The World Race is almost impossible to describe. People often ask what exactly we do, but every day is so different that it’s hard to generalize. Some months are insanely busy, yet others leave us with vast amounts of free time. Some days we see God work in miraculous ways, but other days frustration with culture, language, and difficult circumstances consume our thoughts. Some days we’re teachers, some days we’re farmers, and some days we’re preachers. Some days we’re all three. The best way to answer the question, “What exactly do you do on the World Race?” is to give you a glimpse of an average day.
This month we’re working with Hope Farm Honduras. Ten years ago, an American family with four kids, the Colbaths, moved to Honduras hoping to help out at an orphanage. Now their ministry consists of raising eight Honduran children in addition to their own, all of whom were victims of domestic abuse. They homeschool their children, run a farm, and are active in the community through hosting tutoring sessions, sporting event, and more.
Here’s what a day in the life looked like on Wednesday, June 15, 2016…
6:15 a.m. – Wake up! Get ready and eat breakfast.
On the menu: Fresh yogurt and homemade granola from the Mennonite store down the road!
7:15 a.m. – Walk to school. This month we’re teaching at the village primary school. It has a horrible reputation so only the kids who can’t afford to pay to go to another school go to this school. We’re lucky to get to give the weary teachers some help!
7:30 a.m. – P.E. class. Jocelyn and I are in charge of P.E. Today we had fifth and sixth grade. We both were soccer players, so class looks a lot like a soccer practice! And the kids love fútbol, so it’s a win-win.
Me with some of my fifth grade students!
10:00 a.m. – Farm work. After school, we help out on the farm for a few hours. We work a lot with the moras (blackberries). Today we were weeding and spreading pine over the weeded areas. The farmers tan is real y’all.
On the Jam speaker: “Work from Home” and lots of country
12:00 p.m. – Lunch time!
12:30 p.m. – Some of the Colbath’s kids were driving into town, so we hitched a ride so that we could get some groceries and hang out. We were very glad to exchange the hour-long chicken bus journey for a breezy ride in the back of the pick-up truck!
1:00 p.m. – First stop in town: Hope Coffee, a local coffee shop run by missionaries. I spent my time writing a summary of our ministry at Hope Farm for an anonymous donor who had entrusted us with finding and praying about a person/ministry to donate to. We didn’t know specifically how the Colbaths would spend the donation, but I tried to verbalize to the donor why we still found this ministry such a worthy cause. (Remember this—there’s more!)
Drink of choice: Iced coffee, because Hondurans know how to do coffee
3:00 p.m. – Grocery store. This month we’re cooking for ourselves and the store is far away.
3:45 p.m. – Soaking up some sun and some Jesus! Check out that view.
Now reading: Secrets of the Secret Place by Bob Sorge. For the second time. If you haven’t read it, you should.
4:30 p.m. – Self-defense class with kids from the community. It’s one of the many activities our ministry hosts. Kids are prone to gang involvement here, so the more opportunities they have to stay busy, the better! Our friend, Emily, who’s an expert at Israeli street fighting, taught this class. We served as (bad) examples.
5:00 p.m. – I dipped out of class early to start cooking, because it was my day for dinner! I hardly beat the huge storm rolling in, which is common because it’s rainy season.
5:05 p.m. – Power goes out. Light candles.
5:12 p.m. – Power comes back on.
5:15 p.m. – I look outside to take a rainy picture for this blog, and see this! Half the family trying to hold the tree up from falling on a power line, which had already happened once this week.
5:20 p.m. – The power line fell. We’re in Honduras, so the electric company coming to fix it isn’t really a thing. Not good.
5:23 p.m. – After getting over the shock of that happening again, I keep cooking and my teammates trickle in and help. Throughout the course of cooking the power goes in and out three more times.
6:15 p.m. – Dinner with my team! I love getting around the table with these awesome ladies. We got to discuss more about our anonymous donation. Our hearts were heavy because the power line falling meant another 11,000 lempiras ($500) for the family, and they had just paid that three days prior. With twelve kids, money can be tight. We realized that the donation could be the answer to prayer!
Meal of the day: Sautéed chicken and veggies and brown rice
7:00 p.m. – Bible study with the team/team time/eating too much banana bread.
8:00 p.m. – Getting to tell the Colbaths about the donation! It was so cool to see the Lord’s provision in a day where so much seemed to go wrong.
8:30 p.m. – Watching a bootlegged version of “New Girl,” Jocelyn and I’s current guilty pleasure.
Mood: WHY AREN’T NICK AND JESS TOGETHER.
9:00 p.m. – Crawl into bed and write this blog!!
Current thoughts: I can’t wait till moths don’t swarm my screen.
I hope this is kind of interesting to you, because to me it’s just an average day! Ten months of new jobs, new people, and new cultures have made it so not much surprises me. But looking back on the day, it’s awesome to see God’s hand in it. We had prayed all week about where to put that money, and had thought of nothing specific. But God had a plan all along, and we were so thankful to be included in His plan to provide for the Colbaths! (I had no idea that would happen when I decided to write this blog today!) The World Race may be hard and unpredictable, but because we laid down our lives and followed Him into the uncomfortable places, average days become days where we get to experience our Father and do Kingdom work. It makes enduring the moths and monsoons and farmer’s tans all worth it. 🙂
