It has been way too long since I have written any sort of update.
Here’s a brief catch-up blog (bullet point format) about what has been going on since I last wrote anything. I hope to write some actual stories at some point, but wanted to do a little recap first.
May
- Cooking for leader training for World Race training camp
- Cooking at training camp for QRST squads (300 mouths to feed!)
- Packing up all my stuff from one house and storing it in another
- Leader training for Passport
- Training camp with my Honduras participants
June
- Launched from training camp in Taccoa falls college on June 4
- Flew from Atlanta to Miami, Miami to Tegucigalpa
- Set up life for the next 2 months with Passport on the Zion’s Gate property
- Began teaching English to the 6th graders next to Zion’s Gate
- Worked on the property: gardening, laying blocks for a rabbit cage, painting rocks, moving rocks, planting grass, etc…
- Street ministry in the La Kennedy community (basically a ditch behind where all the busses are parked)
- Ending June on the island of Roatan for a mid debrief, accompanied by Tony and some of his boys
July
- A lot of the same ministry continued into the month of July
- Heart of Christ ministry: we visited a ministry that works with a lot of victims. Gracie & Lee have a home with 12 kids: three boys (about 3 years old) who have been abandoned or the product of rape or incest, three young teen girls who each have a baby as a result of rape/incest, and three special needs girls.
- Dump ministry: we visited the city dump one day and fed the people working there and chatted with them as well
- Street ministry had grown and we had been able to do a few birthday parties in the La Kennedy community, the kids we had birthday parties for were the first time they had actually celebrated a birthday in their life
- One Nation One Day: for the week we had the opportunity to share the Gospel in the local schools through testimonies, videos, drama, and talking with the students in classroom sized groups. The idea of One Nation is that the Gospel would reach every individual in the country of Honduras during that week, and that an entire nation can be changed though the power of the Gospel.
- On July 26th I said goodbye to my Passport team and co-leader. A few days earlier, I had decided to extend my ticket and stayed longer in Honduras
August
- On August 1st we welcomed S-Squad onto Zion’s Gate; it was so exciting to see one of the squads that I cooked for at training camp now on the field?
- This month was really special; I got to be on the hosting end and not on a team that was visiting or leading a team either. It was such a great way to experience ministry on a different level; I loved being side by side with Tony everyday??
- We started a new ministry, visiting an abandoned house property down the road and playing soccer with the guys that hang out there. The guys who hang out on that property have a bad reputation, but it really wasn’t as bad as people would expect. The guys were friendly and we got to build some soccer goals for them down there as well
- S-Squad really got to work on painting Tony’s house, working on paths to the school, gardens, building a grill, visiting La Kennedy, visiting the hospital, and doing home visits in the community. I really enjoyed the month with the squad.
- I got to visit Gracie's ministry again
- We took a few kids from the La Kennedy community onto the property and into the family. It’s a challenge to work with new kids from off the street but rewarding at the same time to see their attitudes and mannerisms change over the course of time.
- I went back to the states on August 20th, visited the Adventures office on the 21st, and at 3:30am on the 22nd drove over 800 miles in one day to make it back to Chicago for my cousin’s wedding on the 24th.
I know this all sounds a little bit scatter-brained, but basically my summer in a nutshell.
Not to mention that on September 9th (I believe), I will be heading out with a team to Guatemala for a few weeks, then to the Philippines for about 5 months.
(Philippines is probably my next blog… keep an eye out for it!)
