Well I've been living in Honduras for nearly two months now. Sutton is still teaching 5th grade at TCA (Tsebaoth Christian Academy). TCA is the English speaking private school run by the church. They currently have classes for toddlers up to 6th grade. Sutton has also been doing some counseling for both students and teachers which he absolutely loves. Some of the teachers have started calling him Pastor :D I have also been doing some work at the school. I volunteered to help teach at the school during the month of November. They had me teach a couple lessons in every class so all the kids would have the benefit of hearing lessons from a native English speaker. I enjoyed working with the kids and will be volunteering some more time there. However, I don't feel called to teach full-time as I will still be going on solar missions and will need to be out of town for weeks at a time.
The presidential elections took place last week. Many people, ourselves included, were fasting and praying over these elections as tensions across the country seemed to be coming to a boil. God heard our prayers and the result was a fairly uneventful election. There were plenty of threats and declarations made by one party or another. But none of the international observers supported the cries of fraud over the official vote count. So, even though there were a few demonstrations from supporters of the loosing parties, none became overly violent or destructive. Praise God! ... Elections in Honduras are very different from the States.
We also had Thanksgiving last week and God did an awesome thing. Honduras doesn't really celebrate Thanksgiving, though the school did somewhat since they are focused on giving a US education. But the celebrations we had with the school didn't include any of the traditional Thanksgiving food that we gringos are used to. So I thought about making a couple of pies to celebrate, since making an entire Thanksgiving meal would have been WAY too expensive. But then God did a God thing. At the school celebration, which was on Wednesday, we met another missionary from the States. She asked what we were doing to celebrate Thanksgiving and when I told her she invited us to a Thanksgiving gathering of missionaries from the States.
The next day she took us to a pastors home and we got to have all the traditional Thanksgiving foods while meeting a dozen other missionaries. We talked about the challenges of being missionaries here and some of the dozens of details we must deal with, like getting our residency, managing the US tax laws, and even having children here (several of the missionary couples have children). The pastor runs an association for Honduras missionaries which can process Honduran residencies and help in so many ways. He also leads a church that has an English speaking service on Sunday evenings. This is great for us because it gives us a chance to worship God and hear a message in English without giving up going to the services at Tsebaoth. We love Tsebaoth and it is our home church, but constantly having to translate is tiring and we sometimes miss the deeper message. This of course will change as we grow in our ability to speak Spanish.
So in summary, we've had a very blessed first couple of months. There have been challenges (there always are), but God's hand has been evident throughout our time here. We look forward to what next year will bring with much anticipation :D
The presidential elections took place last week. Many people, ourselves included, were fasting and praying over these elections as tensions across the country seemed to be coming to a boil. God heard our prayers and the result was a fairly uneventful election. There were plenty of threats and declarations made by one party or another. But none of the international observers supported the cries of fraud over the official vote count. So, even though there were a few demonstrations from supporters of the loosing parties, none became overly violent or destructive. Praise God! ... Elections in Honduras are very different from the States.
We also had Thanksgiving last week and God did an awesome thing. Honduras doesn't really celebrate Thanksgiving, though the school did somewhat since they are focused on giving a US education. But the celebrations we had with the school didn't include any of the traditional Thanksgiving food that we gringos are used to. So I thought about making a couple of pies to celebrate, since making an entire Thanksgiving meal would have been WAY too expensive. But then God did a God thing. At the school celebration, which was on Wednesday, we met another missionary from the States. She asked what we were doing to celebrate Thanksgiving and when I told her she invited us to a Thanksgiving gathering of missionaries from the States.
The next day she took us to a pastors home and we got to have all the traditional Thanksgiving foods while meeting a dozen other missionaries. We talked about the challenges of being missionaries here and some of the dozens of details we must deal with, like getting our residency, managing the US tax laws, and even having children here (several of the missionary couples have children). The pastor runs an association for Honduras missionaries which can process Honduran residencies and help in so many ways. He also leads a church that has an English speaking service on Sunday evenings. This is great for us because it gives us a chance to worship God and hear a message in English without giving up going to the services at Tsebaoth. We love Tsebaoth and it is our home church, but constantly having to translate is tiring and we sometimes miss the deeper message. This of course will change as we grow in our ability to speak Spanish.
So in summary, we've had a very blessed first couple of months. There have been challenges (there always are), but God's hand has been evident throughout our time here. We look forward to what next year will bring with much anticipation :D
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