Ajuticabas

Tis the season for ajuticabas in Siguatepeque!  I love the way they grow right on the tree!!

Unlike · Comment · Share

Christmas, 2014, in Ohio

Hark, the three  Sugar Grove angels sing, glory to the new born King!  Worthy is the Lamb who was born and slain and is seated on the Throne, worthy to receive all:  POWER, WEALTH, WISDOM, STRENGTH, HONOR, GLORY, and PRAISE!  He became poor so that we could become rich!  For God who said, “Let Light shine out of darkness,” made the Light shine in our hearts to give us the Light of the knowledge of the glory of  God in the face of Christ.   2 Cor. 4:6

Cookies are decorated, Christmas puzzle is finished,  and Mother is enjoying all of her Christmas company… May your day be blessed with His PRESENCE!!  Merry Christmas!

Thanksgiving 2014 with Rhonda and company!

    

Thank you, Rhonda, for opening up your lovely home to so many of us to celebrate the goodness of God to us over the last year!  My favorite part:  a time of praise, worship, and sharing in the church.  I loved seeing and hearing your older kids using their musical instruments to give thanks and seeing and hearing the younger ones use their lips to give God glory and praise.  There is something so special about being a part of a family, a spiritual family!  Thank you, God, for my Destino family.  Other special memories made were playing Scrabble in Spanish, warming up to a fire in the fireplace, making a fruit salad big enough to feed an army, enjoying Rhonda’s hot potato salad complete with turkey bacon, and being surrounded by the love and joy of a beautiful family!  I am blessed!!

Joy in the Journey

Part of the journey for an American teacher teaching at Destino del Reino involves leaving the country every 90 days to renew their visas.  The law says that we need to go two countries away from Honduras for 48 hours to accomplish that.  I just returned from one of those trips that took  four of us from Honduras to Guatemala, Belize, and back.  In Punta Gorda, where life is slow and peaceful, God provided us with a variety of people to get to know, mainly connected with the places where we enjoyed their good food.  Martina’s, Asha’s, Gomier’s, Joycelyn’s, Emery’s, the market, Front Street, Blue Belize,and the Snack Shack brought us in contact with Kate, Dolores, Ray,  Gomier, Jill, John, Malon, and many other people who needed Jesus.  God created colorful people when He created the Creoles,  Garifuna, Mestizos, Belizean, Guatemalans, and Hondurans.  We thank Him for the privilege of being His containers on this journey, a journey of 3 days, 4 buses, 2 water taxis, 22 hours of traveling, divine appointments,  beautiful bonding with sisters in the Lord, and 90 more days to stay in Honduras!   I can truly say,

”                                    Thank you, Lord, for joy in the journey!

Sit (“cush” in Alpaca)

The six Americans here in Siguatepeque are studying Ephesians together  in our Bible study.  Watchman Nee, in his book, Sit, Walk, and Stand, takes a look at this book of the Bible and the believer’s association with christ, the world, and Satan.  Presently we are looking at our position in Christ, seated in the heavenlies.

Allow me to share some of the truths related to sitting, the secret of a true Christian experience, as he relates them.

• God has made every Christian to sit with Christ in the heavenly places, and every Christian must begin his spiritual life from that place of rest.
• Most Christians make the mistake of trying to walk in order to be able to sit, but that is a reversal of the true order.
• Christianity begins not with a big DO, but with a big DONE.  We are invited at the very outset to sit down and enjoy what God has done for us, not to set out to try and attain it for ourselves. (the heart of the elder brother, the Law)
• We are not commanded to sit down but to see ourselves as seated in Christ.  God gives us our position of rest.  He brings His Son’s finished work and presents it to us, and then he says, to us, “Please sit.   Come, for all things are ready!”
• We were not born with Christ, but we were crucified with him.  We were included with Him at His death because we were in Him.
• The Prodigal Son came home and found rest in receiving all that the Father had done and wanted to give him.  It was meet to make merry and be glad.  

I am the Lord, who has made all things, …

Isaiah 44:24 says, “‘ I am the Lord, who has made all things, …”‘   I was reminded of that today on my walk to my first Spanish class this year.  Purple mountains majesty, llama del fuego trees in full bloom, faithful dogs guarding their families and homes, freshly painted schools, families working together to survive, luscious lemons ready to be picked, and Reyna, my Spanish instructor.  Thank you, God for the blessing of today and knowing You!

Day Trip to Pulhapanzak Falls and Lake Yojoa, the largest falls and lake in Honduras

Gems from the book, A Woman’s Journey to the Heart of God, by Cynthia Heald

• joy and sorrow accompany us on our travels every day.  Sorrow is necessary to keep us close to God.  It is only with Sorrow that we know true Joy.  Anyone who intends to come with me has to let me lead.  You’re not in the driver’s seat-I am.  Don’t run from suffering; embrace it.  Follow me and I’ll show you how.  Self-help is no help at all. Self-sacrifice is the way, My way, to finding yourself, your true self.  What good would it do to get everything you want and lose you, the real you?  Luke 9:23-25,  The Message
• Enjoyed the presence of God this morning in secret.  O, how divinely sweet is it to come into the secret of His presence, and abide in His pavilion….Time appeared but an inch long, and eternity at hand; and I thought I could with patience and cheerfulness bear any thing for the cause of god.  David Brainerd
• The Bible is the only book in the world that when you read it, the Author shows up!
• In knots, to be loosed never, knit my heart to thee for ever.  That I to thy name may bear, fearful love and loving fear.  Francis Davison
• The only thing that matters is to please God.  Amy Carmichael
• If nothing in us can win Thy love, nothing in the universe can prevent Thee from loving us….Help us to believe the intensity, the eternity of the love that has found us. Then love will cast out fear; and our troubled hearts will be at peace, trusting not in what we are but in what Thou hast declared Thyself to be.  W. Tozer.
• Our willingness to endure is an essential that we bring to our journey – but the ability to endure is a gift from the Lord.
• My definition of good is anything that makes me happy and my life hassle-free.  God’s definition of good is anything that makes me more like Jesus Christ and brings Him glory.
• Trials make more room for comfort.  Great hearts are made from great troubles.  The shovel of trouble digs the reservoir of comfort deeper and makes room for more comfort.  Charles H. Spurgeon

Saturday morning Independence Day Parade in Siguatepeque

7 o’clock this morning the 14 private schools in Siguatepeque paraded down the boulevard in town.  Monday is Independence Day, but the whole month there have been patriotic events happening.  Some of the schools today were bilingual schools and others were Christian and evangelical schools.  Scripture and the fruit and  gifts of the Holy Spirit were some of their themes.  One was related to uniting to get rid of dengue fever.  Enjoy some of my favorite shots.  

English classroom at Destino

Here is where I will hang out a lot this year as I teach my special group of 4th graders!  We share a room with 5th and 6th graders taught by my house mate, Sheena!  I love the view of the mountains out the back window and the pine trees out the side windows!  I am very grateful for some science books sent to me by many of you!  What a team effort to get us to this place, the first week of the 2014-15 school year at Destino del Reino!  Thank you, everyone, for your part in helping these precious children become all that God would have them to be!