By His grace alone, I am what I am and I am where I am.
"But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me." [1 Corinthians 15:10].
We arrived to our contact's home late on the 5th, just in time for a late dinner or early bedtime, which would have been appropriate as we woke up at 3:30 am for our travel day. We spent about 14 hours (including breaks) traveling from Antigua, Guatemala to Gracias, Honduras. If someone were to travel that same distance (~240 miles) in the US, then it probably only would have taken about 4 hours. haha! But I enjoyed it. Yeah, my butt was sore by the end of it, but it was continually a beautiful view out my window, I got to bond with my team and I had a delicious omelet and pancake for breakfast & an ice cream bar later. I was glad to get out of the van that night and venture out to my first meal in Honduras, which was Chinese food! Our contact, Pastor Victor, recommended it because he didn't want us to get sick from the street food. 🙂
I find Honduras to be absolutely beautiful! There are mountains and greenery every where I turn. I am a 15 minute walk, maybe a 9 minute run from an awesome river where Jesus washed my feet the other day. <3 I went on a prayer walk with my teammate, Katie, and as we sat on rocks by the river we marveled at His creation and prayed. We put our feet into the refreshing river and allowed Him to wash our feet, as I felt Him saying that He has cleansed me, made me new and wants to lavish His love and grace upon me. It was a sweet time with the Lord.
This month has been quite different ministry wise from last month. Our schedule is more flexible and this month's ministry is a lot more relational. So far we have gotten to do a variety of things, including going to Sunday school and playing with adorable kids [one gave me a bracelet, so now I have 2 again!]; we helped decorate the church before attending that evening [it was the church's 10th anniversary!]; we went to the prison and spontaneously sang Amazing Grace in the service that they held there; we have joined the Pastor in his 5 am prayer time a couple times; gone on prayer walks; participated in the Bible studies that they have around the city, as well as go to town and do initiative evangelism. Today we are going to the hospital to visit people and pray over people with a couple nurses that I met yesterday.
A quick story about our time in town: Two days ago, Katie & I went to town and met a guy named Kevin. I saw his baby in the window and began to wave and say "Hola!" as it began to rain harder. We crossed the street to get out of the rain some and Kevin came to his door with his son, which was open, but had a little gate in it. We chatted for a few minutes before he invited us in. We did a short survey with him that our pastor had created & then shared the Gospel with him. He was really kind to us, as he was super patient with us and our broken Spanish, plus he gave us some delicious homemade coconut popsicles.
Please pray for Kevin and his family that they would all come to know the Lord as their Savior. He said that he hadn't received Him as his Savior because he didn't have time. He seemed somewhat interested after we shared the Gospel with him, but said "luego" meaning later.
I LOVE this river…
Honduras might be my new favorite. :))))
