28 days? I've been here 4 weeks already?! Wow!!!!
It's been a while since I've blogged. Sorry about that. Picking up where I left off, sort of, the game after that practice where we split up the boys, we played incredibly well. The next week I was unable to attend practice because I was sick, more info on that to follow.
I've been sick twice. The first time I had a fever one night and was completely useless the next day (a Wednesday, soccer practice day). We ended up winning the week I couldn't get to practice. Hmmm, maybe I shouldn't go to practice. Hahaha. I was finally feeling better, and a couple nights later (Saturday night, after the game) I spent basically the whole night on the toilet. Including the next day. It was on a Sunday because we were all supposed to go to the English speaking church service, but I, obviously, couldn't. For the next couple days I had to eat only bland food. I heard about two weeks prior to the bland diet Jon reading the girls the story of God giving the Israelites manna from heaven. I noticed I was being an ungrateful, as they were, and realized I needed to be thankful that I was able to eat at least something that would stay in my stomach. God is so faithful to remind us of just what we need to hear right when we need to hear it.
I'm getting more confident in my Spanish. I'm able to understand most parts of most of the conversations I'm hearing, but speaking is still difficult. I'm trying harder to make conversation, but I have no idea where to start most of the time. Lol.
This past Friday we were getting the local soccer field ready for the game the next day (using sawdust to "paint" the lines, and clearing cow-pies from the field) when I saw another gringo walking around with some kids kicking around a ball. After we finished prepping the field, Jon and I went and introduced ourselves. His name was Andrew and it turned out he's actually from Iowa in the Quad cities. How ironic (RO4Y's home church is in Iowa). He ended up coming with his friend whom he was visiting, Iris, to the ranch on Monday for lunch, and stuck around for the young-adult study in the evening. It was a huge blessing to have them. He spoke better Spanish than even Jon. Haha.
Andrew has been living in Guatemala for 6 months out of the year since I believe 2008. He works with kids that live in the city garbage dump in Guatemala City. The largest garbage dump in Central America. I can't remember how many people he said live there, but I know it was in the 1000's, but I'm pretty sure it was a LOT more than that. For some reason 20,000 comes to mind, but I really don't recall. Anyway, please pray for those that live there, and Andrew's use as God calls him.
Yesterday I had my head in the clouds all day. Literally. There isn't fog here, just clouds. Anyway, we went to Tegucigalpa, because Mare had a cookie exchange to go to. She made Candied Orange Peels. They are fantastic. Oh, and she brought home a ton of goodies too. So far my favorite I believe are the mint brownies. Yummmmm. Anyway (sorry Landon, if you're coveting, lol), while she was there, Jon, myself, and the girls went to find the zoo. Unfortunately it was closed because of the weather (stuck in a rain cloud), but thAt didn't stop us from going on an adventure in the National Park (in which the zoo was located). We ended up finding a lot of cool stuff to take pictures of, so we did. Haha. I should hopefully have pics of that up on my Facebook soon, or if I'm able to figure out how to do it here, I'll do that as well. Part of our journey was a quest to find Jesus. Did we find the Christ? You'll have to wait for the pics. :)
Today's soccer practice was... intersting. It went very well. Jon taught the boys on Philippians 3:10,11. He also incorporated the easy way which leads to death, and the hard way, which is the way of Christ, dying to self and such. On Saturday after the game, we provided the boys with lunch. We got 100 tamales for like, $5 American (nice, eh?). Anyway, after we ate, we still had to bring the bags to the truck to head home. Jon asked some of the boys who were walking away to help out, and they just laughed and said "No". So today for practice we decided those boys shouldn't get to practice with cleats. Seems fair, doesn't it? The boys didn't like it, and ended up leaving practice, and walked home down the mountain (about 5 km, or 3 miles). Those boys will not play on Saturday if they should decide to show up, but if they ask Jon's forgiveness, they can remain on the team, and maybe play the next week. The boys chose the hard way. They chose not to die to self. That's ok. God knows what's going on, and the wins don't matter as much as a change in life and attitude. Of the 5 boys that walked out today, 3 of them probably would have started on Saturday. Two of them were our goalies. So this Saturday should be interesting. It's ok though. Jon isn't concerned about it, and neither am I. Neither should you be. :) Just pray for wisdom for us in how to deal with these boys.
That's all for now. So until next time, Hasta luego!
No comments:
Post a Comment