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 ;-)