It’s hard for me to comprehend that it is month 10 of the World Race. As of today, I only 6 more weeks until I return home. I am excited to be home and see all my loved ones, but I am also feeling bummed that my time on the Race is coming to an end. It’s extremely bitter-sweet.
This month we are living in Catacamus, Honduras. It’s a small town about four hours East of the country’s capital, Tegucigalpa. It’s been a unique month. For the first time on the Race, I am living on a compound that we are not allowed to leave unless we are accompanied by our host or someone from his church. Everything we do is on the compound. We sleep on the compound in a nice room filled with bunk beds. We do ministry at the school on the grounds. We get to swim in the swimming pool during our free time! And we use the school’s kitchen to make our meals. It’s a bit challenging to have to stay put every day, as I normally enjoy adventuring out and experiencing more of the culture, but it has also been nice to be forced to take it easy when we’re not at ministry. Especially since we have quite the busy schedule this month.
Do you remember when I said teaching was difficult for me in Guatemala? Well the Lord has a funny way of making sure the lessons He is trying to teach us stick. Every day this month, He continues to whisper “trust me” in my ear while once again I am teaching. Luckily, this time it is not completely in Spanish.
For ministry this month, we are teaching at the school on our compound. Each member on my team has been assigned to a classroom to be the teacher’s aid. I have been assigned to the second graders. When I was first introduced to my class I was instantly greeted with cheers. It didn’t take long for the kids and I to warm up to each other and by day two I was greeted with one giant hug from the entire class. I have a fun and rambunctious group of students.
Every day I get to spend over 6 hours with a bunch of 7 year olds. I sit in on all their classes, I eat lunch with them, and attend PE on the days that they have gym class. It’s exhausting for sure. After teaching, we are doing a painting project for a few hours a day as well. Then to top it off, we speak and help out at the Sunday church services. Our month is packed and I am truly loving every minute of it.
With only a few weeks left, I don’t want to just coast on through my time here. It would be easy to hit cruise control and just do the ‘things’ we’ve been doing for the last 9 months. I’m realizing I never get to do the World Race again. Teaching may not be my favorite ministry, but this may be the last time I ever teach. I don’t exactly enjoy having our room infested with strange beetle like bugs, but I don’t know when the next time will be that I get to live in a room filled with bunk beds with a group of girls I love. I don’t exactly love beans, but let’s be real Honduran’s make the best homemade baleadas, so I plan to eat a bunch of them.
There’s a lot of things that are tough on the Race, but overall, I know in just 6 weeks I’ll most likely miss a lot of it, if not all of it. So here’s to finishing this journey strong and making these last 6 weeks of the Race some of the best of times!
