My first week in Honduras essentially consisted of the prayer room and some manual labor on the property here, but the second and third weeks held something rather unexpected in store. Six people were asked to stay back from normal ministry every morning and teach either music or English at the public school down the road. I was one of those six. I wasn't too nervous initially, even though I was about to teach English to kids whose language I don't understand. However, the first morning we were there I found out that the three of us would not be in a classroom teaching together, we would each be teaching alone.
Now, some of you might not find that too daunting, but I am not particularly good with entertaining children, or making them listen for that matter, so the idea of teaching 30 third graders and 30 fifth graders a language they do not understand, all by myself, was terrifying. Fortunately, that first day all we did was a short presentation and then had the rest of the day to plan our lessons. Still, I was so nervous all day. My stomach was in knots and I couldn't seem to shake the feeling of panic. I couldn't see how I was going to be able to teach them anything with the chaos I had seen the day before. I ended up spending a lot of time in prayer and looking up Spanish words and phrases. As I have said before, and will keep saying, our God is amazing.
The next morning before school, we found out that the ministry for two of our teams had fallen through, so they would be going with us to the school to help keep order. I ended up having two other people in the class with me, and one was a Spanish speaker! In fact, Helena became indespensible to me, having all sorts of fun ideas, including a song about hello and good morning, that had helped teach her English when she had moved to the US from Brazil. In fact, she loved it so much and felt God calling her to teach so strongly, that she asked if we could teach it together for the rest of the month. We have been doing so ever since.
With the two of us, It went so well. We were able to get them excited by doing a name game where we give them an adjective, noun, or adverb in English and a motion that goes with it. So, for example, Josue was always jumping Josue, so everytime I say, "Levantate (stand up)," they know that I am about to ask what Josue is and we always get in our jumping stances and do one leap in the air before sitting back down. I have a blast and I know the kids do too. In the five classes we have been working with them, they have learned simple salutations, how to ask someone how they are and their name, their ABCs, the two songs that go with them, their colors, and the names of several things that are those colors (like a pineapple is yellow). That may not seem like a lot, but they knew absolutely nothing before we got there except hello.
They are a handful. Seriously, yesterday they were so hyper that I thought surely the teachers had given them a couple of candy bars before class. The teachers also disappeared for the rest of class, so they didn't have that influence to daunt them. However, they still learned, amidst our screams of "escuchan (listen all) and silencio," and when I walked into the fifth grade classroom they actually began chanting my name… I mean wow. I teared up of course. I am going to miss these kids so much when we leave. We have not had the opportunity to share the Gospel with them, but since the school is so close, several of them come and hang out with us for about a half hour after school, so at least we can show them love and build real relationships. My plan is that before we leave we are going to be able to share with them why we are doing what we are doing. Helena and I have a pretty good relationship with the principal, who also teaches our third grade class, so we are pretty sure he will have no objections to using Bible stories and whatnot.
We teach every Monday, Tuesday and Thursday. Those same afternoons we work on the property. I usually rake with a couple of other girls on the squad or help dig up ginormous rocks around the trees so that the ground can be tilled for planting. Others on my team use machetes and hack at the untamed area of the property, or work on turning a room inside into a classroom for some of the street boys that live here. The project I will be tackling next week is covering a pipeline with dirt that goes to the road. This may sound easy, but the entire ground is filled with rocks (and I mean HUGE rocks), so we have to find sections that are more dirt than rock and dig shallow holes til we find enough dirt to move. I have never been a huge fan of physical labor, but I love that we can see the difference everyday, which is very rewarding.
Next week is different f
or my team. Those of us not at the school work in the mornings and then we head out to a ministry site in the afternoons to do evangelism and odd jobs in another community. I am very excited as, since I teach at the school, I don't get to go out in the mornings with my team and am almost always on this property. Fridays and Saturdays we do leave for the afternoon though, usually working in a group home, or in different communities playing with the kids and evangelizing. Sundays we go to church, and Wednesdays are our day off. We are also still doing 24 hour prayer starting every Saturday night, which has been amazing. All in all, very busy month, and a little stressful for me at the beginning with teaching, but it has been wonderful. Thank you for your prayers!
(First pic – 5th grade class. Second pic – outside Fleur del Campo, a community we visited one Saturday. Third pic – Everyone at Fleur del Campo. Last pic – a group of us at a worship service in the middle of the city)
