Truth, Teachers, and Snakes

How do you decide what is true? 

The past couple nights I haven't included our devotion time in the blog, but I decided that tonight was a pretty important one to touch on. As Christians, we must be incredibly cautious with who we allow ourselves to listen to and entrust with teaching us. We must constantly be checking what they say against the absolute truth in the Bible. Even if it is someone who isn't purposely trying to lead you astray, we must be watchful. 

The second point that Chan made in a tonight's video, was that we are all called to pass on our knowledge of the gospel. There will be some who are called to be Teachers (pastors, overseers, counselors, etc. ) but all of us are called to teach. We must be ready to give an answer for the hope that is within us. 

Church went really well today! I helped with the children's Sunday school, which was a combined class resulting in about forty young and very energetic kids. They behaved pretty well though. There was one little boy who latched onto me like I was his mother, wanting me to pick him up and hold him, he sat with me for the better part of the main church service. He was maybe seven years old at the most. Very cute, but very active! 

It's rained a lot again today. We took a trip to some botanical jungle gardens after lunch, and it cleared up enough for us to walk around and enjoy the scenery, but it rained the whole way there and the whole way back. It isn't the constant rain that we've had before though, so hopefully it won't be bad for VBS that starts tomorrow. Our program this year is centered around sports and outdoor games, mostly based on soccer. If it rains constantly, or starts thunderstorming, we're going to have to come up with a plan B pretty quickly! 

Funny story: tonight as we were about to go up for devotions with the girls, Jordan and Mark come running in saying that there's a snake coiled up right beside the sidewalk and really close to our team quarters. Now for those of you who are unfamiliar with Belizean wildlife, or think snakes are no big deal-- there are 63 different species of snakes in Belize, 9 of which are venomous, and the three that are the most potent are also the most aggressive. So when we heard 'snake' we all started to freak out to varying degrees. Someone mentioned throwing a rock at it to try and get it to move. We didn't have any rocks in the house, but we did have soccer balls, so we were planning on using that. Mark thought he should be the one to throw it, since he supposedly has the best aim and accuracy. Just as we were deciding who should be the thrower, Dave comes in and gives everyone a surprise--it's just a leaf. We all had a good laugh, Jordan and Mark were really embarrassed, and we all went up for devotions with the girls. 

Another good day passes, and we are now another day closer to the end of our trip. I try not to think about the leave-taking, but it's going to go very quickly from here on out. 

Island Day

"Have you ever heard a pastor cuss? 'Cause you might today!"

So said our pastor on the boat ride out to the island resort this morning. I sat in the middle of the boat, and while I caught some air at points, it wasn't nearly as bad as sitting in the front! Think choppy old wooden roller coaster. Then add bright blue-green sea, a few clouds, and some intense sun and you have our forty-five minute journey out to the island.


It was a beautiful day. Finally the sun came out of the clouds! The bulk of our day consisted of trying not to get sunburned while relaxing on the beach or snorkeling. It's nice to have a team outing like this to just hang out. We did come back to Hosanna House in time to have dinner and do devotions up at the main house, but most of the usual crowd were gone. The girls had gone to a concert in Dangriga, and hadn't come back yet. Tomorrow is church, and we pass out flyers for VBS that we are holding Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. Looking forward to the rest of this week! Pray that we will all have the strength to finish strong; we're now half way through our time here, and while I can't speak for anyone else, I am feeling the effects of constantly having things to do. Even so, I'm not looking forward to the goodbyes on Thursday. 

No More Rain

It finally stopped raining! 

We were actually able to work on some outdoor projects today, including painting the gate and wall that encircles the compound. A bunch of the Hosanna House kids helped us with the painting, although some needed a little more guidance than others... (Anyone with enthusiastic young children knows exactly what I'm talking about!) Darren spent some time working on the plumbing in the girls' rooms, as well as some other hardware-related fix-it projects, and Doug finished painting the kitchen. 

This afternoon a group of six team members and six Hosanna House kids took a trip to Dangriga to watch the Women's World Cup match between USA and China (We won 1:0 if anyone cares to know :) ) at Ivy's Restaurant. I think it's safe to say all the kids had fun! On the way home they were singing a medley of John Legend, Katy Perry, Passenger, and Spongebob Squarepants... I'm not sure what anyone else thinks of that, but I (who was sitting in the van with them) thought it was the essence of "making a joyful noise"-- and it was truly noisy! Haha

While we were in Dangriga the rest of the team was getting a spaghetti dinner ready for the rest of the Hosanna House crew. I'm told it was a small group, but that it went well. Once we got back we had devotions with the girls, and now I'm sitting in my bunk writing this for you. :) 

Tomorrow is our island adventure, which everyone is looking forward to! Fingers crossed that it doesn't rain anymore... Sunday is church and then Monday we start vacation Bible school. VBS this summer is a sports theme; more specifically, soccer. We brought a bunch of soccer balls down with us, and plan on giving them to the kids to keep at the end of the week. Looking forward to the adventure! 

Thanks for your prayers! Other than all the rain this week, everything has been going really well. 

*Recently it was brought to my attention that the font on these posts is hard to read-I apologize for that! Normally when I post from my laptop it works just fine, it might just be the app that I'm using to upload the blog from my iPod. Unfortunately there isn't much that I can do to change that at this point, as the internet here doesn't work well enough to upload the posts from my browser. I hope that you are all able to bear with me until I can get this figured out! Thank you for your patience. :)

Follow Jesus

How do you choose to follow Jesus? 

Our devotions tonight with the girls were a continuation of the Francis Chan video series from last night. Chan talks about how as a church, people often miss the mark when trying to follow Jesus' commands about how we should live. He uses the example of him giving his daughter a command--"Go clean your room." It would be crazy of her to come back an hour later and say "Hey dad! I memorized what you said--you said 'clean your room!'" Or " Hey dad, I learned to say it in Greek, listen!" Or even "Okay so I got a group of my friends together and we're all going to meet once a week and talk about what it would look like if I cleaned my room." No, she knows better. She follows through with the command. Chan also uses the example of the game " Follow the Leader." As kids, we all play this game, doing exactly what the leader does. He pats his head, we pat our heads. He flaps his wings, we flap our wings. How weird would it be to have a kid sitting on the couch, claiming to be playing along saying "Yeah, I'm flapping my wings in my heart." It just doesn't work like that! And yet, somehow when it comes to following Jesus, we have this idea that yeah, it does work like that. So how do you choose to follow Jesus in your daily life? Food for thought. 

Now for the fun stuff! :) We spent a lot of time on projects around Hosanna House today, even though it rained all day again. A group of us worked on painting the kitchen, which hasn't seen a new coat of paint for several years. We have it almost completed, all but some of the higher parts of the walls which we'll work on tomorrow. Darren and Don went through some of the children's rooms, checking the plumbing to make sure it worked properly, and seeing what parts might be needed to do any fixing up. The rest of us spent time just hanging out with the girls; talking, painting nails, and playing card games. We've had some interesting conversations with the girls. The boys of the house and a few of the team members spent some time playing soccer in the rain as well. It seems like everyone has had a pretty good day! 

As far as prayer requests go, there are two girls here who speak only Spanish. One of them was feeling really homesick tonight, and she cried all through devotions. I can't tell you how much I wanted to be able to communicate to her that she is loved and try to comfort her, but the best I can do is give her a hug and a sympathetic smile. Pray that we can find a way to get the message across to her that we care about her! 

As always, thank you for all your prayers and support! We all appreciate it. :)

Fear God/Fear Not

"The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom."

Francis Chan speaks on this topic in a video series that we are using for devotions with the girls. The Bible speaks of fearing the Lord, and many people interpret that to mean an awed reverence or respect, but when you really look at the scriptures (especially Isaiah and John) it means a terror that was expressed by "falling down as though dead." How do you handle that? Those who have been in the presence of God couldn't stand up for fear of Him. Keeping that in mind, the next thing that happens in Isaiah's situation is God's reassurance--"Fear Not." That heart-thumping, wild-eyed terror comes first, then God says "Hey, I've got you. Don't be afraid." Over and over again it happens throughout the Bible.

So how do we live in fear of God, those of us who have never seen him face to face? Something to think about.

It rained off and on all day, which put a damper on some of our plans for projects around Hosanna House. We were originally planning on painting the front fence and some other areas, but it was too wet. We still got some stuff done though. In the team quarters, one of the girls' beds had an ant nest in it that we found last night, so we took care of cleaning and spraying the room today. Some of locks needed changing in one of the other team buildings, so some of the guys took care of that in the afternoon. The rest of the day was spent either hanging out with the girls, or meal prep/cleanup. There were a couple of minute-to-win-it games that really hit it off with everyone, including a cup-stacking game that everyone wanted to try! It's been a really good day, in spite of the rain. A lot of people are still really tired from traveling though, including me, who took a two hour nap this afternoon!

Thank you all for your prayers and support, I look forward to what the rest of this week will bring. :)

Safe

We made it! All safe and sound. Well, mostly. There were several leaks in our checked bags (applesauce, conditioner, dish soap, cooking spray) as well as many crushed boxes of cereal, cookies, and other snack food. But we anticipated that to some extent.

It's been a long hard day of travel, and we're all pretty exhausted. We met at HGBC for final preparations at 3am, and by 3:45 we were on the road to Reagan National. It was close to 6:00 when we made it to the terminal and got all our bags inside. For some reason our airline was really backed up this morning. It was a mad house inside, and we waited for close to two hours before we finally got our bags checked and tickets handed out to everyone. Thankfully though, the TSA was moving people along pretty quickly and we made it to the gate just in time to board our flight to Miami. Everything else went pretty smoothly.

Thank you for all of your prayers! To my knowledge, the only prayer request we have now is for a speedy recovery from travel exhaustion.


*A view of Belize from the plane, just before landing.

Friendships and Feeble Words

I've been thinking about something lately, and finally thought I might share it with you readers out there in internet-land. With a matter of hours left (27 by the time I upload this) before our team leaves on our journey, and with humble thanks for reading my stumbling musings, I'll continue.

God has been speaking to my heart lately about friendships. I have a few very close "kindred spirits" that I hold very near and dear to my heart, and I have people that I know and talk with on a regular basis as "friends" and then I have "acquaintances" that I kind of know, but not on a personal level. What I have been considering recently though, is how I form those friendships. Generally I am a very passive friend-maker, only seeking out people as friends when I think I will be around them long enough to form deep and lasting bonds. If I think I won't be sticking around, I'll only form "acquaintance" level relationships with them. If I see them on a regular basis for an extended amount of time, I might consider them to be "friends;" and if I continue to keep in touch with them and spend time with them, perhaps after several years I may consider them to be "kindred spirits."

Perhaps an example may help illustrate my situation. This past year I took some dual-enrollment courses at Messiah College. In total, I took four different courses, two of which (German I and II) were with the same core group of students. I found that by the second semester, I had formed closer friendships with my German classmates than with the students I met in my other two courses. Both of those other courses required some amount of group work, through which I became acquainted with my classmates and formed some surface level friendships; but since I knew I probably wouldn't see them outside of those courses, I didn't make an effort to form lasting relationships with them.

Over the course of this school year, I have been feeling God tugging at my heart and telling me that I need to be more intentional with my friendships. I should make that effort to keep in touch when we part ways. I should be genuine with everyone, and do my best to make the other person feel comfortable. I should look for the things we have in common as well as the things that make us individuals and use those as conversation starters. Above all, I need to listen to their story.

There are a couple of things I would like you, dear reader, to take away from my ramblings. First is this: Seek people out. Listen to their story. Be intentional about following up with them. For me personally, I cherish the times I spend with my close friends, but they only became close because someone was intentional about following up on those vague plans to "have coffee some time." The second thing is a request. In the context of this trip, and future trips, please pray that our team will form relationships with these girls that will be followed up on and nourished through the year. The last thing those girls need are more empty promises. Pray that we will be examples of the "Friend who sticks closer than a brother."

If you made it this far, I thank you whole-heartedly for your time, and I hope some part of this made sense. The next time I write I will have some updates from Central America. :)

Disappointment and Guilt

Summer has struck. School is out, weather is muggy, and our church is about to send another team down to Belize where the weather is even muggier, and school will not be out until a few days after we arrive.

This is my (Aubrey) second trip down to Central America, and while I am really excited to build new relationships with the girls, as well as revisit old friendships, I'm worried that this trip will not be like the last one. One of the girls that I befriended last year, and who I have chatted with on Facebook several times since, has had to move out of Hosanna House to somewhere in Belize City. Maybe it sounds melodramatic, but words cannot express how disappointed I am that I will not be able talk with her, encourage her, and nourish our friendship face-to-face. Chatting on Facebook can count as communication, sure, but it doesn't foster the same connection as meeting with someone personally.

Which brings to mind another point. In leading up to this trip I have not been nearly as diligent with studying my Bible and talking with God about what he wants me to accomplish while I'm there. I've been "Facebooking" God, and that's not acceptable. I've allowed myself to become distracted with other things in my life: graduating high school and preparing for college especially, to the point that everything else gets shoved to the sidelines. I know I'm not the only one who struggles with this, but it doesn't make it any less of a sin.

So, my prayer going into this trip is that God will be clearly working in the team, showing us what is most important to accomplish; be that a project around Hosanna House, or just taking some unstructured down time with the girls. Also that He will continue to work in my life personally, drawing me closer to Him and helping me to release my anxiety and distractions.

Till I write again,
Aubrey

Under Construction

Hello again!
Over these few weeks leading up to our departure date, I'm going to be working on updating the blog for this year's team. Bear with me as I attempt to get things sorted!
~Aubrey