I was playing soccer one day in Honduras with some kids on the street. In the streets they play with plastic balls that cost less than 50 cents. They are light and feel like kicking around a plastic milk carton. It’s not hard to accidentally step on the ball wrong and dent it beyond repair to where it won’t roll anymore.
As we were playing with one of these plastic balls it kept rolling a little too close to a vicious dog tied up with a chain. He was snapping at the ball and the kids as if they were pieces of beef jerky jumping around on the street teasing him. Eventually the ball went wide of the two rocks that were meant to be our goal and rolled right on over to the pest. He ripped the ball up in about ten seconds and slung it around with slobber flying everywhere like the dog in the movie “Sandlot.”
All the kids yelled at the dog as if he could hear every word. Then one especially frustrated and brave young boy decided to do the only sensible thing at the time. He walked right up and grabbed the crumpled up useless plastic ball, and placed it in the road where he dropped his pants and urinated all over it. The other boys stood at an appropriate distance and approved of the proper burial to the ball they had once held so dear.
Moral of the story: When your property is destroyed, then pee on it and move on with your life.
……
One afternoon our team was introduced to the senior pastor of the surrounding neighborhood congregations. He was hands down the craziest guy I’ve met so far on the race. He spoke English but it was hard to understand him, not only because of his accent but because his voice changed from screaming to whispering in a matter of seconds.
Seven of us sat around the kitchen table and tried to follow the roller coaster coming out of this mans mouth. He would yell, then drop his voice, stare at you, then pause, give a wink, a quick nod, then hop right back into something else. Sometimes he would just close his eyes and tilt his head up at the ceiling and soak up his next thoughts.
He was a very God fearing man from the bits that we did hear. He was very gracious and thanked us for coming to Honduras to do ministry and spread Gods love. He was emotional at one point in thanking us for our service.
Once he found out that none of us were married and none of us had kids he decided to begin giving us marriage advice. Rachel and Victoria both pulled out their pen and notebooks and began taking notes of his comical advice. He had three points in this section of his speech. He looked at us intently and made some eye contact, pause, wink, and then jumped right into his first point.
He put his middle finger in the air and waved it about as he was making his first point. His middle finger went one way and then the other way flying all about the living room. We watched in amazement and then tried very hard not to make eye contact with each other knowing that it would cause an inappropriate burst of laughter that would need a fire extinguisher to put out.
We were all relieved when he raised his second finger to make his next point. All I really remember from his marriage advice was him telling Luke and I, “Never touch a girl between the chin to the knee,” pause, wink, “front or back.” He left us as quickly as he arrived and I felt as if I had just stepped off of a marry-go-round that had recently been applied with a bottle of WD40.
Moral of the story: Some offensive gestures in America may not be offensive in Central America.
……
One night I grumpily tossed my sheet off of my body and planned to go to the bathroom. Something I had needed to do but continuously convinced myself that it wasn’t absolutely necessary yet. Once I was sitting up in my bed I realized it was especially dark in the small house. Too dark to waste time attempting to find a source of electronic light to guide my way.
I wanted to be extremely quiet due to a previous night: I made a noise that awoke the pastor. He came into the tiny kitchen, had me step aside, unlocked the door for me, waited for me to pee, relocked the door and waited for me to climb back into bed, before going back to his own bed for the night.
I stood up and felt around for the wall, or the thin piece of wood that separated our room from the living room. I swiftly picked up the small fan pointed toward my bed and moved it aside so I could leave the room. I slid my hand across the wood and thought to myself “wow I can’t see a thing, it really is super dark.” I was gaining on the kitchen where I knew I would be needing to take a right turn to get to the door.
I arrived to the corner of the kitchen and ran right into something that took me straight to the ground. It sounded like disaster. That’s the only way I can describe it. Metal slamming into concrete floor. “I’m trapped, I’m tangled on the kitchen floor in between a giant fan with broken spokes and pieces of fan everywhere!” I thought to myself. I just laid there for a second and felt around. I realized I had knocked over the pastors bike that he parks in the kitchen for some ludicrous reason. I set the bike back up and went to the bathroom much more alert and aware of my surroundings.
I quickly slipped back into bed and carefully placed my bloody knee off the side of the bed to make sure I didn’t stain any of the sheets. I will never know how that horrific sound didn’t wake the pastor up and why he didn’t come to assist me, but I’m very glad he didn’t.
Moral of the story: No matter how dark the room is or how tired you are, find a source of light to guide your way.
