Family

I'm long overdue in writing a blog, and have been mulling this one around in my mind for the last couple of weeks, but one of those weeks I was without my computer, so I'm just now getting around to writing this. Before I get into my thoughts on family, an update on my housing situation.

When I arrived here in January, I had no idea who I would be staying with or where I'd be living. After spending the first weekend I was here with Pastor's family, I arrived at my new home. It was a mansion. Literally. The houses here are surrounded by walls, and this place had two houses on the property, two driveways, a nice-sized lawn (for a house in a crowded city), and a big covered outdoor area with hammocks. The smaller house is where the missionary couple and their adopted twin babies (two of the CUTEST things you have ever seen) lived. The bigger house is where teams stayed who came to help them with ministry. It comfortably holds 20-some people, and one of the rooms downstairs will soon be converted into another bedroom to hold over 30 people. The kitchen was huge, it had a dining room, it had HOT WATER, and I had full access to the house and the outdoor areas. I felt like I was living good, and definitely not what would come to your mind if I said "I'm a missionary in Honduras."

Because the mission house's primary purpose is, well, housing mission teams, I had to move out on Wednesday due to the arrival of summer interns, summer staff, and due to the upcoming arrival of large teams every week throughout the summer. Because of some lack of communication between the couple, Pastor, and myself, I and the Pastor were not fully aware that I had to be out of the house by Wednesday... So when one of the missionaries came to check on the progress of my packing that evening, she found me hanging out in my room like always and calmly informed me that they had expected me to be staying somewhere else that night. They graciously allowed me to stay that night, and after a power outage stalled my packing progress, I got up super early the next morning and managed to get everything packed before going to school.

After school, I was taken to my new home. Now, I'm in the rented room of one of the church families. I work with a couple of them at the school and had one girl in my class a couple of years ago. Now, when you rent a room here in Honduras, you usually get just that: a room. And that's what I have. It's roughly the same size as the bedroom I grew up in with an attached bathroom, but I'm expected to have my whole life here, including cooking and such. The single faucet and PVC pipe coming through the cinder-block in the shower told me I had one temperature: cold. There's no door to the bathroom, which is quite common in these rented rooms. There's one outlet. And the only furniture I started with was a bed that's on loan from Pastor's in-laws and a beat up plastic table Hermana V (the matron of the house) found for me. I won't mention the yellow walls that are a few shades too dark to be called sunny, the blue baseboards, and the burnt red and green checkered floor tiles...

I love it.

I can't explain it, but it instantly felt comfortable, and I loved it from the moment I stepped in. Is it ugly? Yes. Is it small? Yes. Is it luxurious? No. But it's mine. I don't know if anyone else is like this, but in order for me to feel at home somewhere, I need to be surrounded by my things. My mom would call it "clutter," but I like having things around the living room and bedroom that are mine, whether or not they are serving any type of purpose. It makes me feel comfortable and at home. In such a small space like this, my stuff has already filled the space, so it feels instantly like I'm surrounded by my familiar things. Granted, half my stuff is still in boxes, but it's slowly coming together.

Today CR took me to the downtown market area where everything is way cheaper and we found a shelf that my kitchen stuff and food now inhabits, a fan so I don't melt, silverware so I don't have to form more spoons out of tin foil like I did this morning for breakfast, a power strip so I can plug in more than 2 things at once, and a garbage can so I don't have to just throw things in a bag propped up against the wall. The fridge that I bought when I first moved here two years ago is in the possession of Pastor and his family, and I'm supposed to be getting that back soon. They also might have an electric burner for me. If not, I have the rice maker my parents got me for Christmas that does WAY more than just rice. I have a plan to make a thing with pockets out of material to hang on my bathroom wall to store my bathroom things, and am thinking about my options for getting a dresser of some sort for my clothes.

So... I'm now living more/less what people tend to think, and I'm loving it. For as often as I throw parties, I don't foresee the small space being a problem. Plus, most of the family here only speaks Spanish, so it's going to force me to work on my Spanish more, which I need.

Now... a word on family.

A couple of weeks ago, I got to attend a leadership seminar that the church put on. It was all-day on Saturday, broken up into 4 segments focused on different areas of leadership and spiritual development. It was all in Spanish, so by the end of it I was sort of fried from trying to concentrate and get something out of it when I didn't understand everything that was said, but the last thing they talked about was the way the church should be interacting with each other, and the way we need to be open about our offenses with each other and ready to forgive.

Everyone was called to the front, and asked to stand in groups with their families, and to confess to each other sins and to seek forgiveness and to take the first steps toward making changes in marriages and families that would then be a benefit to the entire church as a whole and the Kingdom of God. I stood awkwardly by myself for the confession part, which was fine, but then the pastor called everyone to pray earnestly for each other within their families, and then I started feeling left out, especially in a church filled with families and VERY few individuals (read: one individual: me). But there were a few other people there that day who had come without their spouses, so the pastor grouped us together and I wrapped my arm around an older woman who I've known for a while and love and the father of one of my kids from before that I've never actually spoken to before.

I prayed softly under my breath as everyone else prayed out loud. One of my favorite sounds in the world is a chorus of praying voices, and one of my primary love languages is physical touch. Not only was I being touched by the two people I was surrounded by, but one of the other men in the group that I've known for a little while reached around to put a comforting hand on my shoulder. I couldn't help but to cry, first because I felt so loved and so surrounded by my family here, and then because I was missing my Michigan family.

Family doesn't really mean blood, and it has little to do with relatives. It's about the people who love you and accept you even when you don't speak the same language. It's about the people who have seen you at your best and your worst and still say "You're beautiful on the inside and the outside." It's about the people who clearly see where you are in life and either tell you you're doing what you're supposed to be doing, or who push you to do more. It's about the people who you worship God with. It's about the people who manage to stammer out "You are important" in English because they want you to hear it in your native tongue. It's about the people who take time in the middle of their busy day to help you move. It's about the people that God has put in your life for a reason.

Please be praying:
- that I get the rest of my new little home settled and functional
- that everything works out well with the family I'm living with now
- that my Spanish continues to increase and my fear of speaking it continues to decrease
- that my students will do well on their final exams and that there will be no more drama with study guides with them
- that we get a lot of kids for summer camp/school (it's possible I should write an informative blog about how I'm going to be helping run a summer camp/school at the school for the summer...)
- that I keep growing closer to God as I keep learning how to love Him as He keeps showing me how much He loves me