Culture Shock

The title of my blog entry does not do the past 5 days justice in the fact that my life down here in Honduras is unbelievably different than my life in the US.

Although there are so many details I would love to fill you in on, I am trying to keep my entries concise for your sake and for mine. Not to mention the fact that the internet cafe by mi casa is the only place I get internet connection and I have to pay for it. And their keyboards here in Honduras are very interesting, so much so, I cannot find the apostrophe button, hence the reason why this post will contain no contractions. Every single english teacher in America may want to adopt these keyboards into their curriculum. All this is beside the point,

the past few days have been very eye-opening as I realize over and over again how priveleged I am in the United States. I mean, things I took for granted like, running water... seriously. The house I am living in has not a drop of running water. Please imagine this scene with me, Lucas uses the bathroom toilet and tries to flush, however, nothing happens. He tries again. Nothing. Embarassed, he asks someone he met ten minutes ago why the toilet will not flush. This person procedes to take Lucas to the water basin where he is instructed to fill the pitcher with water and dump it in the un-flushed toilet. Ironically enough, the toilet does not overflow when you add fluid to it, rather it flushes everything down. I will spare you the story of me clogging the toilet yesterday.
You should have seen me in the shower. I stood in a small cement box with a gallon jug of cold water that I poured over myself while trying to wash my sweat-soaked body. On a good note, one of the helpers in my house, Margarita, fell in love with my Old Spice body wash scent. This commercial really is true:

Being a person of little patience for incompetency, I am now the incompetent one... in so many ways. The language, the food, the bathrooms, the music, the movies, the work, the lingo, etc.
It has been humbling to say the least. However, I am truly grateful to be here and I have not yet found myself too frustrated with any of the changes. I know you are praying for me to have patience and I am shocked by how even keel I have been this past week. The patience everyone has with me is also humbling. I have had some very encouraging conversations in Spanish and I have had some not-so-encouraging conversations that end with a group of Hondurans laughing at/with me :)

I am learning to enjoy the slow pace of life here. I began helping with the construction site (which is what I will do almost every day for the next month of my life... as well as eat beans, eggs, butter, and tortillas with coca cola or pepsi) and I felt like our "work" was more of a hang out. I am so accustomed to 100% effort 100% of the time, whereas here, it is ok to just sit and be with others. I am glad to learn these lessons as I probably would not learn them otherwise if I were working in the US right now.

The family I am living with here in Talanga, the Archagas, are wonderful. Celeo is the pastor of the local Cuerpo de Cristo (Body of Christ) church. His wife, Gloria, is very sweet and laughs easily, which is helpful for me as I am muy chistoso (silly or funny). They have four children, one of which I have bonded with well. Alejandro is my new amigo. We talk about school, music, food, the beach, Apple products (which they are fascinated with down here, you should have seen the whole family gather around when I whipped out my MacBook), and many other things. I no longer feel like I am on a missions trip as I have realized I will live with this family day in and day out for the next month or two of their lives; I am excited.

So, I am on a computer in the local internet cafe and I just recieved a message saying, "Dearest customer, there comes a great storm. Be sure to save your information if cut out energy." Hmm, I am thinking it is time to wrap this update up. Let me leave you with a vivid story from my journal:

My first night here, I attended a funeral service for a man that died of a heart attack. This man was very respected in the community and  invovled in the church. As the service started, I sat down on a couch not realizing I sat in the spot beside the widow of the husband whose funeral we were attending. She was a strong woman, but you could see the grief in her face, the ache in her stride. Sitting next to her, I felt an overwhelming amount of empathy pour over me for this woman. I noticed the way she held herself up and put a comforting hand on the shoulder of the woman next to her rather than the other way around. She cried as she mourned the loss of her husband and appeared as if she was at the end of her strength.  All I could think of was the short, often joked about verse in John 11:13, “Jesus wept.” Jesus entered Lazarus’ death scene knowing full well He was going to raise him from the dead, but instead of storming in and giving the right advice, he empathized with those around him and wept.

I entered this funeral service thinking to myself, “well at least this man’s in heaven, so maybe it won't be that sad.” I had the “right advice.” And although I’d never met this woman before in my life, as she cried next to me, I couldn’t help but extend my hand onto her shoulder and cry with her. Yes, I cried with her. It was empathy within me that I haven’t felt before, an empathy from God.

What an incredible way to start this season. Over the past two weeks, I  was shown the same weakness in my personality and leadership style that tend to disregard empathy or validation of one’s emotions. No matter where we are at, sometimes we as humans just need to be listened to, respected, and validated; the “right answer” or the “correct ‘fix-it’ advice” is usually not the answer. Tonight, I gained a tangible experience in which I had more empathy for a random stranger than I’ve had for the closest of friends and family. It’s amazing to see direct confirmation that this is a lesson God wants to teach me right now. I’m excited to keep learning about and tapping into this newfound reservoir of God’s love for others. 

Pretty cool stuff. Thank you for your prayers, please keep them coming. I will do my best to shoot out an update once or twice a week depending on when I can get into the internet cafe long enough.
Hope all is well in los Estados Unidos!
 
P.S. Unfortunately, I left my camera cable in the states and cannot upload my photos yet. I am going to borrow a plug from an amigo of mine here in Honduras and see if it will work. Don't worry, I am taking pictures and you will see them. Sometime. Hopefully soon. 
In the meantime, here is a link to a photo I took with my iPhone (whose screen just broke last night, rendering me "phone-less" in Honduras this week) before I found out I was using all my minutes to upload information to facebook... soy un gringo estupido.  The picture is from a funeral I saw in Talanga my first night here:

http://distillery.s3.amazonaws.com/media/2011/09/21/331bcbbe2cba405781c765a985cb0200_7.jpg

beginning to land

Tomorrow begins my adventure to the third world country of Honduras. It's crazy to think that just three weeks ago I was planning to go backpacking through Europe right now, but God sure has a way of making things happen His way, right? 


From September 19 till November 19, I will be living in Honduras and serving with His Eyes Ministries (click here to view the ministry's website). During the month of September and most of October, I will live in the town of Talanga and help a church plant construct a building while serving the pastor and local community. Towards the end of my trip, I may move to Tegucigalpa to assist at a medical clinic, help with one of their clothing ministries, or remain in Talanga if needed. 


According to wikipedia, [a credible source, I know] Talanga is a medium-sized, agriculturally-reliant town that crops corn, sugar cane and fodder. [Now, if you're anything like me, you may be asking yourself, "what the heck is fodder?"]


Fodder: any agricultural foodstuff used specifically to feed domesticated livestock such as cattle, goats, sheep, horses, chickens and pigs. 
[Now this is only a guess, but, if the town primarily crops food for cattle, goats, sheep, horses, chickens, and pigs, I can only hope to get in touch with my farm-boy roots... my goal is to kill and pluck a chicken for dinner]


Back to Talanga, the town's most notable feature is that the streets are all dirt. [Good thing I packed extra allergy pills] 
And the town just finished installing a sewer system as of 2006. However, I've still been warned to throw my used tp in the trash cans by the toilets as it may clog the pipelines. 
[Don't worry, I already said goodbye to my Starbucks' commercial grade toilets, that can literally swallow a bowling ball if you so decide to flush one] 
Rest assured, Mom, Talanga has a very good indoor market with produce, meat, pots and pans, and other household goods as well two internet cafes. 
[eh, who needs paved roads when we've got the internet; life in the 21st century]


I will fly into Atlanta tomorrow where I have an overnight layover. On Tuesday, I will arrive in Tegucigalpa, Honduras around noon CST. Oh yeah, did I mention the Toncontín International Airport is ranked the second most dangerous airport in the world due to its proximity to mountainous terrain, its short runway, and its historically difficult approach to the runway? check this out:

Yeeeah, let's hope I even have a second blog post. 


Here are some things you can be praying for if you'd like:  
1) Safety during travel to Talanga
2) Large amounts of patience and humility as I adapt to many new things
3) Quick immersion within the Spanish language
4) Current and future building construction in Talanga. Prayer for all the work to be done to God’s glory, that stress would be minimized, and things go smoothly. 


Thanks everybody. I'm excited to keep you updated on what happens, what I observe, and what I learn. 
Hopefully my next blog post will come straight from Honduras!