Honduras........ yes, it's gonna be a series

HEY People!!! :)

So obviously some of you know I'm in Honduras right now, on a medical mission by the Church of God 7th Day. It's an amazing campaign that takes doctors, dentists, nurses, and lots of support staff from churches in the US, México, Nicaragua, to mission sites every year. Last year was Nicaragua, year before that it was Guatemala, and then the ones before that are too ancient for my knowledge. But the point is, it's an amazing work of organization that hopes to fulfill our God-given purpose using the skills He gave us. Remember, what we have is not ours to begin with! Isn't that a cool concept? So share it when you can!

So here we go....... STORY TIME!!!!!! hahahaha you're all mine for 5 minutes........ or however long it takes for you to read

So on the way over here, the first flight (PHX to Atlanta) was in a tiny airplane that didn't even have a first class. So I'm sitting next to a guy that was a bit heftier (is that a word?) than me and goodness..... not comfortable. It's like...... let's see......... Battle of the Bulge(s)
but whatever i got over it, watched Slumdog Millionaire and made it to Atlanta in one piece, which was great. 1st leg of the trip down. awesome! right?

Yeah except for the no sleeping part. Thursday night into Friday, I had forgotten to make a presentation for my Ritual, Symbol, and Myth class. So I didn't go to sleep until around 4 am. Got up at 10 on Friday. Spent the day writing an essay, then prepping some stuff, then class then go to the airport, then flight blah blah blah, so by the time I went to sleep on Friday night at the hotel I had been up for 25 hours. So POINT OF THE STORY.... I was tired and traveling just kind of drains you

But anyways....

Atlanta to Tegucigalpa flight was pretty good. I got the emergency seat because it has extra leg room, but then I kind of regretted it because they informed us that the emergency doors on those airplanes had been malfunctioning to where when people would open them they would fly off/eject so fast that the people would go flying with it into a fiery pit, or get their arms ripped off. hahaha. I was like "What? They're seriously saying that?" But it's ok, I know God works his stuff and keeps me.

OH! Freaky thing, I've never seen an airplane FROM an airplane. But I did and it was kind of scary because you realize just how fast you're going. When you are 39,938 feet in the air, and you're looking down it looks like you're moving slow, or at least not that fast. Ok so there was an airplane that i saw in the distance, like FAR out in the horizon, within 3 seconds (no exaggeration) it was past us. It seemed like a video game it just ZOOMED past us and very close, I'm not sure if it was supposed to be that close but it was. It was crazy to realize how fast we're going, it was averaging 600 miles/hour (sorry alex I think the plane beats the Evo).

Friday night, we had dinner at a local church, the one they call "La Central," because it's centrally located haha. I wish I could upload pictures to accompany all of this but they're so big that it would take forever. As soon as i figure something out for resizing them and posting them I'll get them in here. But yeah, the dinner was great! I actually don't remember what it was we ate, but I remeber it was good, and that it involved beans, and platanos machos!!!! haha love those things, and combined, YUMMY i know it sounds weird but it's excellent

Flash forward to Saturday morning (which is today in the morning). I didn't get up on time, so I missed breakfast. Oh well, not too bad, I heard they had omlettes or something like that. I can get those at home haha. After breakfast, half of us were sent to one church and half to another. I was sent to one they call "Las Brisas." SOOO NOT breezy AT ALL. Hot and moist. But we survived. First thing I noticed walking in was the guys on one side and the women on the other. Retarded, but that's another subject. They still have those old guatemalan style hymnals and sing out of them of course, so the first hour that I was there. it was constant flashbacks of church when I was younger. The sermon was great though! A pastor/doctor from Acapulco, whose name I still don't know talked about RECOGNIZING when God calls us and that once we recognize we must have an attitude change and great stuff about taking leadership and understanding when God is calling us. He linked it to the story of Elijah throwing his mantle on Elishah and Elishah taking charge (ask me if you want to know more about how he linked it, great stuff).

The church has around 30 youth peoples. They're a cool bunch, really open and inviting, and I found that they have much of the same struggles, issues, hopes, dreams, and musical tastes that I do/we do in the US. I had a great time getting to know them, and their weird words. Haha, i.e. cool = MACIZO hahaha in reference to a cool idea "esta macizo." wow lol, but it's cool how they have their own things. Our bus took forever to pick us up from that church to go eat, but it was ok because it gave me time to get to know the people. OH! One of the kids, his name is.......... JOSUE CRUZ.

So we went to eat at another church. The ladies from the church made us tostadas with chicken, beans, rice, salad, and an amazing fruit salad. Then from there the two groups switched churches. The second church I went to was about an hour away, up the mountains and I forgot the name of the town but it was a tiny little thing. A cow showed up to church, it was so spiritual.

On the way up to the church we were dehydrating because there was no water around. Well there was, but if we drank it we would have to be missionarized because we'd be stuck on the porcelain for the next two days, further dehydrating ourselves. So we stopped at one convenience store and for some reason, they were completely out of water. We thought 1. Weird 2. Ok, let's look for another one. Took us about 10 minutes to find another one, ten more minutes of torture, but when we stopped we noticed a truck stopped behind us and a guy jumped out of the back of the truck and started walking toward our bus. So one of the guys in the bus does the mexican flip-of-the-head signifying "hey, how's it going," and the guy approaches the bus. He asks where we were going and we tell him where. He then asked for a ride and he came on board, after which he asks what church we're from. We answered, and he said "My wife goes to that church." So someone invited him but he wasn't too interested. Eventually we dropped him off where he needed and we went on to church. The pastor who gave the message was Daniel... don't know last name, he's from Texas, a youth pastor, that's all I know. So he's giving a sermon on how we run away from things, good and bad. Joseph ran away from temptation = good. Jonah ran away from God = no. I forgot how it was exactly that our hitchiker became part of his sermon, but he was mentioning him when all of a sudden we notice he was sitting in the front row, cleaned up, Bible in hand, listening.

It's just crazy, how God sets up the pieces of the puzzle and can use us to put them together to make an amazing image of his grace. It's no coincidence that there was absolutely no water at the first place, and that we stopped where that guy's first ride stopped. God had a purpose for everyone involved today, he was moving every part of us in even the smallest ways to do one of the greatest things ever: bring someone closer to HIM! wow. haha. chills. got them? yeah, it's sweet.

Sleepy time now
love you all
-Jake