Jose y Raquel los peregrinos

A new address

The days in Honduras have ended, and we now reside stateside in Chattanooga. We're now working on a library for the river valley. You can find us on the web at http://www.library-books.org or our new blog is at libros.chattablogs.com.

In which Raquel says Adios

Ya estamos terminado.

The days have fluttered by with ever-increasing speed. And now our little apartment is bare and our bags stuffed.
And my heart is confused.
Like the hem of my red skirt on a barbed wire fence, a piece of my heart has
snagged on Honduras while the rest of me pulls towards the States.

The small brown hands of Alba clutch mine.
(“No vaya,” she pleads after our last lesson.)
Santos, sick with AIDS and an unshakeable fever, lets his tears fall as I take my leave of his wife, Yamilet, who is also sick with AIDS and tuberculosis.
(I found out this morning that he has now been moved to a bed in the city`s bleak public hospital.)
I remember the warmth of Alejandrina`s last motherly embrace and her special farewell meal for us.
(“Dios le bendiga, hermana” she says.)
My heart bleeds with Lola`s irrepressible sobs and the loneliness they betray.
(She can`t let me go and won`t be consoled when we say our last goodbyes.)
The trusting eyes of the 20 kindergarteners I visit weekly tug at me.
(To them I am “La Teacher” and have introduced strange English words like
“bye-bye,” “Good morning,” and “yellow.”)
I couldn`t promise a return to any of those people. I told them I wanted to return, that we would save money for a visit, that I cared about them.
And somehow it all sounded hollow.

At the same time I pull and am being pulled towards the States. The
bank account dwindles, our English-speaking friends and family eagerly count
down days, and our tickets say June 1st. I`m eager for that first hug from
my mom; I can`t wait to get to know my two-year-old goddaughter again, or
to drink tea with friends and demonstrate my newly acquired tortilla
making skills. My hands itch to dig in my little garden and pet my cat. I
have an English curriculum to plan and a creative writing class to think about.
Enough comfort, love, and things to do to keep me from remembering those brown eyes and the kind Spanish-speaking friends that go with them.
Where will it all end? Will my heart stay un-mangled and comfortable and
Honduras fade like a dream, or will the pain of distance ache like an old wound and remind me of friends left behind?
I`ve left it in hands bigger than mine, and I`ve seen before the miracles those hands have wrought from a frightening and muddled future. I have a future and a hope, a comforter and a fortress.
And so do my friends in Honduras.

In which Jose sees a reflection

At some point, I stopped reflecting and started telling stories. My blogs and journals have been less and less about comparing and contrasting cultural hits and misses, and more and more about recording and communicating the times here. But now that the time draws near for us to return home to Chattanooga, I find myself reflective again.
Browsing through Kevin’s blog made me remember my own college papers on a cross-cultural experience in Alton Park. If I remember correctly, it mostly consisted of ideas I had about life there, and some observations I had made. Valuable, but then, as now, in living there for the next few years I subsequently forgot my entire system.
Then, as now, and as I think about it – through every change in my life – I have gradually accepted the way things are and moved on to the tasks of living life. In living here I don’t gasp at beauty or poverty as often as I used to, and I don’t feel the attacks on my usual ways of life that were once there. In short, I feel comfortable here.
It took my parents and in-laws being here last week - and seeing things through their eyes – to remind me of what is “normal”, and the “abnormalities” of life here. From the discomforts of the weather to the appalling poverty, they felt things that I had ceased to feel.
The flipside of this, though, is that in “normalizing” the way things are here, the idea of returning to the States is sobering. I miss my friends and family terribly, and look forward to life there, but at the same time…
Going to new places is much easier than going back to the old places. I remember going back to Grand Rapids in the summers during college, or visiting Covenant College after I’d moved down the mountain, or going back to see friends in Alton Park after I’d gotten married and we’d moved farther away. These were all painful encounters, and difficult – much harder than the “suffering” of living in the inner-city, or studying Economics, or being a missionary.
For a long time, I thought that the pain came from my own unique and growing awareness of the world, and my increasing realization of everyone else’s extraordinary ignorance. But lately, I’ve been wondering if there isn’t a more plausible explanation.
I think it has something to do with the people you know best being the hardest ones to love. Or even this – the more you know a person, the more love and grace is demanded (from you and from them), and that always hurts. Frankly, I think it’s easier to live in another culture because it’s harder to really know or be known by anyone. People everywhere are the same, but you just realize it a little slower when you can’t speak the language.
I’ve often forgotten and rejected the innate pain of the discipline of love in relationship. This happens a lot as I walk with Jesus. “Growing in faith” is a mystery to me; the more I know Jesus, I find that the harder it is to follow Him. He is demanding, unceasing, and makes further and further claims on my life. I’d rather have the Truth without the Troth. It’d be easier to manage.
And maybe that’s more common than I realize. You find few people in the Bible who reject Jesus at the outset - it’s usually after they get to know Him a bit. They line up to meet Him at the beginning of John’s gospel, but by the end, they neither “know Him” nor “receive Him”.
It’s hard to know and to be known. It exposes me; it exposes you; it exposes the Truth. But it’s good and right. Jesus, brothers, sisters: I want to know and receive you, and live together more and more. Help me.
I have walked a long ways, and I want to turn around and walk back. Back to Las Mangas, to Chattanooga, to Alton Park, to Covenant, to Grand Rapids. Back to the beginning, to all of you who know me the best. There is much to share, and life to live.
Let us walk together in love.

In which Raquel makes a chicken run

Joe has been teaching me to drive a stick shift. It all started when I made one too many complaints about his driving speed. I maintain that going over the numberous cavernous potholes they have here at any speed greater than 10 mph jars important screws and bolts out of place, and I have visions of the old truck evntually disentigrating into a trail of unidentifiable parts under the strain of the high speeds. Joe, on the other hand, feels that the faster you drive over large ruts and potholes, the less you can feel them. And a little jarring never hurt anything. So I was clutching the passenger side door and making comments about his driving the other day when he instantly silenced me with, "Okay, you´re driving home. " That was a driving-a-stick lesson ·1. It could have been worse- I only stalled out three times while trying to turn into the driveway. And, I might add, I was very slow and very careful not to jar the screws. :)
Which brings us to a Monday morning not too long ago. I was driving very slowly in second gear through the center of Las Mangas during driving lesson ·2. Joe in his helpful way, pointed out some checkens fifty feet ahead and cautioned that these particular chickens tended to be "suicidal." Under the strain of that news I scooted up even farther in the seat, clutched the wheel more tightly, and slowly eased on the brakes.
Of course I stalled out, rolling to a dramatic stop as the meandering checkens crossed right in front of my tires. And to complete the picture, a group of young Honduran men happened to be shooting the breeze nearby and possibly keeping an eye on the chickens. They seemed to enjoy the show immensely. Joe rolled down his window and yelled "la primer vez!" ("the first time") as a sort of explanation for my dismal driving skills.

Only in Honduras.
Alba and I were wading through our usual pile of flash cards this morning. We were both feeling teh monotony of the addition facts when I noticed, out of the corner of my eye, a scrawny, half-grown chicken greedily gulping down the rubber band that usually bound the cards. I tried to recover the rubber band discreetly, not wanting to distract my student, but she instantly noticed my hopeless "gringa" swipe and roared with laughter.
The situation called for drastic action; we abandoned the flash cards and broke out into a run after our thief with his prize "worm".
We chased the bird through the kitchen, past a surprised grandmother, into the first little bedroom, under and out from under the bed, into the bedroom with the sick grandfather and his visitors, and back into the first bedroom. Once there Alba finally made a successful grab for his wing, yanked the half-eaten rubber band out of his beak and triumphantly placed the slimy thing in my had. "Gracias," I said.
Only in Honduras.

In which Raquel sees the light

Let me tell you about my closest Honduran friend, Alba Luz. She’s 8 years old and has a head of flamboyantly curly dark hair. Alba lives in a tiny house perched high above the river. It has a dirt floor, thatch roof, and consists only of a kitchen and two small bedrooms. Alba shares her house with nine other relatives, including her dying grandfather and a little brother with cerebral palsy.
Alba failed first grade twice. In her village, the 1st-6th grades meet in the same place, with a total of 40 kids and one underpaid, disenchanted teacher who shows up for class when it’s convenient. Alba’s mother was quick to explain to me, as Alba and I labored over some addition facts during our first meeting, that Alba is stupid and cannot learn. But Alba looked up at me with eyes eager and hungry for approval. I searched for her name in my Spanish dictionary that night and found that it meant “dawn’s first light.”
So, with that hope ringing in my ears, I have walked the two miles to Alba’s house twice a week for the last four months. Alba and I spend about two or three hours together each time. We work on math facts and stringing letters together and enjoy each other’s company immensely.
We have had our own struggles, Alba and I. Hers have been how to add, the sounds that “c” makes, and a never-ending quest for confidence. Mine have been a constant wrestling with the language and the struggle to eat yet another corn tortilla from her always-generous mother. And in our struggles we have found each other. Alba helps with my tortillas when her mother isn’t looking, and her eager smile always lights and warms my sluggish heart. For my part, I have always believed that she is smart and that God holds hope for her.
And I am thrilled to announce that the miraculous has happened. Alba has become an avid reader. She reads the children’s books I bring her with passion and zeal. She loves the adventures of Madeline, and the silly story of Dona Chana Y Su Rana. She now helps me when I can’t make out a word in Spanish. And Alba has learned that she is extremely intelligent. Her mom even says so.

“Arise, shine; for your light has come!
and the glory of the Lord is risen upon you.”

In which Jose sees the light

A few weeks ago I received a letter that Donya Nativa passed away.
You will remember that we spent Christmas with her and her family. The day after we left – the 26th of December – she died. Our friend Milagro, her daughter, is now living with a sister in the capital city of Tegucigalpa and will attend a high school there.
That same week, I found myself in two other hopitals thinking of life and death. The first was an afternoon in a bleak city hospital in La Ceiba, where Santitos had brought his father. The emergency room was full of pain and suffering, and the small staff of doctors could do little to relieve it. Santitos almost cried as he said that they could or would not help his father – they would not even talk to him.
But we prayed together with hope, because we knew that God cares for his people, and we knew that even that morning, he had provided miraculously. While Santitos was at the city hospital, I had taken his son Meiner to another hospital a couple of hours away where an American orthopedic surgeon was visiting. This meeting was full of light and joy.
Meiner is four years old, but has never been able to walk. He was also behind in sitting up, picking up language skills, and many other “normal” milestones for children. But his life is full of happiness, and he spreads his joy to those around him. As Rachel and I come over the rise to their house, He screams “Jose! Jose!” as he lies on the ground. His smile fills the air and finally floats to our hearts, where it grows into love.
In fact, the same thing happened at the hospital that morning. The nurses could not resist the smiles of Meiner, and the room was packed during the exam. The doctor and I spoke for some time about his life and his condition, and he finally diagnosed cerebral palsy. My heart fell, but the doctor said that his condition was mild, and that we could work to fight it with exercise and attention.
A nurse brought a child-sized walker in, and showed it to Meiner. He showed some interest after we all practiced with it, and then grabbed it himself. After a moment of imbalance, he took a step, and then another, and then used it to walk across the whole room! He turned and smiled an embarrassed smile at us, and then laughed.
The whole room was teary-eyed as we laughed with him. His first independent steps! The future is not dark, but light! Of course, Meiner knew this all along – he had always smiled. The Kingdom of Heaven is of children such as this.
And so, as Santitos and I prayed together that afternoon in the city hospital, he said “Dios sabe.” - God knows. We live in trust that even as we stand in bleak hospital rooms full of despair, and even as we now hear of Donya Nativa’s death, we know that even this cannot stand against the Kingdom of God.
He is coming in great power and glory, and even now we see Him. “…the lame walk…the dead are raised up, and the poor have the gospel preached to them.”

In which Jose is learning to walk

Every day, I see Hoel limping up and down the streets of Las Mangas. His twisted arms and legs forces me to remember the polio that afflicted him long ago, but his smile makes me remember that sin and sickness, disease and death are not the end.
Hoel is well known in Las Mangas and to the other villages up and down our road. He slowly walks miles each day to collect aluminum cans from the stores and houses, and then trades them in for small amounts of money. People give him food and drink each day, and he lives as a friend of all. He can entertain a whole household of children (a valuable skill here) with his animal noises, and is fond of sneaking up behind unsuspecting folks and shrieking with laughter as he pinches them lightly.
This week, we awoke one morning to a loud pounding on our door. Two small girls yelled “Hoel is dying! He’s bleeding from his nose and mouth! He had a cat in his sack, and now he’s dying!”
This story sounded strange, but we quickly drove the truck up to El Pital and found Hoel. He was lying on the floor of a small house. A few women bathed his forehead as he shook slightly. “He is having seizures,” they explained. “He hasn’t taken his medicine.” He had run out a few days before, and the effects were showing now. He had had four seizures already, and had bit his tounge and bloodied his nose.
We put Hoel in the truck and brought him home, then rushed to the city for the medicine. While it only costs about 10 cents per day for his pills, this is a huge sum of money for a man who must live off aluminum cans and the kindness of his neighbors.
When we returned, Hoel had regained enough conciousness to lock himself in his room and refuse entry to anyone. A small child was hoisted through a hole near the roof, and several neighbors assisted us in giving Hoel his medicine.
Yesterday I saw Hoel on the road again. He fell a few times, still weak from his seizures. But he smiled, hugged us, refused help, and limped off in pursuit of his cans.
“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.”

In Which Raquel la Peragrina retrospects on Navidad

This is a late but requested update of our Christmas actvities. Joe and I (with the welcomed companionship of Joe's cousin, Merideth) spent a Christmas on the road, travelling from our northern tropics to the dry mountains of southern Honduras. Our destination was to revisit the small village of Caragual (home of Doña Nativa and her daughter, Carla). Our travels spanned the 20th to the 29th of December and included rides by taxi, in the back of a pick-up truck, in the cab of a cantaloupe-laden semi (driven by an 18-year-old with 4 years of experience driving rigs), and a total of 9 different buses, ranging from luxury line to a makeshift “bus” constructed by building high wooden sides around the bed of a pickup truck and cramming the structure full of people (at least 15) and 8 bags of cement, boxes of chips, and a wide array of heavily laden shopping bags.
We renewed contact with many friends in the South. We were dismayed by Doña Nativa´s rapid decline in health. The family celebrated Christmas with laughter and tears at the same time. Doña Nativa´s advanced case of tuberculosis left her a skeleton of the person she was, making her hardly able to eat, struggling with each breath, and crying out in pain constantly. I expect that by now she has gone to be with the Lord. She and her 13-year-old daughter, Carla, had relocated to live with other family members and seemed well cared for at the time of our visit. We spent Christmas with them and their colorful family, wrapping mountains of tamales in banana leaves (traditional Christmas fare), watching a Barbie movie and Home Alone on their tiny, battery run black-and-white TV, and listening to the loud bangs of fireworks from the nearby city at midnight of the 24th-25th. It was a sharp study in contrasts—the celebration of a birth bringing hope, and the despair of one near death.
Our time in the village left me with several powerful memories:
* The village Christmas pageant. It was held each day in the late afternoon at different houses in the village in the days leading up to Christmas. There was a brief lesson and reading about Christmas, then the scene of Mary and Joseph knocking on the inn door was acted out by the village children. “Maria” was a village girl dressed in a beautiful white dress with a veil over her head. Joseph, a boy from the village, was dressed as a traditional campesino farmer, with a derby hat, a long tunic with a traveling belt, and a foil-covered walking stick and gourd of water for the journey. They stood with half the audience outside the door in the honey-glow of the setting sun, knocked and sang their need for a place to sleep. The group inside the house sang their reply. I found their faces in the light and the memorized simplicity of their play striking.
* Nativity scenes: I saw several while in the village, one at the church and one in a nearby home, and they were treasured by their owners. The scenes were set up within a circle of sand on a table. A bizarre mismatched menagerie of plastic figurines gathered around a tiny plastic baby Jesus. Donald Duck, a plastic cow, a large green snail, and Happy Meal characters as wise men all reverently faced the Christ-child.
* The “House of Prayer:” I visited the village church on Christmas Eve and found five women scrubbing and whitewashing the walls. There were simple, sparse decorations I would normally label "gaudy" at the front (a red and green plastic table cloth pinned to the front wall, a startling mish mash of artificial flowers on the front table, and the aforementioned nativity scene). Everyone exclaimed over the beauty of the decorations.
I missed the joys of family and friends, missed the classy evergreen-and-white-lights decorations, and missed the special Christmas hymns in English. But at the same time, Christmas this year was stripped of glitz and laid bare—as a desperate and fervent longing for things to be made right, for death to be challenged, and for hope be made known to the poor.

In which Jose wishes you a feliz navidad

More pictures here, one album of a birthday party, and another of Rachel teaching Alba to read. Sorry they`re dark - there`s no light inside. Click herefor the birthday party, and here for Alba and the rest of the gang at Santito`s house.

In Which Jose Asks

It’s been raining for days here, and the roads that go up and down the mountain are sometimes closed, so we’re on our own little island. Things like rain and heat have not yet been driven from these parts by the airconditioners, and suddenly they are forces to be reckoned with. The river becomes a raging torrent and rises over its banks to attack all life before it. Landslides occupy the road, and fallen trees assault our supply lines of fuel and water.
But that’s only here. A few hundred miles away, down South, the dry season begins. There, it has been decided that there will be no rain for months. All green life dies, and one can only hope that the cows will live through and that there will be enough corn for the whole family to eat until April brings the new rains.
The Weather lives here. People still speak of hurricane Mitch with reverence. The power fueled the rivers to swallow houses, bridges, farms, cities. Tens of thousands of people were washed away. One of twenty requirements at the Kindergarten here is that in addition to letters, numbers, and Jesus, all children will learn about Natural Disasters. As Ramirez puts the walls on his house, he shows me the screw-nails he has bought. “Mitch wll not get these.” Santitos stands by the house he built by the river and tells me the story of Mitch. “My wife was afraid. But I am brave.”
The Weather takes their new seeds, knocks down their corn, drowns or fries their animals, and brutalizes their lives.
What am I to think of this? Tempted though I may be to ascribe strength to the weather, I know that it has no personality, it is not a god. It is subject to Yahweh, the Lord. He wields the weather at his will, and with His might. The Psalms tell us of the stormy power of His presence, and Jesus shows the storm-calming power of peace.
That is an answer I am content with, but I must say that it makes me uncomfortable. Why, God? Why bring them into poverty, grow them up malnourished, make them work someone else’s land to survive, send a disease, and wipe them out with a storm? Why all these plagues?
I know that you discipline your people, but this seems too much. These men are Job! They live their lives with love – when they eat beans, they make me eat chicken. When they serve me orange juice, I see them secretly watering it down for themselves. They live their lives with loyalty - at the end of each blighted day they cast an eye towards the Promised Land – the good ol` USA, sigh, and say “No. I must stay with my wife, my children, my father, my mother. They need me.” The live their lives for you – they thank you for the crops, they praise you for their children, and they cry for you in the church.
I cannot fix this, Lord Jesus. Rachel and I spend days tutoring Alba and trying to teach Meiner to walk. He is four, malnourished, and obviously mentally damaged in the realm of self-balance. We will spend this Christmas with Donya Nativa, who coughs and coughs and cries out to you with every breath she has to spare. This is wrong, very wrong.
You have made me a warrior in your kingdom, but I feel so weak. You’ve given me dominion over the earth, and it swallows me. My heart retreats daily from the fight - I don’t know who to fight anymore! Point us where you want us, and lead us.
If I cry with the cries of Job, then put me in my place. There is none beside You, and we live and die knowing little of your world.
But if I cry with the cries of Moses, and David, and Isaiah, then answer, oh God! Bring justice, rescue your people and lead to victory! The lips that want to bring forth your praises are tormented with sickness, and the wind drinks up the hymns of your children.
Rachel loves and teaches a small girl named Alba Luz, who lives in a small dirtfloor house with her family. As her father walks the miles up the mountainside to plant the beans, and as her younger brother drags himself across the floor, she works hard to learn the things that she cannot know, and about the things that she cannot have. Her name means “Dawning Light.”
How long, Lord Jesus?

In which Jose shoots children

We took a bunch of pictures for a kindergarten graduation on our digital camera, and posted them at ofoto. Here´s the link if you want to see them. http://www.ofoto.com/I.jsp?c=aj662wp.iujr7op&x=0&y=-rorq66 . Also, Here´s some pics I took of my friends fishing in the river out back. http://www.ofoto.com/I.jsp?c=aj662wp.q5e8vvp&x=0&y=-mf1qd4

In which Jose requests an oracle

Not much has been happening here lately, but we are having great conversations amongst ourselves about the future and beyond. So I suddenly thought to myself, "man, I wish I could just take a poll of everybody who knows me and ask them what I should do with my life." And suddenly I realized that the miracle of technology makes that a reality. Gives the idea of "call" a whole new meaning, eh? So what say you, my friends? What would you have me to do with the rest of my life?
(click the "comments" thingy to respond)

In which Raquel la Peregrina sleeps in a hammock and witnesses a miracle

Joe and I left 12 days ago for a trip to the south of Honduras. We spent the first few days in a huge Dodge Ram, traveling with Jonathan Smoak, a friend from the USA who has been working in Honduras for many years. Jonathan was traveling to the South to prepare for a mission team from Minnesota, but he dropped us off in a small village called Caragual for the week (he went on to a different village a couple of mountains over where the mission team spent the week digging a water system). We returned to Las Mangas (our "home" in north Honduras) last night and Jonathan flew back to Florida this morning. We went on the trip in order to spend some time getting to know Jonathan better, in order to seek some direction from him about what our time in Las Mangas should look like over the next 8 months, and in order to get a better feel for village life.

In which Jose el Peregrino can´t get away from the South

I love this line - "There are three things aplenty here; rain, time, and bananas". I wrote it in a letter yesterday, and it rings through my head and gets truer by the minute.
The school season is over for us, and my standard introduction changes from "No hablo Espanol" to "No hablo mucho Espanol."
Next week we´ve been invited to travel through South Honduras to see and visit with some of the believers there. Pray that we would learn much, be humble, kind, and loving.
Continue also to pray for our time after these couple of weeks. We don´t know the path that the Lord has for us here, and we continue to seek His will in our work and in our lives.

In which Jose prays for grace

Somewhere in the depths of my mind is this idea that missionaries bring "the Christian life" to those who have never heard of Jesus, the Bible, Moses, Jonah, or Ehud.
The problem is, these folks live "the Christian life" way better than I do. Even as I´m writing this, there´s a prayer meeting going on next door. Everyone at the church is participating in a 40 day fast, and they get together each day at 1 and at 7 to worship and pray.
And these Christians know their Bible backwards and forwards. They know the law, their responsibilities to God and their neighbor, and they work at living "the Christian life."
I think that they think I'm a bad Christian. I don't go to church as much as they do, and my hair is touching my ears.
It is a different sort of feeling for me. Back in the U.S., everybody thought I was pretty good. Working in the inner-city, helping widows, going to be a missionary overseas - everybody thought that that was pretty special.
But over here, missionaries are a dime a dozen. I read that in a nearby city here in Honduras, there is one missionary for every 90 people. There is no excitement over a couple more, just a polite smile and then back to the prayer meeting.
And who can blame them? What can I say that will add to their knowledge of the Christian life when they're already spending every waking hour in church?
I don't always know. I'm learning more and more that my worth is in Jesus, and not in how I rank on the Christian-life-o-meter. It's not in praying the correct amount each day, or in fasting or going to church enough.
Pray for us. We want to love our neighbors by pointing to the salvation and security that we have in Jesus. Pray for our neighbors, and rejoice in their knowledge of Christ. Pray that they too would see more and more their freedom from the law, and their salvation in Christ. Pray that this gift would overflow in all of our lives and fill us with love so that we long to worship our awesome God both day and night.

In which Jose meets a prophet?

Today, when we were out looking for bikes to rent, a man whom we had never seen before suddenly came up to us, smiled, and said "did you find your bikes yet? Go to the hotel Telamar for the bikes". Then he took another sniff from his bag of glue.
So we went to the hotel Telamar, and sure enough, there were the bikes. Very weird.

In which Raquel, la peregrina, knows in part

Iglesia

Young, thin girls twirling madly, calling out, being slain.
After they pick themselves up off the ground, motherly hugs descend around their shoulders.
One girl--12 or 13, with arms and legs like twigs, with large and hungry eyes--is especially dramatic. What do they mean, the eyes of the girls?
Do they find Jesus in the slaying?
Or perhaps in the motherly hug?
"Though my father and mother forsake me, the Lord will receive me."

At the island church, I watched two geckos dancing across one of the high windows.
"Arise my soul, Arise."

I think of the man and his megaphone on a corner in crowded city center,
yelling in Español angry, angry words.
I hear "Palabra" repeated again and again--the Word.
Is he John the Baptist?
Does he love the souls at which he screams?
How does the Word speak?
"Shake off thy guilty fears. The bleeding sacrifice on my behalf appears."

The children perch on kneelers at the front of Zion Methodist,
circled around the towering figure of their preacher.
They wiggle and squirm.
His large brown hands rest upon each head in turn,
and words of blessing quiet each wiggler for a moment.
The street kid darted through the open sanctuary doors just before the benediction.
I caught a glimpse--thin, dirty, tattered, matted.
His shrill phrase in Spanish hung in the air--a curse? A demand for help?
"With confidence I now draw nigh,
and Abba, Father, Abba cry."

She has a voice like an angel.
Not a sweet, pink cherub voice, but the piercing, resonant voice of a bronzed being.
The voice echoes up to the high ceiling and spills out the church´s 20 open windows,
tumbling to the street, to the ocean, to the reef.
She sings with the richness of love in her voice.
The fish must be dancing.
The people in the street hear her voice.
Does the Word make their hearts dance like fish?
"I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living."

In which Jose y Raquel (ok, let´s be honest, it´s only Jose) are sorely tempted

My english teacher tells me that it costs between 300 and 600 bucks to have a baby here. Everything included. I guess a lot of Nortamericanos come down here at about 9 months and pay a little more (700-800 dollars) and get the full treatment - private room, private nurse, 5 day stay, etc. They have the baby, then fly back up.
What say you, my baby-considering friends up there in the US? Want to come and visit?
For all those who are not thinking of babies, consider these things - a dentist visit and cleaning for under $10, fillings for $20, full surgery for under $100 . Laser eye surgery for $75.
Now you can´t serve God and mammon, but I´m dutch! I was born to be cheap!

In which Jose el peregrino predicts the weather, is lost, and is found.

After five days, I'm becoming ok with the fact that I have no idea what is going on around me. This wasn't always the case.
Riding into San Pedro Sula was a bit of a shock. Couldn't talk to the customs guys, the taxi driver, the hotel lady... The background noise was foreign (ha ha) to my ears.
I found an English newspaper in the hotel room, and found that the city was having transportation wars between bus companies. This isn't a euphemism. Last weekend 14 civilians were killed in 3 separate attacks on busses in the city. (Incidentally, the contract for these killings totalled around $480 USD). I began to count the hours until our bus trip in the morning...