It’s hard to believe that our first 3 months and 1st continent is through! We head to Asia tonight and will be there for 5 months. This month looked a lot different but God still showed up in great ways. Thank you for all of the continued support!
Oh! And I celebrated my birthday here this month! It just so happened that we got to be with our whole squad on the day of my birthday. Then men made me a pancake, my team was so sweet with practical gifts (yellow gatorade, cards, popsicles, lunch and dinner!). I got to spend time with so many people that day and get a hug from just about everyone I saw. I loved it and wouldn’t have it any other way!
1. Weather was not what I expected! The warmest thing I have is a long sleeve shirt and a light cardigan. Joke was on me when it got pretty darn chilly. I won’t compare it to where I’m from, but when you weren’t prepared for any kind of cold…it was a bummer for sure.
2. I still don’t like beans, unfortunately for me. I’d say a good 90% of the meals (breakfast, lunch, dinner) were eggs, beans and tortillas. Take out the beans and I’ve got me a meal that consists of an egg and tortilla. I did buy other foods, so it worked out okay. But it would have been nice if I just liked beans! (But thanking God for peanut butter)
3. Driving really changes my mind about what I think a “bad” road is in the states. I didn’t know a pot hole for real until I experienced them in Honduras. There is one stretch of the road that had a lot and at the end of our time, they were repaving that portion.
4. Ministry: Radio ministry! We got to share our testimonies on the radio to over 200,000 people listening all over the world. That was such a cool experience to be behind the scenes of that. Teaching and praying. Praying and teaching. That was a vast majority of our month! It was cool to have the chance to prepare a message for church on Sunday’s. It was a new experience and I didn’t mind it!
5. Monnaayyy: We used lempiras and the exchange rate is 22 lemps to $1. Things seemed to be cheap or average overall. The American luxuries were more (peanut butter, nutella, Dove chocolate..etc.). Transportation also cost a little bit more here than the other countries we visited in Central America (though still cheaper than the states).
6. Gracias. That’s the name of the town we often visited for wifi. It’s about 45 minutes away. We got pizza and brownies there a lot. Typically going to Gracias isn’t so bad. Coming back, well that’s an entirely different situation. 12 passenger vans will be carrying 24 people inside to where the door can barely shut. Then another guy needs a ride and I’m thinking, “where in the world do they think they are gonna fit him??? On top?”. Well, yeah that’s exactly what they did! Person number 25 rode on top of this van.
7. It is a big deal that we had a washer. This family is the only one in town with a washer. I’m just super grateful that I could go another month without hand washing my clothes!
8. Leche con chocolate caliente. Aka hot chocolate, folks! I’m not a coffee drinker and not really tea either but with chilly mornings, I longed for a warm drink. Norma made me hot chocolate one day and after that, I drank it everyday! Sara taught me how she makes it so good too. Powdered milk (not as terrible as it sounds) and chocolate powder with some hot water and sugar in just the right ratio is a way to my heart. I even liked making it! My team didn’t complain.
9. Teach me your tortilla makin’ ways, why don’t ya? What many places do using a machine, they do by hand. And I learned how to make a pretty good lookin’ tortilla. They have that down to a science and they look so good! When my team did it, it just looked like we were playing with Play-Dough. In the end, it tastes the same!
10. Thanksgiving in Honduras. We decided we wanted to bring an American(ish) Thanksgiving dinner to our Honduran family. The hardest part was that we didn’t have an oven. So yeah, no turkey. The final product was fried chicken, mashed potatoes (boxed but still tasty), veggies, garlic toast and apple crisp for dessert! Success!
11. Time management. When you hear that term you typically think that someone has so much on their plate and they need to learn to keep it organized in a way that fits it all in. Well, I learned time management for the opposite problem; too much time. It’s funny though, I still found myself thinking, “I need more time for that, though”. There was no where close to go hang out except a Texaco gas station that had wifi that was about a 20ish min walk. But it was chilly and rained a lot so that wasn’t always an option. Plus, you can’t go out past dark. I had to learn to keep myself busy with things that didn’t always include New Girl and Harry Potter (though, we really enjoyed these things as a team). We learned a new card game and played Phase 10 often. I finished 2 books, wrote a lot, memorized all of Colossians 3 and got to know each of my teammates a lot deeper individually. So I’d say that in the end, it all worked out.
UPDATE/PRAYER: Thanks for all of your continued support! I’m starting my travel for my next continent, Asia! I traveled to Atlanta on yesterday morning, then to LA yesterday afternoon. After a 22 hour layover in LA today, we take our first flight to China then our last one to the Philippines. I’ll be there for the holidays before heading to Vietnam in January. Not including layovers, it’s roughly 24+ hours of traveling by bus and plane. But, I’ll be at my next destination by Tuesday (12/8)! Keep us in your prayers. I get to spend this month with some extra girls (who are awesome!) on my team, so that’s super exciting. Pray for unity among this bigger group.
I also love all the emails I’ve gotten from friends and family. All of your kind (and funny) words have been such an encouragement. Thank you and keep ’em comin’!
Here is a video tour of the property I spent lived and did most ministry on! Once again, we were very blessed to have what we had.
Honduras Property Tour from Brittany Panus on Vimeo.
Much love,
Brittany
