Shopping

Street Vendors

Downtown

Look at the power lines!

The past couple of days I have gone shopping with Erin to get various things around La Ceiba. Pretty much you can find what you need, but rather than making one quick stop at Target or Wal-Mart, you have to make more like 10 stops to get all of the items you need. We went to one store for furniture, one for a bed (different from the furniture store), another stop for sheets and towels and yet another store for blankets. Then we went to a Department store where you could actually get pretty much all the main department store stuff, and a couple other stops in there. The employees in the stores work on commission, so when they see a couple gringos walk in they pretty much stick right by us helping us all they can. Everything we picked out they would take up to the front and they would always offer to help us to our car. I am sure at times this is annoying, but I really enjoyed the good service! I have enjoyed being able to live with the Pettengills this past week and ask them my tons of questions and just see what it is like to be an American missionary living in another culture.
Tomorrow we are going back out to Armenia Bonita for ESL class and Erin (who is a nurse) will have a clinic aferwards for whoever wants to be seen. I am excited to see the kids from last week again!

Electricity

The electricity project in the village

Traditional Honduran stove

Beach in La Ceiba

The Pettengills have two guys staying with them from Baylor. They are engineers and have been working on installing electricity in a village about and hour outside of La Ceiba. The village has 35 houses and 23 of them now have electricity because of this project. Yesterday I got to tag along with them out to the village. It was so cool to see the work they are doing (I don't think I totally understand it all, but I do know that 23 houses have power)! It was fun to drive out of the city a bit and see some more rural parts of Honduras. At one point it started to rain and we had to get out and push the car up a dirt hill.
I will post some pictures of the project. It is run by a waterfall. Last week lighting struck the converter? or something like that, so for a week they have been using the backup generator. So yesterday and today the engineers are working with the locals to fix whatever is wrong. The goal of the project is for it to be self-sustaining. They are training the locls to run the equipment and the people in the village even pay a small fee so that the project can be self-sustaining rather than run on donated money. The long term goal is to put the same system in several hundred more villages over the next 5 years. There are also plans to install water purification systems in several places as well.
I will post some pictures so you can see the project.

Como se dice...everything in Espanol!

Fishing dock in La Ceiba

ESL Class

Some students from the class

Litchi Fruit

Today was day 4 in La Ceiba. I have been extremely spoiled with "cool" weather. I believe it is extremely tolerable and comfortable although not everyone would agree (mom and Becca :)) It is in the 80s and very humid, but there is a nice breeze, and it is cloudy, keeping things cooler.
Yesterday I went with Mike to Armenia Bonito, the poor community they are working in, he taught an ESL class to 23 students. Since I don't speak Spanish and only understand a little I was able to help only with pronunciation. I would walk around saying words and listening to the students repeat them. After class a few of the kids hung around and had a blast playing with my camera. The kids also taught me a few words in Spanish and wanted me to tell them how to say names in English. They would say...como se dice Miguel...answer...Michael. Como se dice Pamela...answer...Pamela. And on and on the names came. They were fun kids and I loved hanging out with them.
Last night we met up with a couple, who are friends with the Pettengills, for an all night youth event. This couple, Megan and David, have a yoth group called "Flame" and last night was the 2 year anniversary of the group. We met up at KFC-that's right, they have KFC. Then we headed over to see a movie-something about Horror on Prom Night or something, not going on my list of top ten favs (although Allison guess who was in it-that's right Jason Street!). Then we went to play some futbolito-indoor soccer on a mini field. I LOVED watching these kids play soccer. I mean it is seriously awesome. Then we headed over to have a time of devotion and played some ping pong. And the final stop was at one of the students' house where the kids swam and we had a pancake breakfast. I came home and crashed for a couple hours and then Mike and I headed back out to Armenia Bonito to visit with a couple people. There is a shelter out there for boys called-Ninos de la Luz (Children of the Light). I got a tour of it and it is an awesome place.
This weekend we are gonna take it easy and rest a bit. I have been praying that while I am in Honduras I would just soak up my time here, learn all I can, and stop constantly dwelling on the future. I have been asking Mike tons of questions and I am really enjoying the culture here.
Today we tried some fruit-we had pineapple, oranges and a fruit called litchi (kinda like a grape).
I havn't seen too many creepy critters. So far just lots of geckos, a bat, and this morning there was a tarantula in the house (fortunately I was asleep at the time.)
I'll post some pics. Enjoy!

La Ceiba

Yesterday I arrived in La Ceiba, Honduras where I will be spending the next couple of weeks with the Pettengills. Today Mike showed me around the city and showed me several places where they hope to begin ministries. The Pettengills have been in La Ceiba for about 3 months. Some of their plans include planting a church, teaching ESL classes, ministering to the poor with medical clinics, working with street children as well as the elderly. There will be 3 interns joining the Pettengills next month and two more families in January. Please pray for the team here in Honduras as these ministries are beginning. It was exciting to see the opportunities here in La Ceiba and I am excited to learn more during my time in Honduras. Tomorrow morning Mike will be teaching an ESL class, so I'll get to tag along and observe that. Tomorrow night we are going to a youth function where we will stay up all night hanging out, playing games, and sharing the love of Christ.
Ya know those three years of Spanish I took in high school sure haven't helped me to communicate much. In fact, I think I have forgotten how to speak English as well. Ever since I got on the plane in Miami people have spoken to me in Spanish before English and I just give them this look and completely blank out, and they realize I have no clue what they are saying. Hopefully I can remember a few things over the next couple of weeks.

Prayer

During the first two weeks in October I will be in La Ceiba, Honduras living with the Pettengills, a missionary family who has recently begun a ministry there. They have a very busy month in October and it would be great, if you think of it, if you could include them on your prayer list. This is a list of prayer requests.
I still am without a job and I am trying to trust that God has a plan for my life, but of course I am a mess, and I have a hard time just resting and trusting in Christ. Please pray that I would continue to search dilligently for a job and that I would be realistic, but also that I would trust in Christ to provide the right opportunity in His perfect timing. I had an interview last week with Wycliffe Bible Translators, and I was not offered the job, but I am excited about what this organization is doing, and may be interested in working with them in the future. Please also pray that my time spent in Honduras will be a time of growth and will give me further insight into overseas missions.

What kind of dog is best?

So I think this week I have another decision to make. Should I get a dog or a security system for my house? You can read the reason for this on Allison's blog.

I did make a decison about Honduras. I am going! I am really excited about it. I'll be going the end of September. And I applied for another job this week. Hopefully I'll hear something soon.

What to do now?

For the past 3ish weeks I have been back in Orlando and trying to decide what to do with my life. I have applied for 13 jobs (ten teaching jobs). I don't understand why when you apply for a job, and the employer doesn't want to hire you, they give you no response at all. Is it too much to ask for a simple email stating they didn't like me and I'm not good enough? Aside from the teacher jobs (which I just applied for today) I have applied to be a swim coach, elephant trainer, and a gorilla trainer.
Other than looking for a job I have been praying about going to seminary at RTS and I am considering longer-term missions. Maybe a year, maybe more, I don't know. I have been in touch with MTW and a missionary family in Honduras and they have invited me to come to Honduras the end of September. I am not sure what that will look like with all of the job searching and depleting funds, but I REALLY want to go. I would just go for 2 weeks and I think it would give me a better picture of being a full-time missionary in another culture than I got this summer. This summer was AMAZING, but because I was only working with nationals I didn't get a great picture of full-time cross cultural missions since they were serving within their own country.
Please pray that God would show me when/if I should go to Honduras, when/if I should go to seminary and what to do with my life.