Saying goodbye to some friends (sort of)

I don't know if the closing of Yankee Stadium was on your radar screen the other day, but it caught our attention when we saw it in the newspaper because Mariano Rivera, the Panamanian pitcher for the Yankees, pitched the last out in the last game ever to be played there. Mariano Rivera is part of our family story. We don't know him personally, of course, though Hannah has his autograph that a friend got for her. Our family enjoyed watching the rising fame of Mariano-- a nice guy, an active believer with a rags to riches story. When the Yankees played, or, rather, when there was a chance that Mariano would play, we watched the World Series with all the fervor of real fans (even though the World Series was about all the baseball we ever watched). Mariano is still around, obviously, though Honduran papers rarely give news about anything except soccer, so it was fun to see his name in the paper the other day. Saying goodbye to Yankee Stadium is like saying goodbye to a friend (sort of). I thought it was worth mentioning.

We get the alumni magazine from Western Baptist (now Corban College) where John went to school. The issue we received recently had the pictures of four alumni that had been honored for something or other. (I think it was for living 50 years past the time they graduated.) One of the four, Paul Everett, passed away two weeks after he received his gold medal. As I read the obituary, the line "Pastor Paul and Wally" jumped out at me. Pastor Paul and Wally! Our pastor Paul and Wally? Wally was the vent figure used by Pastor Paul, the ventriloguist, on a much beloved cassette tape that my kids grew up with. We never knew Pastor Paul or Wally personally, though, in a way, "Wally" was practically a member of our family (sort of). He accompanied us on various car trips; provided laughs (at the same jokes) on many a rainy day. I'm glad "Pastor Paul" got a gold medal, though I am sure it is nothing compared to what he has received from the Lord. Saying goodbye to "Pastor Paul and Wally" is like saying goodbye to a friend. I thought it was worth mentioning.

Oops

Today (the last Sunday in September) is the Day of the Bible in Honduras. I don't know if such a day exists in other countries, but it is a recognized holiday here. Sometimes churches go all out and have parades, etc., but some years the celebration is quieter. This year, John was asked to speak at a little country church, and he was happy to do that. We arrived in time to admire the new building they are in the process of finishing and have some supper (beans, cheese, tortillas and eggs for those of you who might be interested in such things). We were asked to bring along some Bibles and hymn books to sell, and had set them out beside the pulpit. We were kind of early, so I was sitting in the front row, reading and being close to the books in case someone had a question. I got up once or twice to greet some people as they came in, but then I got involved in a conversation with the person sitting next to me and the service began. During the first song, I happened to glance behind me and oops, I realized that I was sitting on the wrong side of the church. I was the only woman on the left (or right, depending on how you look at it) side. A lot of country churches in Honduras still segregate the men and women. I have no problem respecting their tradition, no big deal to me, I just never think about it until it is too late to ask which side I'm supposed to sit on. You would think I'd have a 50/50 chance of being right. I could write about what I think of this particular tradition, but really I am more impressed with the fact even though sit on the "wrong" side of the church and who knows what else I do that isn't the way they do things and at the end of the service, they still hug me and bless me and hope I come back real soon.

An ordinary day?

Friday started out as an ordinary day. No classes to teach, no traveling. Catch up on laundry...that kind of thing. I was actually thinking about writing a blog ( Do you write a blog or in a blog?) about how nice it was to have an ordinary day. And then, the electricity started hiccuping. A power surge in one part of house while in another part of the house the lights dimmed. ( We do not live in a very big house, so it was a pretty weird feeling.) The microwave started and stopped half a dozen times, until I unplugged it. In fact, I unplugged everything I could think of to unplug and have been cautious about turning any two things on at once for the last couple of days. We emptied the refrigerator and freezer and put everything in two coolers with ice. I finished the load of laundry I was doing by hand, since the washer quit working completely and the having the refrigerator on make the rest of the house go dim. Not good. Just now I had to turn off the fan so that I could use the internet. So much for an ordinary day. Being a teacher by inclination, I tend to see object lessons in everything, and I guess what I saw in my crazy weekend was that they have been ordinary days. We are fine, our lives barely touched. The food is in coolers, but we have food. Ordinary days have lots of inconvenient things happen. Thank God for ordinary days. Days to give thanks for what we have and for the ways that life reminds us of our blessings.

The Flood

We rent space under a hardware store as an office, library, classroom. Among other things, it is where we have the once a month class for pastors. Today was the first day of classes for the second group of pastors (Wednesday/Thursday). We parked up by the hardware store and I noticed a stream of water flowing beside the car. I mentioned to John that I hoped that water didn't mean anything in particular. It did. We walked down the hill to the entrance to the office, opened the door and discovered water everywhere. Someone in the hardware store had forgotten to turn off a water valve the night before and water had overflowed a storage tank, leaked down the walls, and dripped off the beams into out office below, probably most of the night. We had learned, from a similar event earlier the importance of not having any bookshelves against walls, so most of the books were okay. A lot of things got wet but few things were ruined. If it had happened a week ago, when we had been out of town, things would have been sitting in water all that time, so we are counting our blessings. We are also thinking that this is not a safe place to have a lot of books, and are going to see if we can find any other place to move the office.
Basically, we mopped the floor, wiped off what we could, set things out to dry and went on with class. The men were having a ball learning to use a Vine's Dictionary and Strong's Concordance. Three ladies came this week. We studied the doctrine of Christ in the morning (though somehow we got sidetracked into talking about marriage relationships), baked a cake in the afternoon and decorated it as we had in the first group. This evening we shared the cake and talked as couples about issues affecting marriages in their churches. Tomorrow we will finish up, pray together, and they will leave about 10am to get home. Then John and I will take a better look at what to do about the flood.

My students

The last full week of every month, John meets with two groups of pastors. One group on Monday and Tuesday and the other group on Wednesday and Thursday. They study together, share burdens, laugh (a lot) and encourage one another in ministry. Once every three months, their wives are invited to join them. It is really hard for the ladies to come--kids, work, money- but we try. We are studying through a book, one chapter every three months, pray together, study some other topic (hopefully of interest and/or usefulness). After lunch, it is usually really hot and hard to concentrate. I started doing a craft of some kind, not because I am good at them, because I am not, but because it interests them, is useful and is a good way to use that hard-to-concentrate time slot. This week, only two ladies came for the first session. Instead of a craft, we came to the house, baked a cake and played around with cake decorating. We laughed a lot.This is Emerita. She has four children, the oldest is studying nursing. She has never had the opportunity to learn to read, but her husband studies her lesson with her and she always comes with her assignment done and lots of wisdom that she shares with us. I also have a picture of Rosie and her son Jafet, but my internet connection is a bit iffy and I will maybe try to send you her picture another time. Tomorrow we expect the second group of pastors, we will see if any of the wives come.

5 cents

This afternoon John and I were walking toward the church where we were going to have supper with the students we had been with all day. A little boy ran up to John and asked him for a lempira, which is worth about 5 cents. It is not at all unusual for little boys to come up to us and ask for a lempira, but this little boy didn't seem like he was used to asking strangers for money. We looked up, and on the other side of the street was the little boy's mother, a little sister and baby brother. "I have to take the baby to the hospital," she said, "the bus costs 2 lempiras, and I only have 1. Could you help me?" It isn't all that far to the hospital, but would certainly have seemed like it to me if I had had two little kids and a sick baby to take with me.
Like I said, a lot of little boys ask us for a lempira. I should say demand a lempira. A lot of people tell us they have a mother, sister, brother, etc. in the hospital. We have one little lady, whose breath often has a mysteriously alcoholic scent to it, who has been on her way to or from the hospital every time we have met her for the last year and a half. In fact, we had just talked with her this morning. (In her case, we did give her a cup of coffee and a cookie). It is easy to get sort of hard and indifferent. It is easy to think of all kinds of reasons why it is not a good idea to give people money. Even 5 cents. I didn't even have a pocket to have a lempira hidden away, but John opened his wallet and gave the boy 10 lempiras. The mother showered thanks on us for half a block as we parted ways. Real need? Pretend need? No way to know for sure without following her to the hospital. I do know that it is worth a lot more than 5 cents to keep a compassionate heart.

Honduras is a very pretty country

If you love mountains and clouds, then you would love Honduras. When we leave home, I always feel like we are driving into a postcard.
I did not grow up with mountains, so I also love rolling hills and fields of grain. John loves the desert, and I have to admit that a desert sunset is really beautiful, too.

The bird in the window

I have heard stories about birds flying into windows, but I had never seen anything quite like the two birds I observed recently. I was walking by a newly finished, unoccupied house and saw them sitting side by side on the protective bars in front of a large window. One of the them was pecking angrily at his (or her) reflection in the glass as the other one watched intently. What in the world were they doing? They flew away as I walked by. About an hour later I walked by again and there they were, still at it. One of them banging his beak (that had to hurt) against the glass and the other observing. I think I have spent a lot of emotional energy on things just about that profitable, hurting myself in the process, and have watched others do the same thing.

First try

I remember my first years of living very, very far from family, and how much I would have enjoyed the opportunity to do something like this. Internet wasn't around, we didn´t even have a phone for a several years and mail seemed to take forever. How can I not give this a try? So, here I go, my first try at blogging. I don't even understand all of the options on the configuration and design pages. I just tried to upload a picture, for example, which didn't work. Little by little I hope to improve, this is just my first try.
Nancy