January 19, 2008

Another trip to the store today. Is this getting repetitive or what? We’re really not buying that much. It just takes several trips at this point in our lives here to get everything we need. We went to El Progresso today. Brad only ran two stoplights. They can be very confusing. They put them very close together and you’re either not sure which light is for and which is for another direction, or you’re concentrating so hard on the traffic around you that you relax after you see a light and don’t look for another one. Although the Hondurans don’t seem to have any issues with the lights. Fortunately no wrecks and no police around. It’s a 977 limpira (about $60) fine for driving and talking on your cellphone, eating, or drinking anything – not just alcoholic beverages. Of course you can be driving a car at night with no taillights and that’s not a problem.

We have MVP (short-term mission) team coming in today and part of our mission while out was to buy taco seasoning mix and sour cream. The store doesn’t carry either one. Guess here they make real taco seasoning from scratch and not the artificial stuff.

We are finding the nights, especially around supper time, can be the toughest time. It’s the time where concern about our kids and granddaughter are the strongest. We are learning the true power of prayer. We have begin spending time together with the Lord reminding ourselves of who He is, who this God we serve really is, the qualities and characteristics of this God we serve. We also spend a significant amount of time asking God to help us align our will and our desires with His. Asking for His help that we might see the world as He sees the world. That we might see our brief life here on this earth as He sees it. That we might view our life and our concerns/worries through the eyes of eternity and not through our eyes of the here and now. We can honestly say by the time we are through the knot in the stomach is greatly diminished, if not completely gone. But there is always tomorrow when we will pick our worries and concerns back up from the Lord’s feet and try to handle them ourselves.

Another part of our concerns/worries is just how to make happen what we feel God has sent us here to do. Just trying to do some of the routine stuff is tiring and time consuming. What is it going to be like when we really start trying to go into enemy territory? The whole process to get here has been a learning experience and God is most likely bringing us along with these, what seem like menial, tasks to prepare us for the bigger obstacles we will encounter in the future. To be honest, some days, it is just plain frightening and we wonder “Are we really qualified to do this?”

We remind ourselves all these feelings must drive us back to prayer, trusting God, being patient to move at His timing and leading, and not look at ourselves. Great teaching – WHEN YOU’RE TELLING SOMEBODY ELSE THIS STUFF. Not so simple when you’re in the middle of it and trying to apply it to your own lives.

We have said from the beginning this is a TEAM effort and we understand this much more being here than we did in the States. (we thought we understood it in the states). Your prayers, and your prayers, and your prayers, and your prayers are so greatly appreciated and much needed. Thanks for being so faithful. We know you are from the many emails we have received.

We discussed and debated whether we should write about these difficulties so early in our adventure here. We expected these to happen eventually but not almost from day one. All we had read and studied about missionaries in foreign fields led us to believe we could expect these to happen in several months. With them happening so soon thoughts creep into our minds “Are we failures already? Can we really do this? Are we strong enough? Etc”. We decided we had promised our Team that we would be honest – so honesty is honesty. We promised to share the highs and lows. How can a true Team function if secrets are kept? Knowing the type of people of which this Team is composed gives us confidence to openly share our struggles and in so doing hopefully making this Team closer, stronger, and more effective for our Great God and Savior.

To end on a little humor: (from Cindy)
SURE THEY LOOK CUTE ON THE COMMERCIAL………
Don’t buy into those cute little geckos on the commercials.
We have had our own little gecko critter living here since we moved in.
He lives in the cabinet above the stove in this little wooden dish that Anita left here.
When we cleaned out the kitchen cabinets I got rid of the wood dish thinking….well, you know what I was thinking!
Tonight when we came home from group time there was a gecko turd strategically placed on my pillow!!!! I assume this means war. For some reason I am not so anxious to go to bed tonight. How did he know which pillow was mine?
I went to google to see how you get rid of geckos. The site assured me that I could not so don’t even try. It then showed me how I could purchase a gecko of my very own. It did get me thinking of how I could supplement our income down here…HMMM!
Tonight I’m just thinking of how I can get the wood thing back.