So almost two weeks ago we finally left our home in Tegucigalpa to go to debrief in a nice small touristy town called Valley of the Angels. We were debriefed from our old teams and placed with our new ones. I was definitely surprised by who I was put on a team on, but I couldnt be more excited to spend the next 6 months serving Jesus with Kevin Toews, Stefan Bekker, Abby Dapron, Riely Rae Mikrut, and Andrea Grant. So after we got acquainted as a team and said some incredibly painful goodbyes to our Honduran friends, we finally left Saturday for Miami. I don't get at all why this worked the way it did, but we spent something like 2 and a half days traveling first to Miami, then to LA, then to Shanghai, and finally to Bangkok. It was absolutely exhausting. So let me repeat, after leaving Honduras Saturday, we finally arrived in Bangkok Tuesday at something like 1 or 2 in the morning. By the time we got there it felt like we'd just time traveled or something.
Anyway we spent the next couple of days at YWAM headquarters there and really just got to relax and take some time to transition into the new country and culture. I was glad to get to spend a lot of time with the guys on the squad just hanging out in our incredible room with AC, beds, and wifi. We also got to walk into town together to explore a little and get awesome Thaifood and incredible cheap 5 dollar Thai massages. It was an amazing couple days.
Then Friday came and after some more really hard goodbyes to the squad, all of our teams split off to our new ministry sites around the country. My team took a van about 3 hours north to a fairly small town called Takfa, which is where we are now. There's really not much else here besides markets and schools and one 711 strangely enough. But it's home for the next 6 weeks. And I think I'll be able to get used to it just fine.
I'm thankful that we have a small house for ourselves and we don't have to live in tents anymore, but to be honest it's not the most comfortable living conditions. We have all concrete floors, pretty disgusting bathrooms, no beds in the rooms, and no AC. and it's crazy hot and humid here right now. Overall, its definitely liveable and I think I'm actually glad we're not living in luxury. Makes me feel like a more down to earth missionary if that makes any sense. We're actually living somewhat in the world instead of above it.
Anyway, besides all that, I've already fallen in love with our ministry hosts. They don't really speak much English at all, but they're incredibly friendly people. They invited a Swiss missionary named Ulrich to come and translate for them our first night here so we could learn all about our ministry. As far as we know now, we're basically going to be teaching English at a bunch of different schools for the next 6 weeks. I'm honestly not super thrilled about the teaching part, but what is really cool is that since our ministry host is a pastor he made it part of the agreement with the schools that we'll be allowed to preach the gospel for 30 minutes everywhere we teach.
So we've taught at the local elementary school for 3 days now and it's already exhausting. I think I'm getting better at it, but it's definitely challenging. Unlike at the school we taught at in Honduras, we don't have any curriculum or specific classes to teach here. We've just had to wing it for the most part. But overall it's going pretty well and I'm already falling in love with my 6th grade kids. Teaching is definitely not my favorite thing though and I'd actually almost say I dread it. But I'm learning that I really do have the choice to choose into it everyday if I want to.
I recently read a book called Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller and there's this one part where Don is telling of a time he was at a bed and breakfast in San Francisco for people doing ministry in the city. He took note of the guy who ran the place named Bill for his incredible patience and willingness to serve despite the fact that people would rarely clean up after themselves or ever take notice of what he went through to serve them on a daily basis. Don sits with Bill at coffee one morning and asks him how he deals with that and how he keeps from getting frustrated and Bill simply replies,
"Don, if we are not willing to wake up in the morning and die to ourselves, perhaps we should ask ourselves whether or not we are really following Jesus."
Andrew,
The last sentence of your next to last paragraph–that you have a choice every day to choose “into it” if you want to–WOW!
What a statement. That’s one that I will repeat often and certainly give you credit for. Thanks for the uplifting words.
Like your Nana, I taught 6th graders for many years. They’ll “grow” on you, I promise!!
Betty Hardy
Thank you so much! Im glad that it inspires you.
You’re totally right about them growing on you! I was in love with them by the end of the week! Now I’m teaching grades 9-12 at a local highschool. I miss those kids already though.