Sorry for not posting any blogs this past month in Honduras. I posted several in Nicaragua, and going into Honduras I was feeling a lot of pressure. I didn’t want writing blogs to turn into a chore so I decided I would take a break from writing them for a month. Not to leave you in the dark, but to make sure I am writing them for the right reasons. I want God to use my blog posts to impact the people who read them, and I know if I’m thinking too hard about what to write then it’s not a genuine post. The last thing I want to do is start writing posts that aren’t from my heart.
So on a less serious note, I did want to share with ya’ll about our lovely hilarious, scary, crazy moments from Honduras. As usual, there are too many to count!
- Sometimes you decide to get groceries in the capital and realize after you get there and have already bought mounds of food that there’s legitimately no room for all of you AND all the food in the vehicle. So obviously you get close and make a jigsaw puzzle. We had food shoved in crevices I didn’t even know existed. When there’s a will, there’s a way.
- When you have no electricity and you need to make dinner… It’s time to bust out the headlamps. And oil lamp reading sessions each night are a must. Keepin it classy 1800’s style.
- What happens when you finally see peanut butter after not having it for an entire month? You get to the bottom and you think you’ve eaten as much of it as possible… That’s when you pull out the hand saw and saw the container in half. There’s always more!!
- Soccer tennis tournaments. Bree and I are champions forevaaaa.
- Sometimes Bree and I like to play penguin soccer (the kind where you have to kick the ball and jump around like your feet are tied together). We’re so talented you’d probably pay to watch our skills.
- When you wake up in the morning and your favorite bra is scattered throughout the yard in shredded little pieces… The pups had themselves a nice lil midnight snack.
- Adventures in Raul’s pick up truck are always eventful. A couple of my favorites… We’re all sitting in the back waiting for him to come out of the house with his guitar when all the sudden the truck starts coasting. I hardcore parkour the side of the truck and jump in the front to stop the car. Ninja style. Other adventures include, but are not limited to, leaving the mountain house. All of us shoved into the back with mounds of luggage everywhere and thick layers of clothing. As we’re pulling out Raul cuts it too short and one wheel is not on the pavement and were about to fall off the driveway. Driving down the mountain after an afternoon of evangelism. Roads are steep and made of dirt, rocks are actually boulders, and traction is slim. Besides the transmission about dropping out the bottom, our brakes I’m sure weren’t happy with us. And there were some funky fumes coming from the back. To pass the scary Tokyo drifts around steep turns and skidding tires down the side of the mountain we sang beautiful Sound of Music medleys and other random songs. People were about to get our autographs our singing was that great.
- If you ever hear someone squirmin around at night searching for something it’s either me or Jarin. We like to pull our nose rings out in our sleep, wake up and proceed to search for them before the hole closes. We’re gettin good at this reopen hole, let hole close, reopen hole, let hole close.
- An evening at the house in the mountains could look like family style board games and snacks, Christmas movie night, or it could look like interpretive dancing led by the one and only brothers, Raul and Fernando. Possibly my favorite was salsa dancing and in close second their reenactment of Titanic. Raul being Jack and Fernando being Rose. It was spot on. They truly are men of many talents…
- When the septic system at your ministry site gets overwhelmed by the amount of people there, you randomly decide it’s time to build an outhouse. #worldraceprojects #portapottsforJesus
- Sometimes you have the incredible opportunity to watch 8 little girls who have never had anything given to them get fitted for brand new dresses, and shoes for Christmas, And sometimes you also get to take paparazzi shots of said little girls and watch them give you fittingly sassy poses. Truly a special moment to witness.
- Digging a hole for a septic system can sometimes look like dancing to Christmas music and singing at the top of your lungs. Can’t say it really felt like Christmas when I was digging a hole in 80 degree weather with shorts on in late December. For that reason the words to “Frosty the snow man” became “Frosty the dirt man.”
- Our legs have become delicious little smorgis boards at our ministry site. I’m pretty sure the bug spray we put on is nothing but a tasty seasoning for them.
- When you’re walking to the bathroom at night and realize that when your headlamp illuminates the grass and you see all the glowing sparkles in the ground they’re actually spiders eyes. I would’ve totally been fine if I hadn’t had that revelation.
- Solitaire… Every day all day. I would’ve never guessed I’d be addicted to a card game so much.
- When you last minute decide to hike to a waterfall in the mountains and Bree realizes she forgot her tennis shoes so she has to borrow a pair to hike in. Talk about BIG foot.
- Sometimes when you hike to a waterfall you get to chose if you want to walk 10 minutes in a closed in tunnel with no headlamps or take the main route. After deciding to take the main route and after finally getting there we have to walk through 2 1/2 feet of ice cold water, climb over rocks and then competitively see who can stand under the freezing waterfall the longest.
- After the waterfall we hiked to the peak, made a fire, and had hot chocolate, cookies, and tangerines. It gets dark early around here, so all the sudden we found ourselves hiking back down the mountain in the pitch black. Besides Nicole almost wiping out a gazillion times because of wet chacos (or so she said), Bree nearly tripping a gazillion times with her clodhoppers, and Raul and Fernando “pretending” the only 2 flashlights we have weren’t working, we eventfully but successfully make it down alive. And we didn’t become the theme of some scary movie. Whew…
- Sometimes on your hike down the mountain you walk past a house with their door open. And laying on the ground in that house is some dude in his boxers who hurriedly hides himself after realizing he’s been exposed to the sets of eyes peering in ??
- So it’s Nicole’s birthday and she decided she wants a little taste of home for lunch so we decided to go to Denny’s. Well something they do that’s definitely not done in the states is make you stand up in front of the entire restaurant and salsa dance with one of the employees while the rest of the employees sing you a birthday song complete with tambourines, drums… the whole shebang. I don’t know, Nicole, was your free Grand Slam meal worth the price of some Hispanic man grindin on you in front of the entire Denny’s restaurant in Honduras? ??
- When you go to the Jesus statue park on top of the hill and decide to volley the volleyball around. Well, of course things get a little out of hand and the ball nearly knocks some man off a ladder who’s holding a huge metal beam on his shoulder. So yes… We did get cussed out in espanol.
- When evangelizing in the mountains sometimes Raul likes to awkwardly ask if we can creepily take a look around their house, sometimes he takes oranges or bananas from their trees, and sometimes he just likes to touch anything and everything in site. Such a strange man sometimes.
- Christmas in Honduras looks like dress up in prom dresses. Parents and family come over Christmas Eve at 6pm. Begin eating finger foods which is anything and everything you can imagine, eat main course at 8:30pm, welcome in Christmas Day with a toast and sparkling wine, and play games to your little hearts desire into the wee hours of the night! Such a blessing to be here in Honduras for this Christmas. The Denton’s have gone above and beyond my wildest expectations for this month.
- Sometimes for Christmas your host gives each person on the team a small gift to open. After opening all the gifts Bree realizes she has one more gift to open. She slowly and strategically peels the wrapping paper from the box. She opens the lid of the box and there sitting ready to greet her is a friendly, terrifying, wide eyed… Puppet. Haha so perfect! Moral of the story, never tell your host what your biggest fear is 😉
- That awesome moment on Christmas morning when you have reliable wifi so you can FaceTime your family Christmas and feel as though you’re sitting in the same room as everyone. You watch them open gifts, search for dads infamous hidden present, and proceed to watch home videos from previous Christmases on the projector. Such a blessing!
- You know you’ve been on the race for too long when you find yourself looking at your 4 pairs of shoes and exclaiming “My goodness, I have too many shoes!!” If you knew me in the states, that statement would have NEVER come outta my mouth. O how the times have changed.
- One night Raul is listening to our team conversation and quietly chimes in with a keen observation… “You guys are always talking about bathrooms or food!” Well, Raul if you experienced what we’ve experienced with bathroom situations then you’d be excited when you find a good one too. And as for food, we talk about it all the time because we’re secretly fatties at heart. Eh let’s be honest… It’s no secret.
- Nicole’s statement after paying for dinner with team money. “Good thing about having wifi is I can put this in my spreadsheet RIGHT NOW!” O the life of a world race treasurer 😉
- The one night right before we left for debrief when Raul took us up to his house on top of the mountains. There were incredible 180 views of all of Honduras. We could even see into Nicaragua. With incredible views, a breathtaking sunset, typical jumping and gymnastic-like pyramid pictures, plus a warm bonfire we ended the month with a bang.
- Also on top of the mountain, Raul and Fernando thought it would be a good idea to light their last lantern. Of course things didn’t go too smoothly. Raul ripped the side of the wall so it wouldn’t fly. We didn’t have tape so the obvious alternative would be roasting a marshmallow and using hot marshmallow as glue and toilet paper to fix the hole. Then we didn’t have anything to light it with so we used the handy torch that was right near us. Which then caught the entire lantern on fire. Yeah, I’d say that was kinda a fail.
- So sometimes on the world race 2 teams get lice during ministry and 1 team brings lice to debrief. Well because we’re all sleeping next to each other on the floor and sharing beds, you can imagine they spread like wildfire. So yes, we did have squad wide lice checks ever day, and yes I did have it. Talk about the epitome of squad bonding. You can now call us iSquad, lice squad!
- World Race debriefs often look like jumping off balconies into pools, ringing in the new year by sprinting into the ocean at midnight, group Insanity workouts on the porch each morning with awesome squad mates, Brian and Anna bartending the pool party, and random dance sessions in the kitchen or balconies
- Sometimes when you go into town to buy groceries for your entire squad you end up each walking out with a mound of groceries on each arm. When you get on the bus to go back to the house sometimes the bus decides to not stop in front of your house, but instead drive for another mile in a half, so with said groceries you now have to walk a mile back to the house. I felt like I was in a marathon telling myself at the bridge I can take a rest, at the next curve I can take a rest, and when I finally saw the driveway to our house I was like full blown walk to the end… Not stopping for anything!
- So for this debrief there were some changes in teams. The day we found out who our new teams were we had to go chose a team name and make some memories! So team “Drop the Mic” decided we wanted to jump off the dock into the ocean. Brad’s idea. So, we do of course. Obviously, the logical question before jumping in is “how deep is it?” Brad said maybe 5 feet. Perfect, so we jump! Seems harmless… Except that the water was maybe 2 feet, all of us hit the ground, and Kaitlin strained her knee and sprained her ankle and went to the hospital. So now she’s going into Asia with a cast on her ankle and crutches. Moral of the story… Don’t tell team “Drop the Mic” to “make a memory” 😉 We go big. Less than an hour into our new team and we have one sent to the E.R. Hopefully this doesn’t become a theme.
Hope ya’ll enjoyed, and here’s the highlight video from our month in Honduras! 🙂 I promise you… this one is WORTH watching. So good!
