Last night we were woken up to our whole house shaking... I looked at Meredith and said- "Dude is that wind?" To which she replied- "But our house is made out of concrete!" ;)
Turns out it was an earthquake- 7.1 on the Richter scale, and the country of Honduras was placed on a Tsunami alert. We were told to leave our beds and we hung out outside in the street for a while before we were allowed to go back to bed. I got some pretty good video footage. ;)
Anywho. God is big and powerful. And its the morning with no real nasty affects here. And to any of you who actually heard about it in the US, Im A-OK. Love you!
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
How to pray for Honduras
I have a friend doing a presentation on Honduras and he asked me if there were any special challenges for prayer for the country and this is what I wrote to him... I thought it would be good to post so people could know how to pray for the country. This weekend I got to spend with some missionaries so it opened my eyes a bit and gave me some more understanding:
I think some special challenges for prayer is for the churches that have started to know truth and be free from deception. None of the pastors have any training so its very easy to be misled. I think some of them have seen televangelists also and think that that is how they are supposed to act and lead and imitate that... The missionaries have a big challenge trying to be a light in much darkness, and then just the typical barriers. Also the ignorance! Many people cannot READ at all so Bible study and knowledge is very limited... much less any kind of in depth Bible study... they will never have access to a commentary or anything in Greek would be so unheard of. Those are all huge privileges we have when we study our Bibles. Also there is much nominal Christianity AND catholicism and very few true believers. There is a sense of a Sodom and Gamorrah lifestyle- like the glamorized MTV spring break type of thing... A culture where girls getting pregnant around 12-15 is normal and marriage is RARE.
An additional thing to note is that the few Hondurans that have been discipled want to leave and be missionaries elsewhere! The missionaries train them up and then they want to go to another country, when they could have so much more influence with their own people!
Its so hot here its not even funny... I spend all day every day dripping sweat. Yesterday it was 111 degrees! MUY DISGUSTIVO. On that note- over and out!
I think some special challenges for prayer is for the churches that have started to know truth and be free from deception. None of the pastors have any training so its very easy to be misled. I think some of them have seen televangelists also and think that that is how they are supposed to act and lead and imitate that... The missionaries have a big challenge trying to be a light in much darkness, and then just the typical barriers. Also the ignorance! Many people cannot READ at all so Bible study and knowledge is very limited... much less any kind of in depth Bible study... they will never have access to a commentary or anything in Greek would be so unheard of. Those are all huge privileges we have when we study our Bibles. Also there is much nominal Christianity AND catholicism and very few true believers. There is a sense of a Sodom and Gamorrah lifestyle- like the glamorized MTV spring break type of thing... A culture where girls getting pregnant around 12-15 is normal and marriage is RARE.
An additional thing to note is that the few Hondurans that have been discipled want to leave and be missionaries elsewhere! The missionaries train them up and then they want to go to another country, when they could have so much more influence with their own people!
Its so hot here its not even funny... I spend all day every day dripping sweat. Yesterday it was 111 degrees! MUY DISGUSTIVO. On that note- over and out!
Monday, May 25, 2009
The pursuit of enjoyment
If you asked twenty good men today what they thought the highest of the virtues, nineteen of them would reply, Unselfishness. But if you had asked almost any of the great Christians of old, he would have replied, Love. You see what has happened? A negative term has been substituted for a positive, and this is of more than philological importance. The negative idea of Unselfishness carries with it the suggestion not primarily of securing good things for others, but of going without them ourselves, as if our abstinence and not their happiness was the important point. I do not think this is the Christian virtue of Love.
The New Testament has lots to say about self-denial, but not about self-denial as an end in itself. We are told to deny ourselves and to take up our crosses in order that we may follow Christ; and nearly every description of what we shall ultimately find if we do so contains an appeal to desire. If there lurks in most modern minds the notion that to desire our own good and earnestly to hope for the enjoyment of it is a bad thing, I submit that this notion has crept in from Kant and the Stoics and is no part of the Christian faith. Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased."
-CS Lewis, the weight of glory
The New Testament has lots to say about self-denial, but not about self-denial as an end in itself. We are told to deny ourselves and to take up our crosses in order that we may follow Christ; and nearly every description of what we shall ultimately find if we do so contains an appeal to desire. If there lurks in most modern minds the notion that to desire our own good and earnestly to hope for the enjoyment of it is a bad thing, I submit that this notion has crept in from Kant and the Stoics and is no part of the Christian faith. Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased."
-CS Lewis, the weight of glory
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
I have some of the wisest friends a girl can have...
Check out this awesome quote from an email I got from a dear dear friend:
"Sweet friend of mine. When I find myself in positions in which I have placed myself and then find myself truly not enjoying it...I ask myself these same questions that arose from your e-mail. Just as quickly as I find myself noting the patterns of SELF in the past sentence do I realize that most of my efforts and decisions were probably not prayerfully considered or thoughtfully made. As it turns out- I did the thing/move/adventure/conversation/all of it... by my SELF and ultimately am now miserable by myself and all efforts to appease the fiasco are not satisfactory because of SELF."
"Sweet friend of mine. When I find myself in positions in which I have placed myself and then find myself truly not enjoying it...I ask myself these same questions that arose from your e-mail. Just as quickly as I find myself noting the patterns of SELF in the past sentence do I realize that most of my efforts and decisions were probably not prayerfully considered or thoughtfully made. As it turns out- I did the thing/move/adventure/conversation/all of it... by my SELF and ultimately am now miserable by myself and all efforts to appease the fiasco are not satisfactory because of SELF."
Day #11 Smatterings
This morning I got to go to the dump school and help teach kids some english words and play with them... it was so funny to see myself in them! It is so hard to articulate other languages. Think about the word 'grapes'- its pretty hard to say! The kids were like GraPPSSSSS. And one little girl told me her name at least ten times. I kept repeating it and she kept laughing and saying no! and repeating it. I could have sworn I was saying exactly what she was.
One little child's name was Adonai... I got excited and tried to explain that 'Adonai is tambien un nombre para Dios' Im not sure if he understood me or not... or if I somehow made him think that he was a god or something. I hope not! O Espanol...
And speaking of the mixups... Last night on the way home from classes- we saw a sign that said Pinateria. Pina is spanish for pineapple so I was excited... thiking this was going to be some sort of Cafeteria of pineapples. ;) I convinced mi amigas to go check it out with me and alas the store was filled with children's toys. Ay. Pinateria was a PINATA eria... The place filled with pinatas. ;)
Hasta Luego.
One little child's name was Adonai... I got excited and tried to explain that 'Adonai is tambien un nombre para Dios' Im not sure if he understood me or not... or if I somehow made him think that he was a god or something. I hope not! O Espanol...
And speaking of the mixups... Last night on the way home from classes- we saw a sign that said Pinateria. Pina is spanish for pineapple so I was excited... thiking this was going to be some sort of Cafeteria of pineapples. ;) I convinced mi amigas to go check it out with me and alas the store was filled with children's toys. Ay. Pinateria was a PINATA eria... The place filled with pinatas. ;)
Hasta Luego.
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
He knows my weaknesses
I am encouraged by HUMANITY....
Im encouraged by seeing that others are the same as me and struggle as I do. People who seem to have it all together do not appeal to me- I love real, authentic faith.
When my pastor says that 'his spiritual life looks like the stock market over the last few months- more downs than ups'...
When Jim Elliot's journals speak of his desire for physical intimacy.
When Elizabeth Elliot speaks of her studying Quichua (one of the conditions Jim placed on her to achieve prior to marriage) compared to her aquisition of the Spanish language for Bible translation, she says- "For while spanish held out to me eternal rewards, the learning of Quichua held a clearcut temporal one by which I am afraid I was more powerfully motivated."
AYE Humanity... That is why the study of psychology, anthropology, even the reading of biographies are so fascinating... we long for people as examples and role models, that are somehow superhuman but at the same time are just like us...
So glad I have that description in a Savior! "For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who was tempted in every way, just as we are- yet without sin." (Heb 4:15)
No need to wonder why gossip magazines are so popular- "Stars- they're just like you!"
Im so glad my heavenly Father knows my flesh and loves me anyways.
Psalm 78- "Yet he was merciful; he forgave their iniquities and did not destroy them. Time after time he restrained his anger and did not stir up his full wrath. He remembered that they were but FLESH."
And speaking of flesh- yesterday all three of us estudiantes de espanol hit a serious wall. Como se dice- CRANKY. Mi amiga is going to blog about that so I will just leave the articulation up to her.
And the spanglish humor for day #10- I told mi profesora that I had a "Onda" because in Honduras everything all H's are silent... ;) She laughed at me for at least 3 minutes. Apparently Honda is still Honda. ;)
WOW- I feel like my writing was already bad before I came down here but it seems to have gotten worse. I now speak broken English... My sentences have to communicate a point and fast- only subjects and verbs. ;)
Im encouraged by seeing that others are the same as me and struggle as I do. People who seem to have it all together do not appeal to me- I love real, authentic faith.
When my pastor says that 'his spiritual life looks like the stock market over the last few months- more downs than ups'...
When Jim Elliot's journals speak of his desire for physical intimacy.
When Elizabeth Elliot speaks of her studying Quichua (one of the conditions Jim placed on her to achieve prior to marriage) compared to her aquisition of the Spanish language for Bible translation, she says- "For while spanish held out to me eternal rewards, the learning of Quichua held a clearcut temporal one by which I am afraid I was more powerfully motivated."
AYE Humanity... That is why the study of psychology, anthropology, even the reading of biographies are so fascinating... we long for people as examples and role models, that are somehow superhuman but at the same time are just like us...
So glad I have that description in a Savior! "For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who was tempted in every way, just as we are- yet without sin." (Heb 4:15)
No need to wonder why gossip magazines are so popular- "Stars- they're just like you!"
Im so glad my heavenly Father knows my flesh and loves me anyways.
Psalm 78- "Yet he was merciful; he forgave their iniquities and did not destroy them. Time after time he restrained his anger and did not stir up his full wrath. He remembered that they were but FLESH."
And speaking of flesh- yesterday all three of us estudiantes de espanol hit a serious wall. Como se dice- CRANKY. Mi amiga is going to blog about that so I will just leave the articulation up to her.
And the spanglish humor for day #10- I told mi profesora that I had a "Onda" because in Honduras everything all H's are silent... ;) She laughed at me for at least 3 minutes. Apparently Honda is still Honda. ;)
WOW- I feel like my writing was already bad before I came down here but it seems to have gotten worse. I now speak broken English... My sentences have to communicate a point and fast- only subjects and verbs. ;)
Thursday, May 14, 2009
Hola De Honduras
Day Cinco.
I have Spanglish down to a serious art form now. I know just enough to be dangerous. We are starting to make a list of the things I say to people because its pretty entertaining.
Today I asked the pharmacist for rotten eggs.
I wanted to buy a little girl a treat at the store and I said- "Tu quieres? Yo consado." Meaning- You want Im tired.
The best to date was when I told mi profesora de espanol that I danced with HER boyfriend instead of saying I danced with my boyfriend. ;)
Today we had class a la playa (beach) and it was gorgeous. Im very thankful for my sweet professor. Her name is Elvia and she doesn't speak one word of English. I really feel like Im a child learning a language for the first time, or a missionary learning a language that hasn't been learned before. We walked around the beach and she would point to sand and say- arena... or a bug and say insepto... Im doing a lot of non verbal communication and using pictures. ;) I have been praying a ton for the missionaries I know, especially Sarah trying to learn Japanese!
Wanted to write out some things that Im thankful for- there are so MANY! In addition to the many attributes of God, my salvation and redemption, grace, a BIBLE, and all the other truly important things, there are many unimportant things as well:
1- My name! ;) Vanesa is the perfect name for a spanish speaking country. I fit right in. Thanks mom.
2- My hair. Its big. My health, my legs, $, growth, and a FAN in my room! I praise God for that fan.
3- Three meals of beans, rice and tortillas a day provided, as well as as much bottled water as I can drink- provided gratis. AND today because its Meredith's 25th birthday- we had chocolate cake for breakfast! It was delicious. I do feel the need for an orange though- its a running joke that I talk about developing rickets. Thank God for vitamin C ;) And just for friends here and great laughs.
4- Internet! We have a computer IN our home! The internet works about every other day but its still such a blessing not to have to pay for it or go to an internet cafe.
5- A huge room and a wonderful roommate to share it with. AND even though our bathroom is infested with cockroaches, the shower is cold, and we have to put our hand in the toilet tank everytime we want to flush- I am EXTREMELY thankful that we have our OWN bathroom IN our room! That is huge... and there is a little shelf in there so we can put our stuff on it. Its really a great privilege
6- Tomorrow being laundry day
God is so good. And His word says Godliness with contentment is great gain. I love Phil 4 that Paul says I KNOW what its like to be in need and have plenty, whether well fed or hungry- I can do all through Christ who gives me strength. Im glad I can add that I KNOW what its like to be in these additional situations
whether hot or cold
whether clean or dirty
whether straight or curly
whether with Jordan or without him ;)
whether in the USA or Honduras...
I can do all through Jesus Christ. And its truly not even hard (see the many thanksgivings/blessings above...)
OK off to shower before our nightly salsa dancing lesson. Right now Im a wonderful mix of sunscreen, bug spray, dust, and sand.
Adios!
I have Spanglish down to a serious art form now. I know just enough to be dangerous. We are starting to make a list of the things I say to people because its pretty entertaining.
Today I asked the pharmacist for rotten eggs.
I wanted to buy a little girl a treat at the store and I said- "Tu quieres? Yo consado." Meaning- You want Im tired.
The best to date was when I told mi profesora de espanol that I danced with HER boyfriend instead of saying I danced with my boyfriend. ;)
Today we had class a la playa (beach) and it was gorgeous. Im very thankful for my sweet professor. Her name is Elvia and she doesn't speak one word of English. I really feel like Im a child learning a language for the first time, or a missionary learning a language that hasn't been learned before. We walked around the beach and she would point to sand and say- arena... or a bug and say insepto... Im doing a lot of non verbal communication and using pictures. ;) I have been praying a ton for the missionaries I know, especially Sarah trying to learn Japanese!
Wanted to write out some things that Im thankful for- there are so MANY! In addition to the many attributes of God, my salvation and redemption, grace, a BIBLE, and all the other truly important things, there are many unimportant things as well:
1- My name! ;) Vanesa is the perfect name for a spanish speaking country. I fit right in. Thanks mom.
2- My hair. Its big. My health, my legs, $, growth, and a FAN in my room! I praise God for that fan.
3- Three meals of beans, rice and tortillas a day provided, as well as as much bottled water as I can drink- provided gratis. AND today because its Meredith's 25th birthday- we had chocolate cake for breakfast! It was delicious. I do feel the need for an orange though- its a running joke that I talk about developing rickets. Thank God for vitamin C ;) And just for friends here and great laughs.
4- Internet! We have a computer IN our home! The internet works about every other day but its still such a blessing not to have to pay for it or go to an internet cafe.
5- A huge room and a wonderful roommate to share it with. AND even though our bathroom is infested with cockroaches, the shower is cold, and we have to put our hand in the toilet tank everytime we want to flush- I am EXTREMELY thankful that we have our OWN bathroom IN our room! That is huge... and there is a little shelf in there so we can put our stuff on it. Its really a great privilege
6- Tomorrow being laundry day
God is so good. And His word says Godliness with contentment is great gain. I love Phil 4 that Paul says I KNOW what its like to be in need and have plenty, whether well fed or hungry- I can do all through Christ who gives me strength. Im glad I can add that I KNOW what its like to be in these additional situations
whether hot or cold
whether clean or dirty
whether straight or curly
whether with Jordan or without him ;)
whether in the USA or Honduras...
I can do all through Jesus Christ. And its truly not even hard (see the many thanksgivings/blessings above...)
OK off to shower before our nightly salsa dancing lesson. Right now Im a wonderful mix of sunscreen, bug spray, dust, and sand.
Adios!
Thursday, May 7, 2009
I have the sweetest boyfriend
I am officially done my 2nd year of PT school! My sweet boyfriend took me out to the Cheesecake factory last night to celebrate... ;)
It was great but I was just was thinking how much I value his attention... and how that translates to our relationship with the Lord. If Jordan JUST spent money on me but never gave me his time... or never gave me his attention, if he never talked about me to other people or said kind words to/about me... I wouldn't be satisfied no matter how much money he spent on me. Or if he spent time with me every day but never spent a dime- I would wonder about his affection.
If I spent all my time serving at the church but never gave the Lord my tithe- what am I valuing more than Him... Or if I gave all my money, but never spent time with Him- I do not love Him! If I didn't do what he asks of me in His Word... it would be like Peter. "If you love me- feed my lambs." LOVE TRULY IS ALL ENCOMPASSING. Lord let me not withold anything from you that is rightfully due you! My time, my money, my affection, my obedience, your praise!
Nothing profound. Just on the mind... Short and sweet. :) Heading to Honduras in 2 days! ;)
It was great but I was just was thinking how much I value his attention... and how that translates to our relationship with the Lord. If Jordan JUST spent money on me but never gave me his time... or never gave me his attention, if he never talked about me to other people or said kind words to/about me... I wouldn't be satisfied no matter how much money he spent on me. Or if he spent time with me every day but never spent a dime- I would wonder about his affection.
If I spent all my time serving at the church but never gave the Lord my tithe- what am I valuing more than Him... Or if I gave all my money, but never spent time with Him- I do not love Him! If I didn't do what he asks of me in His Word... it would be like Peter. "If you love me- feed my lambs." LOVE TRULY IS ALL ENCOMPASSING. Lord let me not withold anything from you that is rightfully due you! My time, my money, my affection, my obedience, your praise!
Nothing profound. Just on the mind... Short and sweet. :) Heading to Honduras in 2 days! ;)
Monday, May 4, 2009
From John Owen
"Because He himself suffered when tempted, he is able to forever help those who are being tempted." (Heb 2:18)
Did the suffering of Christ add to his ability to help? Is that why he has the power to help us- because He also was tempted? NO! The ability mentioned here is his readiness to come to our aid against all opposition. He is able to break through all reasons to the contrary and relieve poor tempted souls. Having suffered Himself, He is MOVED to help."
"For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sumpathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in a time of need." (4:16)
Did the suffering of Christ add to his ability to help? Is that why he has the power to help us- because He also was tempted? NO! The ability mentioned here is his readiness to come to our aid against all opposition. He is able to break through all reasons to the contrary and relieve poor tempted souls. Having suffered Himself, He is MOVED to help."
"For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sumpathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in a time of need." (4:16)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
