One Rainy Day...

Theses pictures pretty much speak for themselves! Right now Honduras is in rainy season and we have had plenty of rain. One day this week we had a HUGE downpour. The kind that just invites you outside, because it wasn't a storm, simply buckets of water being poured from the sky. Since we have already had so much rain the water just sat on top of the ground making great puddles. Some of the girls and me decided to make a play day out of it. We came to the top of a slippery hill and enjoyed sliding down it on our stomaches and bottoms. It was a messy delight. Our smiles shone enough for the sun that rainy afternoon.

Show me the Love

I often feel that more than anything people want to love and be loved. I can't think of a single person who has said to me, "Jessi, I just don't want to be loved" or "I don't want people to like me." It's just not part of our nature. We want to feel cared about, loved for, and appreciated. It's also natural that we show those things to other people in return. I think often we are even afraid of not being loved...or being alone in the world. It doesn't matter how much someone has, if they don't feel loved they will feel worthless. Recently, I read the book "The Love Languages of God" By Gary Chapman, the same author who wrote "The Five Love Languages." I would recommend the book to anyone. In his book "The Love Languages of God" Gary Chapman talks about how we all give and receive love in different ways. We feel the most loved when we are spoken to in our own love language. That seems natural, right? Well, he continues on to say that God knows our love language and that he speaks to us most clearly through our own love language. I enjoyed his book and felt that it was very insightful, but I didn't feel like it really impacted my life. At least not right away. It wasn't until this week that something from his book really sank in. In his book he explains that there are five main ways people give and receive love: through gifts, physical touch, quality time, acts of service and words of affirmation. One of the five love languages speaks to you most deeply, but it is different from person to person. For me I'm definitely quality time. Anyways, I was praying on my steps outside earlier this week, and I started thinking about the verse in Jeremiah where God is talking to Israel and in Jeremiah 31:3b He says "...I have loved you with an everlasting love;.." I love that! We are loved with an everlasting love. All the way to my core I believe that. I started thinking about that...why was it that I never question God's love for me? I question people's love for me often enough. Something from Mr. Chapman's book came back to me, God speaks to us in our love language. I feel most loved when someone spends time with me. Well, God is omnipresent, He is always there. I never question if God loves me because He is always there to spend time with me. I don't have to call Him to decide where we are going to meet up, or when. He never calls me to cancel an appointment. He wants to spend time with me. He is always available. He is able to show me a love that no one in the world will ever be able to show me. That is why God's love is so much stronger than a human love. It surpasses time, depth, height, length, and width. There is nowhere that God's love cannot reach. What a comfort! If quality time is not your love language, don't lose heart, God speaks all the love languages fluently! What a great God we serve.

The Tongue Stage

I'm sure anyone who has kids or has worked with kids a lot can identify the tongue stage. This is the stage where kids concentrate so hard that their tongue comes just outside of there mouth and usually scoots over to the side. Often times the mouth hang open slightly as they work. Oh, and "The tongue stage" is definitely the technical term. Anyhow, my preschoolers are 100% at this stage right now. I love to come up with task that cause their tongues to come out because I think that it's so cute. As I pull a pair of scissors out for them to practice cutting, I'm over come with giddy anticipation. Their fingers slip through the finger holes and automatically their tongues stick out. It only becomes more dramatic as they try to cut on a straight line. They are so cute and I feel privileged to get to work with them.

School makes me tired!

We are well into our 3rd week of school at Ebenezer Academy. All is going well, I'm starting to work through the adjustment of having new kids in the class. I have my preschool class in the mornings from 8:20-12:00 just like last year. I currently have 3 students, Jennifer (4,) Cristian (3,) and Marlon (3.) They are a delight. In the afternoons I have an assortment of class, P.E., home ec., English as a second language, and reading time with the kindergarten. Today my last class was reading, after which I had a planning time. As I was reading today one of my students got droopy eyed and fell asleep. He leaned his head on my shoulder and took a little nap. As time went on I started to feel a little sleepy too. I stayed past time to read, while the kindergarten teacher was working with a student one on one. Enmanuel started looking at books and I got cozy with Junior curled up next to me. Before I knew it I had dozed off. Apparently, the other teachers were laughing at me, and took a picture. I woke up to Junior poking me asking why I didn't read to him. I explained that he had slept through the stories...he didn't believe me and wanted me to read to him. I didn't get much planning done this afternoon, but I read some pretty awesome books and got a little nap time.

Road Trip!

Last Monday-Wednesday me and 5 others from the Ranch took a little road trip to Copan. It was 4 single adults (Tammy, Sara, Steve, and myself) and 2 boys from the Ranch (Brayan and Obed.) Copan is 7 miles from the Guatemala boarder. It is also the town that hold the Maya ruins. It was a great three days and was awesome to have the chance to visit other parts of Honduras.

Lake Yajoa

On the way to Copan we took a short pit stop at Lake Yajoa. Lake Yajoa is the largest lake in Honduras. We had time to stretch our legs and enjoy the scenery. Across from Lake Yajoa is a little rest area with a HUGE tree house and a playground. We climbed the tree house and had an awesome view from up there. I finally convinced Sara and Brayan to play on the teeter-toter with me. It was fun!




Copan

So we got to Copan after a 7 hour car ride. The ride didn't take to long and it was really gorgeous view. We stayed in a cute little town nestled in the mountains. Our hotel had a pool and we were able to swim and play tag in the pool at night. We ate at a local restaurant that served Mexican food. It was the best meal I have had since Christmas. It had great service and fantastic food. We also got to shop around the town.


Waterfall

Shortly after arriving in Copan we set out for more adventures. We heard that there was a waterfall close by, so we set out to find it. We drove around a little and felt kind of lost but finally came to the path that lead to the waterfall. We hiked down the mountain a little and came to a "bridge" we had to cross it to get to the falls. It looked pretty old and shaky but we made it across alive. The falls were really pretty and covered by a canopy of trees. I was fun because the water was really deep by the falls and we could swim. We also found a really cool spider. Brayan, Obed, and myself also climbed a really cool tree.




The Ruins

On Tuesday morning we started out to see the Maya ruins. We had a tour guide and she was able to tells us about what the different statues and stuff represented. It was a really cool experience, and I felt like it was something not many people could say they've done. In a lot of ways the ruins reminded me of Egypt. They had all kinds of cool statues, buildings, houses and tunnels there. The tunnels were under or in the structures and often time a burial place. Everything there was carved in such intricate detail. Our guide told us that everything use to be colored but over time all the color faded out of the stone. On a few things you could still see the color. It was very beautiful and I enjoyed seeing everything.




Horseback Ride

After the ruins we all took a 3 hour horse ride up into the mountains. I was really fun because we were allowed to run them or do whatever, which was really cool. I love to ride horses. It was a really fun experience to have in Honduras. Our whole trip was a blast, and I'm so glad I went.

Swimming with Spiders

This beauty was part of the scenery that captured our attention as we swam in Copan. We saw the spider near the bottom of a waterfall we visited. The spider was bigger than my hand, making it the largest spider I've seen up close. While I don't know what type of spider it is we all agreed that is had to be some kind of poisonous spider. It may be something in the tarantula family but was much skinnier than the other tarantulas I've seen in Honduras. Your guess is as good as mine.

South Beach

Last Friday I went to the south coast of Honduras with a bus load of people from the Ranch. We had a sewing team at the Ranch and the team treated all the kids that completed their sewing projects to a day to the beach! It was a really great idea and we all had a lot of fun. It took us about 4 hours to get to the beach. We spent the afternoon swimming in the ocean and catching the rays. I think that it goes without saying that the boys brought a soccer ball and played soccer on the beach. We also brought a frisbee, and others enjoyed a game of frisbee with sand between their toes. While the south coast doesn't compare with the north coast (the islands) it was still really pretty. One thing that I really liked about the beach we went to was that there were large trees right on the shore. The beach had these gigantic trees just sitting right there, the trees were dressed with hammocks, making for a very relaxing resting place. When you looked to the sky you were graced with a beautiful canopy of leafs. I think there is something so romantic about big old trees. We returned to the ranch last that night. It was a really fun day. It was great to get off the Ranch for the day and enjoy the kids with different scenery.