July 14th
Today Mrs. Lane spent all morning preparing for the meeting with those who were interested in becoming teachers. I got to make the cupcakes for the meeting. Mrs. Lane was going to use these cupcakes as a object lesson. She put a lot of work into getting the paperwork ready for those who came (and even had one in English ready for me). Eight came for the meeting. After she went over the main points she showed them ways to make their lessons come alive, by using different voices for the characters, facial expressions, using the students to help, giving object lessons, ect.
When it came time for the cupcakes at the end she passed them out and as they were eating them she began to tell them that how the cupcakes called for a cup of milk, and that all we had was powdered milk. But, she said, Pastor Lane forgot to go and get us some more filtered water to mix with the powdered mik and we only had 3/4 of a cup left, so to make it work we got the remaining 1/4 of a cup of water from the toilet.
Those poor people started gagging! When she reassured them that she was joking, she cut her cupcake in half showing them all the dirt, leaves and rocks she had asked me to bake in the middle of one. Once again the people were horrified yelling "Cucaracha!!"
Then Mrs. Lane began to explain to them that the same way they were disgusted by the little bit of toilet water in the milk, God is disgusted when we let even a little bit of sin in our lives.
And just like the dirt in the cupcake couldn't be seen from the outside, we may look good on the outside but God knows what we really are like on the inside.
I don't think they will forget those object lessons very easily...hopefully they can trust my cooking after today! :)
July 15th
Sunday completely wore me out, but it was a incredible day!
We loaded up in the truck and left the house at 7am. Our farthest stop is 30 miles away, but it takes us 2 hours to get there. We hold church services in the mountain communities on Sunday mornings, and night services here in La Esperanza. The roads to the mountain communities are very bad, very narrow, and full of holes. It is a slow ride and very jostling, but the scenery was beautiful.
On our way to our first service we would stop and pick people up who wanted to come to church. Our first service was in a very hard to reach community. We meet each Sunday morning in the house of a very faithful family. Mrs. Lane would teach the children and Pastor Lane would preach to the adults. I was able to join in on the children's classes. The kids and I sat on the sacks piled against the wall, using them as chairs as Mrs. Lane taught the lesson. They were a small group, but a great group of kids.
Our next stop was Iglesia Bautista El Calvario (Calvary Baptist Church) in Ojo de Agua. We had approximately 65 in attendance. Mrs Lane had 34 children in her Sunday School class. They each had a memory verse from last week that they needed to memorize. To our surprise, a 3yr old little boy had his verse memorized and ready to say. After the service was over, the children joined the adults to watch 2 girls get baptized.
Our day got a little longer when one of the young girls (who got baptized) fell out of the back of the truck while we were driving back home and broke her wrist and a couple teeth. We drove her to the emergency room; her wrist was checked out and wrapped but we were told that a specialist would need to take a look at it first. Because of the way it broke, they were afraid that if not set correctly, it would hinder her as she grew. Pastor Lane will drive her and her family to the specialist at 5am Monday morning. Please keep the little girl, Kenia, in your prayers.
We made it home from the hospital with half an hour to get cleaned up and ready for the night service in La Esperanza. I was exhausted and very hungry. I had to make a very hard decision: nap for 15 minutes, or eat. The church service went well. The people are very sweet.
I have survived my first Sunday in Honduras! I am completely worn out but it was worth every minute!
