On a regular day in Honduras…
I wake up in my tent around 7:15. I wake up Liz (squadmate) at 7:20, then I grab a blanket and go read my Bible in the main room. At 7:40, I go back and wake up Liz again (I give her a snooze option for 20 minutes), and go back to my Bible. Around 8:30 we all have breakfast, around 9 or so I get together with Christiana and we plan our lessons for the day. Christiana and I teach 3rd grade and 5th grade English at the elementary school down the road. At 10 we walk to the school with the other teachers. When we arrive, we receive hugs upon hugs upon hugs. We teach the rowdy 3rd graders and rambunctious 5th graders.
After singing songs and organizing their screams into cohesive English words, we head back home and talk about the day’s challenges and victories.
I make myself a sandwich for lunch and get ready to head to more ministry.
At 1 pm, a van pulls up with Pastor Armando, and two teams pile in, completely unknowing of what the day holds. When the van stops, we go “Oh okay, so we’re in the girls’ home today!” or “Oh this is a government nursing home!” or “Why are we parking in a trash dump? What? There are kids working here?” or "Special needs kids?? Yes, I want to be with them!" (meet my Angel!!)
…and we get out and minister to the people. We introduce ourselves and learn their names, we ask them questions about their lives, and we pray with them. We sing with them.
We encourage them. We set up a church service for them and preach the gospel and the grace of God. Sometimes we’re home by 6, but we’ve been out til 9 before.
We eat dinner and have team time, then I either linger around the main room, laughing with my squadmates, or I turn in if I’m truly exhausted.
That’s a regular day for me this week here in Tegucigalpa, Honduras. It’s hard to describe every detail, or generalize my experiences. There’s a lot of hugging, and a huge need for patience throughout the day.
Today (March 1st) is different than all the other days on the race for me.
I’ve started March by listening. I need to hear God’s voice and have Him shape me. I need Him to tell me what to do and how to act.
Yes, I am submitting my personality to the Lord.
I’m willing to let Him change it. I feel like our identity and our personality are from the Lord, but we so often defile it and attach other things to it. I’m goofy and I laugh easily. I like to make word puns and thrash around (dancing). I laugh at slapstick humor and dry humor. I think a lot is funny. I’ll find myself reading the Bible and laughing at how weird and funny God can be. God likes my sense of humor. I’ve submitted this and it came back clear. I’m submitting my words to the Lord today. I want to speak life. I want to have my words come out like psalms and for every word to be uttered for the glory of God.
That rules out cussing and cursing. That rules out pointless chatter. That rules out crude subjects. That rules out gossip. That rules out songs I sing that aren’t any good.
I don’t want to just slide by and not be affected by them, but still be doing all those things.
I want God to teach me to despise these things. I want His reaction.
I don’t want balance. I don’t want to be the world’s definition of well-rounded.
I want to be extreme! I want to be holy!
I want to be like Jesus!
One thing Jesus did was listen to God’s voice. He was in communion with God all the time. I want to become dependent on God’s voice to the point that I don’t do anything without His blessing.
When I woke up, I knew something was different and special about today.
Today, I listened to the voice of God!!!
