Tuesday, August 19, 2008

Tarantulas, Scorpions, and Geckos

A summer spent in Honduras has taught me many things:
  1. Never judge a team from first impressions (they're not quite themselves the first few days
  2. Honduran heat is relative to US geographical context. (No problem if you are from the Southern half of the US, a big problem if you are not)
  3. When someone asks you to “come kill a bug” in the bathroom, beware it could be a tarantula or scorpion.

  4. “God’s Word, Every Child” including the naked one that walks out of a classroom.

  5. Cross-cultural communication often involves a lot of negotiating for things as simple as dinner and how many schools you will visit that day.

It was a blessing to have three teams from Arkansas, Missouri and Washington this summer; each one of them unique. Each one of them taught me something new. Each ministry location was very different. I literally traveled the entire country: First to San Pedro Sula, a city in the North East; then Choluteca, a small city, very hot and poor to the South West, near the Nicaraguan border; and finally Copan, a very small tourist town in a mountainous jungle area up in the North West by the Guatemala border.

It is impossible to show the beauty of Honduras in pictures: long winding roads, mountains, jungles, mud slides, small villages. I’ll not forget the children of Honduras; all eager to smile, shake your hand, hi-5 and laugh. I played basketball with a group of 4th grade girls, improved my Spanish, but most of all told thousands of kids about my best friend Jesus.

Many more Honduras photos are posted @: http://www.flickr.com/photos/kimart4ch/

What’s Next:
I finally stopped thinking in French and have been able to converse in simple Spanish this past summer; but all that is about the change. I will be bringing the French back, my next stop is Madagascar, an island off the coast of Africa in the Indian Ocean. I leave August 22 and will be back in the states December 1st. I don’t know much about it just yet but will be sure to let you know next month.


No comments: