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I know, I know. It's been too long.

So much has happened since I last posted!! I don't even know where to begin....

I guess I'll start with Honduras. That's enough for at least 5 or 6 entries :P. About a year and a half ago, on our first trip down to the Dominican Republic, we met a man. He was the pastor up in Slippery Rock Baptist church, and as he and my dad started talking, Pastor Dave started talking about this orphanage he goes to often, down in Honduras. He told us about a who went down there for several weeks (or months, I don't remember which), and now is down there permanently. He told us that if any of us ever wanted to come down, to give him a call.

Well, we didn't think much about it then. But, last spring, this orphanage in Honduras came back to Heidi's mind. She was graduating from high school, and isn't starting college until February. Seeing that she had all this time off, she decided that she wanted to do something worthwhile. Honduras looked interesting, and she decided to look into it to see if we could possibly go. Several phone calls later, she found out that Pastor Dave was about to buy tickets for their next missions trip, and that we could go! So, Heidi and I decided this was the right thing to do, and we bought the tickets.

Little did we know what we were in for.

Our friend Elizabeth heard that we were going, and she decided that she wanted to come too. We dubbed ourselves the "fearsome threesome", and went off to tackle the world. Two days, and many tears later, we were trying to figure out why we had come.

When we first stepped on the bus, that first day we left, we stepped into a car full of strangers. If you told us that they would be practically family in less than a week, we would have laughed at you! Of course, we knew in the back of our minds that it might happen, but we couldn't imagine anything of the sort.

The only person we really hit it off with from (at least close to) the beginning, was Nathaniel. He was Pastor Dave's son, and he was a character! He became our friend early on in the trip, right when we really needed someone to connect with. He was 13, but he really seemed a lot younger, and he took the place of our brothers for the week. I think he needed someone to connect with too, because everyone else saw him as annoying. About the first week he was fun to be around, although by the end of the week I saw why everyone else was glad to get him off their hands :P. (He did keep us sane for the beginning of the week, when we didn't know how we'd survive the rest of the trip, so Nathaniel deserves a whole paragraph :))

Anyway, the plan of travel was to drive down and catch our plane in Washington D.C., which flew to San Salvador, where we had a layover, and then from there to fly to San Pedro Sula, in Honduras. Well, it took forever to just get to Washington D.C.!!! I guess they wanted to make sure they had enough time to get there, and wanted extra time just in case something happened to the bus, so we left here at 2:00 pm Sunday afternoon, and didn't get to the airport until probably around 3:00 the next morning. Yeah, it was long. Especially when you have no idea who the people are around you.

We stopped at a Baptist church along the way and went to their evening service, which was quite interesting. Coming from a non-denominational church, I'd never realized the emphasis that some people put on their denominations. It struck all three of us as a little strange. I mean, who cares whether you are Baptist, or Methodist, or whatever, as long as you follow Jesus Christ and the Bible?? It is kind of funny how different they are from our church though. For example, on the info sheet they sent us before we left, telling us what to pack and so forth, they listed the KJV Bible on their to bring list. When we saw it, we were all wondering why in the world they put the "KJV" before Bible. After talking about it for a bit, we decided to bring our good old NIV Bibles :P. Now that I've spent a week with them, I totally understand the KJV part. Whatever they believe in, they really and truely believe in it, and think it's the only way. I don't want to group all Baptist's together, because I'm sure there is a lot of difference between them, but they are much more like that than we are. It's not that I think the KJV Bible is wrong, but I do think that people can decide which translation to read themselves. Now that I've spent 12 days with Baptists though, I understand them a little better than I did that first night :).

After the church service, we drove a while longer, and then got to another Baptist church where we planned on spending a couple hours to try to sleep. Sleep is right!!! We decided that the church must not have liked us coming so late or something, because the rooms were freezing! Every time you finally fell asleep, you woke yourself back up the next time you shivered! And of course Heidi and I had only one jacket between us (someone forgot hers!), so we didn't even have anything to keep us warm. (Who brings anything warm to Honduras, anyways?!?) After spending a couple hours there, we got up and moving again, and set off for the airport. By this time, we were all wondering what we were doing here! To think that so much had happened, and we hadn't even gotten out of the country!

Needless to say, by the time we got to the airport, so much had happened that we decided we could go home right then and have plenty of stories to tell. (Oh dear, I haven't even gotten to Honduras yet.....this could be a long post - I'll try to speed it up a bit :P)

Anyway, by the time we got to Honduras, we felt like the trip should be over.

It wasn't.

The joke of the week between Heidi and Pastor Dave was "This is our time"! Every takeoff and landing and at every slight turbulance in the airplane, Pastor Dave would look back at Heidi and say, "This is our time!" At first it was only a joke. That changed. Several times during the week we said it in all seriousness. (These upcoming stories are the kind you tell your mom, but only after they happen :P) Even now I am beginning to forget all that happened down there, but I will try to remember as much as I can for your benefit.

We stayed in what they would probably call a city, El Progresso, for the first two nights. We didn't do much, but I guess that time was just to get used to being there or something. We helped a missionary there hand out tracts one morning, but other than that we hung out and walked around the town a little. We ate at their restaurants, and then went to the missionaries house for dinners (there were about 40 of us).

That was a hard time for us. Not really having a purpose for the day, and not knowing anybody (and thinking the people you are with are kind of weird), made everything difficult. A lot of tears were shed on the trip, but I know they helped build us up. I found this verse in James while I was down there that kind of related to what we were going through: "Blessed is the man who perseveres under trial, because when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life that God has promised for those who love Him." (James 1:12) We were definitely going through a trial, and we had no choice but the persevere. I knew God had a plan for the trip, and I also know that we had to go through the hard times to really learn what God had planned. I know I got a lot more out of this trip than I ever got out of any DR trips, and I think that was because it was so hard. I had to rely on God to get me through.

Now that I look back at the beginning of the trip, I can hardly remember why it was that hard. The main difficulty we had at the beginning was getting used to the people we went down with, and their ways. But once I'd grown to know them and love them, it made everything a whole lot easier (in that aspect of the trip). I think if I went back, but this time knowing the people, it would be a lot different. We had trouble fitting in for a while, but once we did, it opened up the doors for us to have other problems =D.

Wednesday (I think), we left for the orphanage. After a several hour bus trip, I was ready to get there. I really had no idea what to expect in the upcoming days. I thought we would be spending a lot of time with the kids, but that's not how it turned out. We really went down to help, so we were put to work. One of the main projects that the s worked on (they liked keeping guys and s separated), was sorting through a whole roomful of dirty cloths. Fortunately, I have some artistic ability, so I got to help paint a mural, and leave the room full of clothes to Heidi :).

Wow - if you've read this so far, that's pretty impressive :). I have so much more to tell, but I have to go to bed now....

Hopefully I can keep up with this blog a little better than I have been :P. I will try to write more about Honduras (soon).

(By the way, I haven't proofread this thing, so please overlook any of the mistakes which I'm sure are there :P)