have a person there to help them with their homework, feed them, play with them, and encourage them in a relationship with Christ. This transition house has eight children now: three brothers - ages 9, and twins that are 13, two older boys that are back from the other facility to study, and three babies - ages 2, 2, and 3. It’s amazing to hear the story of the older ones and what they came from when seeing how far along they are now. The brothers are close and love to fight. They need a lot of attention and soak up every minute of it as they have experienced some very traumatic things in life that I need to keep confidential. As for the babies, we had fun walking through the park chasing pigeons and feeding them rice one day – I bet I had just as much fun and we ended up catching and petting one. The only bad thing, a two year old peed on me to make my week complete.

I worked with Jorge (George) who is 21 years old and pretty much runs the life of the kids. He is the one who plays with them, brings in volunteers to work, helps them with homework, eats with them, and sleeps in the same dorm room as them. He also works with the other staff there to get legal custody of the children. He was fun to work with and believe it or not, he knows some people I knew from Indiana Wesleyan University. In fact, he has been to my college. He saw a shirt I was wearing and told me he went there, I figured he was mistaken but he described it and said he went with his dad he spoke for World Gospel Mission and he was definitely there as he brought up several names I recognized! Crazy, huh?

Now a little bit about Tony though I should be able to say something each week. Tony lives with his family just outside of the city in the same place where we worked with the dental brigade (his house is literally two or three doors down from the clinic). Tony has a laptop and works to put all the questions and answers from his home school program in a Word document. Though this takes a while, sometimes a really long while, it is incredibly good therapy for him. While not being able to use fingers, he can move his arm and use his thumb to push the appropriate key. I am currently teaching English and Math while helping him work though an Art book. Karen is teaching Science and working through a Spanish book with him. Tony likes to talk in the downtime about soccer (I have talked to some other people and I guess he was a very, very good player before his accident) and drawing (which he also used to do and I hear still tries today and can do somewhat). I would love to be able to find and give the Joni Erickson Tada story to Tony so that he could be encouraged with that. He has plenty of time to read and it is good practice for him. Given the opportunities in Honduras for people of his level of disability, he is fairly far behind in school and we would love to help him how we can.

That was the week in review, this next week I will be working at C.E.D.E.R (I don’t know what it stands for) which is a home for older people from the street. There is a lot of care in this and most of the people have mental conditions including a Alzheimer’s. Pray that Karen and I can show patience and love to each one while being able to understand the stories they want to share. Also please pray that we can have ideas about what kind of activities to do with each of them.

Short catch up for all of you.

Last week seemed to just float by casually, yet rapidly as they are all beginning to do now. It’s hard to believe that in only three weeks I will be picking up my mother and sister at the airport here in Tegucigalpa for their eight day visit. I am looking forward to being able to show them around this city of 1.2 million and taking them along to the school in which I will be working with that week. But more or less, I’m just looking forward to hugging my mom and bugging my little sis.

As I mentioned, the week passed quickly in a casual manner, but I do have a few things I want to share. My mother sent my host family a calendar of beautiful Swiss pictures and since I have been forgetting it routinely at Rachel’s house (basically, STEP headquarters) and traveling a lot since I received it, I finally gave it to my family on Monday the 25^th of February. It worked out perfectly because Rachel had given our team some Swiss chocolate as a random thank you treat, so I could share that with the calendar for a little Swiss fellowship. What impressed me and just made me so happy was how absolutely delighted they were and in awe of the gorgeous scenery. My host mother has problems with her sight, but Lemuel was able to explain all the pictures one of the many times she looked through them, and though she really couldn’t see it well she was in absolute awe and very expressive about each picture. It was just a lot of fun to be able to share something as simple as a (promotional) calendar and be able to see such joy and excitement. It really touched my heart and I think it was a situation in which you just had to be there and have some background with my family here to really understand.

I thought I was done with classes when I graduated from IWU (Indiana Wesleyan University) but found myself in a chemistry and mathematics class at UNAH (Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Honduras) on Tuesday the 26^th with Lemuel. Each member of our group did something separate that day mostly involving visiting school and colleges with host siblings or church friends. I went with Lemuel to just get a glimpse of his daily life. He had three classes that day and I had to miss the first class as he had a test, but it was interesting sitting through the other two classes and writing notes about the differences and similarities I saw between UNAH and IWU, my Alma Mater. To be honest, there really wasn’t a whole lot different. The teachers taught, the students scribbled down notes, and the guys tended to sit at the back. After, I enjoyed a nice lunch with Lemuel then caught a cab to the center of town to meet my group for the evening.

The other days, my group visited and acquainted ourselves with the ministries we will be working with over the rest of our time here. We have five ministries that are each a little different and will be rotating between them individually. This will give each of us experience in different areas of work and give each of us a chance to compare and contrast how different organizations work. This really fulfills our mission here as we would like to have a very broad set of experiences that even while short, teach us a variety of things and confirm personal strengths while exposing weaknesses.

I will do my best to outline each ministry as I work through them and provide appropriate pictures, which may be hard since we are working individually and I lack a camera.
Thanks for your time and effort to keep up with my life. I appreciate the comments and notes I get regularly. It’s nice to know I have such a supportive base back home and I look forward to returning and seeing you all!

A friend that I have been talking with about some options for my future after STEP (if you have any ideas feel free to pass them on) sent me this verse. I really appreciate it and am going to claim it for this stage in my life.

“And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless until the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ—to the glory and praise of God.” (Philippians 1:9-11 NIV)

What country do I live in again?

So far in Honduras, I have:

• tried to speak this language called Spanish
• learned to always check for toilet paper and always carry my own (even at home)
• tried to maintain some sense of health on this all fried food diet we live on
• learned that in Honduras, it’s okay to pass on double yellows going uphill and around a corner
• attempted to keep some dignity after playing only Soccer day in and day out
• gotten used to people yelling random English phrases at me, such as “Good morning.” at 4pm or whatever else they may have picked up from TV
• become accustomed to negotiating prices with a taxi driver before entering the car
• come to the understanding that when church is over you leave as quickly as possible and don’t stand around talking for more than two minutes
• and repeatedly heard from my thirty something (I think) host sister how easy it should be to learn another language, though she never has tried; therefore, I have no reluctance to put this here because if she learns English well enough to read this, she’ll know enough to realize it is tough.

Obviously, I’ve learned a lot more, but those are just a few things to get this post started on a light note. Since I last told you about my life, I’ve added on two countries to those visited in my life and those two combined with my current home country of Honduras have helped make these last two weeks or so very interesting. I will do my best not to give you a forty page documentary to read in your already busy lives.

We headed out to Julticalpa, Honduras at 6am on February 12^th. We made the four hour trip in about six hours due to two flat tires on the way. These weren’t just little holes slightly flat tires, these were big holes and tires flat TOTALLY. I was driving when they both happened and know based on the way the van handled to a stop that the Lord was helping as I was shocked the van was easy to maneuver on curves in the mountains with tires as flat as these too. This was the same tire that went flat before and we discovered a problem with the actual tire on the inside that kept puncturing the tube inside the tire. Once this was fixed we had no more problems until we reached our destination, at which point we got a nail in the same tire to make it three for the day. I changed that tire as well but when we got the tire back from repair and wanted put it on instead of the spare, Karen Wilson was my eager student who did it solo. As I stood there giving instructions and watching, I felt like such a chauvinistic male and probably looked like one to the locals watching, but that’s of no importance as Karen got through it fine and we haven’t had problems since!

We started work as soon as we arrived and through it had some very frustrating parts; we worked through the three day evangelism effort and were able to have a lot of people come to the BIC church which had services we participated in each of our three days there. My personal accomplishment was reciting from memorization Psalm 100 to the members. After three days of hard work and being able to encourage the family at the church, we went home and we were all ready for vacation that was basically upon us.

We got home on the 15^th of February, washed clothes, and left the next morning to catch the bus at 4:45am – but we didn’t care, we were headed to Costa Rica (FYI – “Costa Rica” translated to English is “Rick or lovely coast”). After about 12 hours on a bus with times to get off only at borders, we got to our hotel and swam for a little before crashing. The next day was a day of relaxing and then we headed to the beach the day after. We got up nice and early to go to “Playa Coco” or “Coco Beach”. My stomach decided to get sick that day and after an hour on a bus and a situation that left me glad I brought a plastic bag on the bus, we arrived! We headed to the sand and found three things: Trash, very poisonous snakes, and more trash. Apparently some of the other beaches were much prettier and we just happened, yea, I chose the beach, to choose one that wasn’t so attractive and based on the looks of it, the locals had done a number on it with the garbage I find everywhere in Latin America and have expressed issues about before. As for the snakes, we heard the cold water drives them to the beaches and based on the ones we saw some locals killings very timidly and based on the reports (we heard you have somewhere between three steps and forty-five minutes to get the antidote), we avoided the waters. This was okay with me as I was more than content to head home in the early afternoon and recover. The final day was spent relaxing and checking out the city we were in, Liberia. We had a nice meal and a good last night before getting ready to leave the next morning.

The bus company we were with was not good at communicating, so Rachel was up at 5am to try to get hold of this office that had not helped us at all up until that point. We ended up checking out of the hotel at 8am and then ended up having to wait until 4pm for a bus that wasn’t full – even though we had tickets. We finally got a bus after a long (but not too bad) day of waiting and headed to Managua, Nicaragua.

Just a quick note and more FYI; we had to leave Honduras for seventy-hours to renew our visa’s, but since Nicaragua and Honduras have an open border, we had to go all the way to Costa Rica to reenter. Hence force, our visa’s to Honduras this time are through Nicaragua.

We arrived in Managua late Thursday night and had to wait a night to go to Chinandega, Nicaragua, our city of destination in Nicaragua. We went the next morning by van that worked like a small bus and were able to spend the day with the pastor just as an encouragement. We saw the church, talked with him and his family, and slept with host families for the night. The next morning we were up at 6am to get ready to leave and catch a van to the border. After that, we crossed with some adventures - cab drivers and luggage carriers in Nicaragua are very, how can I say it nicely, insistent and in your face to demand your business. We had our adventure pushing through crowds of people fighting over the privilege to take your bag for your in hopes you will use there help. Choosing them was just a matter of picking someone once the plans were figured out and offending all the others that had tried to forcefully help so much. We then found a bus to Choluteca in Honduras and from there got a bus to Tegucigalpa.

Coming into the city and getting that cab home was amazing, but we weren’t done yet. The next morning we were ready at 5am for a three and a half to four hour van ride to Trojes to attend a pastors retreat. We made it their through the crazy roads with cliffs three feet off the edge and then turned around to head home later in the afternoon.

When we finally got home that Saturday night, it was a beautiful thing and we all slept great.

Well, those were our last two weeks, it’s nice to be done but the days of vacation were relaxing and energized. While in Costa Rica we were able to have two extended times of prayer and sharing as a group and feel some direction as we embark on the last half of this journey.

Thanks again for reading this saga and for your prayers, we couldn’t have lived through the last two weeks (and some of the adventure I don’t have to time to rehash) without them!

I was working I promise, see the dirt on my left arm... ps - Nate Burt is the guy you don't recognize, he is a full time BIC missionary in Tegucigalpa.


Getting in and winning the splash war with the kids, I had the contacts handicap.


Wilson was clearly thrilled to have me beside her, I was obviously active in conversation.


They think I look smart here so I figured I would share it with the world - maybe I'll send this with my resumes.


Watch your boots buddy boy...


This is me keeping everyone safe from the treacherous cliffs that we find along the roads.

I lost my heart to the cutest seven year old you will ever meet, hopped a ride in a random pickup truck, and had my dirty mouth cleaned up.

This past week was full of adventure, learning, and being able to help a small colony in a very tangible way. We worked with a dental brigade from the states (mostly from the Houston, TX area). There were five sets of hygienists working along with five stations for the dentists and oral surgeons to operate. Everything from simple teeth cleaning to cavity filling to root canals and wisdom tooth removal was done. It was truly a blessing to work with them from Monday to Thursday and I want to share a little something from each day.

Monday: I can put up with kids and I can actually enjoy some time with them, but apart from my little sister you would be hard pressed to find a kid that has stolen my heart unless you know Melani – she robbed mine. Melani is a cute little seven year old girl that I hope I get to see sometime again, that’s the prayer in my heart. She was one of the first in line at the clinic on Monday and while she did need some serious work done, I think she was just there at first because of the commotion and her love to be around people. She was so pleasant and tranquil that she was not even noticed until later in the morning and was stuck far behind most of the people. I was working at the front desk that morning and when I finally started talking and playing with her after the initial rush of people and getting some order about the place, I realized how sweet and innocent she was. What touched my heart was that her was a little girl that was dirty and didn’t appear to have the parental care that many of the other children had. She had come to the clinic without any other family to my knowledge and just hung out most of the day playing contently with the other kids in line, and continually running up to me and trying to mess with my hair and scratch my beard.

Finally Melani was up in line and ready to see the hygienist. Midway through the day I had switched work duties and was translating for the hygienists, so I was more than happy to have our group working with her. Here we had this seven year old girl that we knew nothing about other than her name was Melani and this was probably the first time she had dental care or instruction. She was without her parents and there by herself, but since we don’t have the regulations to deal with here, we were ready to work. She had a mess in her mouth and since most of the problems were with baby teeth, they were able to simply seal the problems and try to give instruction. It was amazing to see the level of professional care she was given from the hearts of these hygienists, dentists, and oral surgeons. I helped with translation but the most touching part was when Melani reached out her hand during what would have been a particularly intimidating part and just grabbed mine. I then realized the power of just being able to hold someone’s hand or touch them in a moment of fear. She needed to come back the next day and see a doctor. The next day I did my best to get her close to the front of the line (that’s the inside door she found without knowing it) and I don’t really know what became of it. I hope that we will be able to go back to that place and work and that I will get to spend more time with her.

Tuesday: Our STEP van broke down so we got to head out of this city in public transportation. Once we got part way and tried to switch buses, we realized we didn’t have time to wait so we hopped in a national pickup truck and went part way and just walked the rest. That was definitely an adventure and I think we all had fun getting in this old pickup truck with some other locals with the standard pickax and machetes at our feet! Don’t worry, it's pretty normal to be in close proximity with machetes as that seems to be the default tool here. One of the nationals in the truck had a Cleveland Indians hat on so I made sure to tell him I liked it. And on the topic of sports teams, I made sure to wear my OSU t-shirt of Tuesday since there were a lot of people from Texas there; unfortunately, I ended up working with a lady that graduated from LSU.

I began working as an assistant suctioning blood, spit and water (a lot of time more blood than spit or water) from people’s mouth. It was amazing to see the pain that some people had to go through for the pain they already had to be relieved, but it just reminded me of how true that can be in real life, too.

Wednesday: After another full day of translating and suctioning blood and cleaning workstations, the real adventure came on the way home. Andrea and I caught a bus to Villa Nueve which is where I live. The only problem is that the first bus stopped shortly after and everyone got off like it was a plan, so we followed not having a clue what was going on. The same thing happened with the second bus we boarded. Finally we got a bus the seemed to be planning to go the full route. Now, here’s where I say that I thought I knew what a full bus was. I thought I knew what a bus without any room to move was, but I was about to find out. We started out sitting then I gave my seat to a lady standing on the bus. As the bus filled I kept thinking this bus can’t take more people, and I was wrong. It filled and filled and just kept getting tighter. When I couldn’t move and thought no one could get on, we would stop and eight more people would shove there way in and create the needed space. We finally got off via the emergency exit at the back and then realized that Villa Nueve is huge, and we had no idea where we were except that it was an uncomfortable part of town. We met some very nice people and were able to get a taxi to the church and although we had to pay a little more, we decided given our situation and the dangerousness of the streets, we didn’t think any of our supporters would mind us doing what we needed to do to be safe. The funny part was when I figured what we spent, though it was a ton in public transportation here (which tends to be cheap), it was only right around six dollars.

Thursday: Thursday went about the same with what I did although I got my teeth cleaned with Karen H and Andrea getting to suck some of the blood, spit, and water from my mouth, and we began early cleanup and had two piñatas with candy and toothbrushes for the kids. I would like to add that this last week I was given more candy and chocolate from the dentists and hygienists than what I had eaten in my total time here in Honduras (I guess they need to do something to stay in business so they're used to giving out candy). After all that we went to their hotel (I showered in the pool showers) and then they took us all out to eat at a nice restaurant as a thank you. It was a blessing and as I got to know the person in charge of most of this, he invited me to Houston sometime. He has access to the locker rooms and fields of the Houston Texans and Houston Rockets (professional football and basketball teams) and said I could stay at his place and meet some players – isn’t it awesome who you can meet serving the Lord!!

Friday we debriefed and practiced songs, dramas, and stories for a VBS we hope to run in Juticalpa this coming week. We are headed there to do some evangelism work for the BIC church and hopefully run this VBS program.

Thanks for your prayers and the best way you can pray for us this month is in travel as we will be visiting and working in another city in Honduras called Juticalpa as well as Nicaragua and Costa Rica. Also, if my calculations are correct, Monday (the 11th) morning at 12:36AM we hit the halfway point of our journey in Honduras - thanks for your support as we continue!

This is a shot of me and Karen as we enjoyed the adventure of the pickup ride up through the hills


Melani waiting in line then getting some dental work done.



Hard at work!


What's funny about this is that as the girls make fun of my teeth, you can clearly hear the hygienist mention how good my teeth look.

Sharing Jesus and learning yet, another language.

Well hello again everyone and welcome back to this public internet page where I share my life. I want to take a minute to share with everyone how great, tiring, and refreshing last week was and how this week is getting off to a quick start.

It’s really amazing how mysterious everything is in my house. Just like almost all of the other STEPpers, I never know when the others shower or when they eat. I know they shower daily as this tends to be a very clean culture in that aspect and obviously I know they eat, but I just never know when this is happening and like the other STEPpers, I eat alone or with one other person, never with a female or with the family. I guess I can begin to guess that with that kind of consistency, this is a cultural thing. What made me think of this is that last week when our water was shut off, I was given a key and told to go to the house up the hill behind our house to use the restroom. I never even knew this house existed and then came to find out that it was a one room house with a bathroom where Kenia, my older host sister sleeps. I didn’t know whether to find it mysterious or unobservant of me that I thought she slept in our house at night when she actually never did. This explains why I see her in the back way sometimes early in the morning. I guess I don’t feel too unobservant as this is not an uncommon type discovery among my group in respect to our various families. This does explain why I sometimes hear her coming in the back door early in the morning.

I said that last week was busy and refreshing at the same time and now I will hope to explain that. It was busy because Mike Holland came and had plenty for us to do and lots of work to be done, but it was relaxing because Mike came to share with us and revitalize us for the months ahead. Mike brought Andy’s pastor, Isaac Flag, and Isaac’s son, Liam, along for the trip. They came in Monday and we were able to enjoy the afternoon with them and catch them up on our experiences thus far. Tuesday morning we started classes on evangelism with Mike followed by a time of sharing from Isaac (this would be the morning schedule through Friday). Tuesday afternoon, just a day after our classes had started, we hit the streets in a section of town close to the church and tried to do door to door evangelism in this language we have yet to understand. Don’t worry like I did at first, Mike is incredibly experienced in this area and we didn’t go throwing Bible’s in peoples faces. We have a survey of ten questions over spiritual matters we asked to the people that responded to our knocks. The questions were over subjects like the effectiveness of prayer or the relativity of the Bible today and topics of that nature. We also asked if people had experienced or believe a miracle had occurred in there lives. I love this approach because it was a very subtle and non-abrasive way to get to questions nine and ten which we leaned on for the evangelistic aspect. Question nine was about whether they would like information on a small group for worship and prayer close to their house. We had a very positive (I would guess close to 70% yes) response on this questions. Question ten was if they had anything we could pray over for the person or their family. We had an excellent response to this as well and were invited into many people’s homes to pray with and over them. Over the next four days our team, which was split into four teams with some locals helping as well, went back to the good contacts with information and booklets trying to develop relationships and looking for opportunities to share the Gospel. The results are still coming in as we are still pursuing the contacts we have made, but the results from the first week were very encouraging. We had three people come to service at church on Wednesday, two guys come to a Thursday night church sports even we organized, one young boy came to a small group meeting on Saturday, three people come to church on Sunday, and two people accept Christ last week. That is just last weeks fruit and doesn’t include all the people that are thinking about this new plan for there lives and the six phone numbers that my group alone got. I am excited to continue developing relationships and I think we understand the importance of follow up. Mike compared people that preach Jesus, help others accept Him, then leave and not develop a relationship with that person to working through a pregnancy, going to the hospital, having a baby, and leaving it. It was great week, I learned a lot, and I am confident my group will be responsible for the most important part of these people walk in the Lord, those first few months.

I also learned another language this week; I learn the language of the streets. I have told Rachel I could help her with driving but wanted to practice in a little more tranquil traffic and without people since the van is very different (diesel stick shift) and the traffic here is crazy. Well, that's not exactly how it worked as I had Mike as my teacher – he just had me hop in and learn in the traffic with people along. I ended up driving almost exclusively this week. This included driving in rush hour, way up into the outskirts of town to a small village and a trip Sunday night down South to a city called Nacaome to visit a church plant with Mike and Isaac. This last trip was about three and half hour round trip which included the adventure of driving back through the mountains in the dark on roads where it’s non uncommon to find cars without lights – this wasn’t a problem as I grew up dodging Amish buggies. Nonetheless, after driving a full van for almost the entire week and making a trip through the mountains, my confidence has been boosted and I am glad to be in the role of driver if needed.

Driving back from Nacaome, I learned an important lesson. I generally only carry a copy of my passport around the city but take the actual thing when I leave the city. I wasn’t able to get it as we left on Sunday and we got stopped at a check stop on the way back into town. I had a copy which helped, but the border police held us up for about ten minutes. I am so glad we had Mike along to talk, though I really thought I was going to have to wait until Mike could get my passport and return (which only would have been about thirty minutes), but they ended up letting us pass. They tried to play the political lines that our country (USA) wouldn’t stand for a person not having there real documents, but then were reminded that our country also gives time to retrieve the passport and turn it in to the appropriate authorities. Needless to say, not only will this be a lesson for the whole group as we may have been a little bit too lax on the situation, but it is also a good story to tag onto the adventures we have found here.

One last note, this is the first Superbowl I can remember missing (which is a shocker since I could have easily watched it here), but after much thought and stress, I just couldn’t pass up an opportunity to spend almost four hours in a van with two men of God that I trust very much. Especially at this point in my life, I can use all the advice I can get from God’s people as I seek out His plan for the next steps in my life.

As for this week, we are working with a dental brigade and after only one day of work, I can promise my next post will have some very interesting content. Thanks for reading this and for your continuous prayers.

Our plans now... and they are... yet to be discovered.

Isaiah 41:13 (NIV)
“For I am the Lord, your God, who takes hold of your right hand and says to you, Do not fear; I will help you.”

Hello friends, I really don’t have a lot of history to write as I wrote the most recent team blog which covered last weekend’s activities – if you didn’t get to see it go to: www.step0708.blogspot.com or just use the links I have in my blog to find the page; it has more pictures and a few videos as well.

The big deal last week was that it was our last week of Spanish classes (ending on the 25^th). While I know I have come very far, there is still so much to learn (a lifetime of material) and I will continue having “Spanish class” daily just by living here in Tegucigalpa, not to the mention the studying I plan to do when I have the time.

We begin our formal ministry time this week though I can’t tell you what that will look like. Mike Holland, Mobilization Coordinator for BICWM, is coming on Monday the 28^th and we will be discussing evangelism with him. We are very excited to be meeting with Mike and look forward to seeing our “STEP dad”.

Rachel’s parents are here this week as well and we all look forward to getting to know them better. On the note of families visiting, I found out that my mother and sister are planning to visit in late March. I was and am extremely delighted about this and hope the next two months of waiting don’t seem like an eternity, I’m sure they won’t with all we have planned (at least with all we hear we have planned).

I will make a note in this blog of what we have planned as I find it out. As for now, I know that we are planning to work with dentists that come to Tegucigalpa to help. We will be assisting with translation (we have a specific kind of vocabulary we need to be learning for this, English and Spanish) and I hope to get to help with some of the procedures like some groups in the past have. We also have a week of Vacation Bible School planned. We each planned a day which includes a story, craft, game, and Bible memory verse and songs (pretty much all the basics to a VBS day, though I am still pushing for another essential in my book: snack time). We hope to be able to plan times to use the full week or part of the week, but also have it ready to mobilize unexpectedly while on the road. We are also going to be doing some specific outreach and evangelism for the BIC church, though I don’t know what that looks like yet or where specifically, I just know I have the resources in Spanish and my homework now is to familiarize myself with the materials we are using.

Thanks for reading this and enjoy the pictures below. If you wish to be added to my prayer list (or if you want to come visit me too J), please email that request to me at: joshua.hershberger@gmail.com

Also, please check out the new links on my blog site as well as our team blog site; they include updates for some of the groups we trained with at HDC.

Isaiah 43:2 and Isaiah 41:13 (see above) have been very comforting through the last two months. I hope they can encourage you and strengthen you in your difficulties and insecurities in life; reading and indulging in the Word has done wonders for me. I may have even posted Isaiah 43:2 before and I may post it in the future, I think it may be my favorite.

Isaiah 43:2 (NIV)
“When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze.”

Here's a somewhat shocking picture of me if you know me, I actually have found some good friends with the kids here because they tend to be the most understanding of my lack of ability when it comes to speaking. The first picture is me and Karen Hess's brother (my nephew if you figure it out by host families) setting off fireworks on the new years. The second is Andrea's little brother and me playing with some excellent plastic animals, yea, I had fun fighting the tiger and bear.



So, don't judge me too much (like the two people in this photo), but this shirt is a big practical joke between all the teams we trained with at HDC. I'll explain more later, but I can't tell too much as other teams may be reading my blog.


In La Ceiba last weekend trying to keep up with my dental hygiene.


My cozy sleeping spot on the way home, I wish I would have found that spot earlier.


Boldly patrolling the sea representing, "THE Ohio State University".

Welcome to Honduras, where Coca Cola flows like water, fireworks crack for any and all occasions, and tires pop at the snap of a finger.

Hello everyone and thanks for checking this out again. While I understand that for many people they simply don’t have the time to read this and keep up to date (to be honest, I would probably be one of those people), I really appreciate those of you that do and it provides a great comfort to know that many people are praying for me and thinking of me. I love getting the brief responses and I appreciate that you understand that I may not be able to reply to all of them as I wish I could. In fact, those of you that I have been in touch with more personally, I hope that can continue but I will be having less and less time online as classes are coming to an end and we are going to have different schedules.

That aside, let me tell you a little bit about a beautiful pueblo on Honduras named “Esquias”. My host family is from Esquias and I had the opportunity to join my host brother and two friends for a trip out of Tegucigalpa. I experienced a very different and perhaps much more traditional culture. The best way I can think to describe the experience is just to go in chronological order and share the sights I saw. This blog may be a little longer than usual, but I will try to keep it responsible in length.

The journey obviously began in Tegucigalpa, the city I have learned to call home. I asked my brother when I needed to be ready in the morning and understood earlier than 6am, so being the good little STEPper I try to be I was up, packed, showered and ready to go at 5:45am – and then I realized I was the only one up. You may think this is because of the whole “Latino time” thing where everything starts late and time really isn’t important, but that would be inaccurate as I have not found that to be true at all. It may be a fact of life in other parts of the country, but for city folk and specifically this congregation (who has an ex military leader as pastor – and that may be why) time is followed almost to a tee. What actually happened that morning was that Lemuel (my host brother) had planned to wash the car, check the engine, repair a flat spare tire, and dig out all sorts of things from a shed in the back I never knew existed. After a long morning of getting things ready, we fueled up and finally hit the road at 9:34am (yea, I checked just so I could blog accurately).

The beginning and middle of the trip was relatively uneventful as four of us (the other two in the car were Victor, the brother of Lemuel’s girlfriend, and Cesar, a friend from the church) made our way through the mountains to Esquias. After about two and a half hours we were very close to the pueblo “mileage wise”, but still had another hour to go “road wise” – trust me, there’s a big difference. We entered this road that appeared to me as I imagine the surface of the moon. The old Toyota Tercel we were in was a real trooper and wove the mountains roads with precision, shuttered over the craters and rocks, and forded the bridges with ease (the water was only over about three inches). In all reality, it wasn’t that dramatic, just impossible to sleep. We stopped four times in that hour to cool the engine and refill the leaking fluid compartments. Finally, we made it to a paved road and found the quaint little town for which we were searching.

We met friends and family of Lemuel’s before finding his dad and heading to the place we were staying. The place was fairly new and was reasonably big, but was bare as it is a house that teachers rent out when they come to work at the school. Regardless, it was a welcomed sight and I set my stuff down on the single bed I would be sharing with Victor for the next three nights. Though I wanted to sleep (given my wake up time that day), we headed off to play soccer for the afternoon.

I have found that here, things are freely borrowed (generally with asking or by telling) and I was immediately asked for my tennis shoes when it became apparent that I wasn’t going to play soccer (Victor has plenty of better shoes for soccer, but had left them where we were staying). Reluctant to give up my shoes to another’s sweaty feet and not knowing how to continue to refuse the insistent demands for my shoes, I gave in and played the sports I still have yet to appreciate. We didn’t actually play a game as the field was being cut and lined, but we kicked around and played other variations for a few hours.

After soccer we headed up to the “feria” which is just a fair for the town. It is a celebration of a saint of the city. The week of the fair is the weekend before, the week, and the weekend after the birthday of the saint. I don’t know much else about this tradition or why each city and pueblo has a saint, but I do know it is a Catholic tradition here and much of the Latin Americans are Catholic (I believe I heard 97% of Honduras proclaims to be Catholic). The fair was just a bunch of games and food that night and we returned reasonably early by their standards (about 12am) to head to bed. Don’t worry, I will tell you plenty about the fair if you are curious, just keep reading.

The next morning we left around 9am to watch soccer in the morning. Esquias has many teams and they participate in leagues with other pueblos and cities. Many of the people gather to watch the games that go all day Saturday and Sunday. We watched and went as we pleased which was fine with me. After lunch we headed on about a half hour hike through the country side to the river where we swam in a great little swimming hole. I had no idea swimming was such a challenge for some people as I have generally assumed my friends swim. Thinking about why many people here can’t swim, I have to believe that this culture doesn’t have the availability of pools as many countries and there is only one lake in all of Honduras which limits activities in the water. I was asked repeatedly if I could swim and I did not understand while it would be an issue as I grew up swimming and don’t remember not being able to swim. I have to admit, it was kind of fun watching my friends struggle to swim (not that they were in any danger) after they laughed freely at how I play soccer. During this, we also started doing the typical boyish-guy things and started competitions with throwing rocks. I told my STEP team that this was great savior of dignity for me after playing soccer and being humbled. At least here they could see I was good at something since they don’t play any of the sports I enjoy, think are worthwhile, and am good at.

I would like to add a cultural note here. First of all, Coca Cola is very popular here. I drink a lot of water and I had to stock up when I found it in the pueblo because all I could ever find was Coke. It was all we had with meals, snacks, for a snack, always (don’t worry healthnuts, I’m one too and definitely controlled my intake and prayed about it even when I literally could not find water in a store). But as we finished swimming we sat on a big pile of rocks close to the swimming hole and opened the coke one of the guys had bought. We had paper cups as well and each enjoyed a very refreshing drink. When the coke was gone, they casually put the cap on the bottle and gave it a good Honduran heave into this river – that means it barely made it. The cups followed, all except mine which made it back to the pueblo and in a trashcan. Here, you can’t help but find trash everywhere. If there isn’t a trash can within reach, and I bet even when there is, trash hits the street. If you’re in a car, it goes out the window. In the beautiful outdoors, apparently the river is the prime location (there was plenty of chip bags and other cups along the bank so it fit right in). I simply don’t understand the mindset of this (not that I have never littered, but never as a habit or really even remember), but it is interesting to see how little things are cared for as this attitude is reflected on much else. Even the verb usage in the language implies a non acceptance of responsibility as my teacher was sharing with me today (she claims it infects the culture) – if you have questions, ask about that in person as I don’t know how to explain it that well in writing. I just thought this was interesting especially since the guys I was with would be the last people I would expect this from, but walking down the street and putting trash in someone else’s pickup bed is no problem for them. I promise this is one cultural aspect I will not accept.

That evening we returned to the fair and I got to see a lot of traditional Honduran dances performed and experience the culture that way. Lemuel really does love his heritage and took the opportunities to tell me the names of all of the dances and information about everything, much of which I cannot remember the names for or describe for you. But I certainly can describe one tradition I learned to love. After the dancing on stage was completed, I was standing around with a friend. Suddenly people started screaming and running all about. I was thoroughly confused as there was a mix of surprise, glee, and genuine fear. I really didn’t know whether to worry or not and had no clue what was going on, but either way I ran to the side of the park where the festivities we located. Then I heard fireworks and turned to see a man with two boards on either side of his body meeting at the about his head to form a upside down letter “v”. On front was another board across the two forming a “v” with a bull’s head painted on it. On the board were fireworks of every kind including Roman Candles that were shooting fireballs into the crowd. Apparently this is a tradition named, “Toro Fuego” which latterly translates to “Bull Fire”. People (mainly kids) would chase this man around and dodge the fireworks that were coming off all sides. He would strategically aim at groups and just run around like a manic. I thought it was awesome because as soon at the fireworks ran out (this had gone on for at least 3 minutes) the kids swarmed him and “caught him” – unfortunately, they just let him go and nothing more followed.

After this the activities were over for the day and people either went home or to the restaurants in the area that had bands playing. Many of the young kids went to a building that they called the “disco” for a dance and club like experience. We got home late that night and bed was very welcome.

The next day, I will spare you the details, because minus swimming the in the river, it was the same. We slept in a little more (which is welcomed because I get up at 6am daily here) and then proceeded to do much of the same as the day before. There was an activity called “Palo Ensebado” in which a tree (this one about 25-30 feet tall) is stripped of bark with machetes and stood up in the middle of the street. Money (this year valued at about $100) is placed at the top. First one to get to the top gets it. It’s not as chaotic as you may expect but I didn’t stay until the end as we needed to leave for dinner. Basically, anyone can try to climb, but most boys try. They role in the dirt and rub it on themselves as a chalk for grip. Some kids stuffed there pockets with dirt to refresh their grip halfway up. They would climb and step on each other and do all sorts of things to try to make it first.

That night I got to see a man eat 11 raw eggs shell and all for the entertainment of the city. I heard the next night he was planning to eat a live frog then later a snake. Apparently the pueblo he comes from is know for things such as drinking cows blood, eating raw eggs shell and all, frogs, and yes, seriously, dogs.

That night Lemuel and I went to bed early for the trip the next morning. I was glad we did because in the morning, I experienced my third flat tire in Honduras thus far. But the change was quick and we stopped to have the tired repaired shortly after – never go too far without a spare. We made it home safely and I welcomed the sight of my group along with English!!

Based on the above, it may seems that my experience was totally perfect and I was happy all the time, but that is why I need to add this, because that would be a horrible misconception. Upon arrival, everything was new and I was the shy kid that none of you know. The first night drug on like I didn’t think was possible. I realized in my lonesomeness that I missed my family like I haven’t in a long time. Through the last four and a half years I have spent a majority of my time away either at college or at my home in Indianapolis. But I was able to talk to my family whenever I wanted. They know as well as I do that we didn’t talk much at times because we were busy and we just didn’t take the time. But I am learning what a comfort it is to be able to communicate at any time. We didn’t take advantage of it, but I know now that just having the option that I don’t possess now was a blessing and comfort. I hope this gets my point across because I really am at a loss for how to describe it well.

When it was time to leave Esquias, Victor told me he did not want to go and asked me if I felt the same. I told him I was honestly ready to get out and go home to Teguz and he asked why. I explained to him the difficulty of not being able to understand much of what was going on and though I can communicate much better now, it takes so much effort it’s just not the free conversation about the silly things in life and the little details that help a person enjoy a conversation. I think he understood, but I will continue to believe that until a person actually experiences this, they won’t fully comprehend the difficulties involved; just like everyone experiences differently in life. I can’t fully understand the difficulties of others because I haven’t experienced the same things just like they don’t know my feelings perfectly.

While in Esquias I learned a lot about one of the many cultures in Honduras, I learned more about the language I am working so hard to understand, and I learned to know my friends better while realizing again how much I love my family in Ohio. But most importantly, I continued to learn how to trust God in all situations (as cliché as that may sound) and just give Him my suffering and strife and accept His joy because He’s the only one that truly knows how I feel and the emotions I have racing about my body.

Thanks for reading this story and my personal thoughts and opinions, I hope it was educational and entertaining and will provide each of you encouragement to push through the crazy things life throws at us daily.

I should have more next week but we’ll see as I noted the computer time is much more limited. On Friday we leave with a group of youth to go to La Ceiba and will return on Sunday. That’s about all I know as this was a last minute trip we just got finalized on Wednesday the 16^th. All I know is that it’s about a seven to eight hour trip each way and your prayer will be much appreciated as we will be traveling at night, at least on Friday.

Blessings to each of you and may you continue to seek the Lord in every situation you encounter in life, good or bad, trivial or of great importance – He cares.

Me (obviously) trying to keep cool on the way home.


A shot out the front window that is oh so clean - that's Lemuel driving.


Us at the "llantera" getting the spare ready for the next potential problem - the Lemuel pointing and Victor in the A-shorts and sweater, they would hate this pic as they are usually well dressed individuals, by we were on the road so who cares!

Beautiful picture a river, I don't know the name of it. When Hurricane Mitch hit in 1998, water was 15-20 feet about the bridge I was on taking the photo!!


Video of “Palo Ensebado”

Video of "Toro Fuego"