Moose, Honduran style

PICTURES- http://jsu.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2025568&l=86945&id=156800196


Hello to all of you! This week has been full of fun experiences. Last weekend I mentioned that we were staying at the Bridge House (Casa Puente) in the city and Jason and I were in charge of making sure the house didn’t blow up or anything and make sure Rodolfo was taken care of. Fortunately, we succeeded in both, and had a great time. I can’t remember if I mentioned or not, but we left Saturday morning and walked to Cascadas, a very new local mall. They actually have a place called Paiz that is much like a Wal-Mart. They also have a Hiper-Paiz, which is like a Super-Walmart. These stores are owned by Wal-Mart-- I even saw a Wal-Mart sign at the entrance this time that I had not noticed before. Anyhow, Jason, Rodolfo, and I had a great time in the mall just looking around and relaxing. After a mid-afternoon rest, Nilsy, one of the girls that is living at the Bridge House and is finishing her last year in high school, asked us to go with her to a meeting of students and parents of her class. The meeting was several miles away at a local pizza place called Pizza House. We had to take a taxi, which is a story in itself, to get there. Taxis here are funny-- they don’t have like a meter or anything to figure up the price. Here, you hail a taxi, name your price, and negotiate. Sometimes the drivers will take advantage of North Americans and try to charge outrageous prices to get around. Thankfully, Nilsy was able to get us a taxi there for 50 lempiras, which is less than $3-- not bad for anywhere in the city. The meeting we attended was for the parents and students to discuss ideas for events during their senior year, fundraisers, class officers, etc. It was neat to see that it is just as big of a deal here as it is in the states. The food was awesome too. I had a calzone, like you can get at most Italian places, not to be mistaken with another “calzone,” underwear. Lots of words in the Spanish language have multiple meanings… moving on…

Tuesday night was singles Bible study. This week we took a temperament test called the DISC test. It was not an easy test for me to take because we had to be very upfront and honest about our weaknesses when we answered questions. Each question on the test was basically a group of four words and out of the group we had to choose the one word that we are most like and the one we are least like. Each answer had a different point and scoring system that we completed after we had answered all of the questions. We had three different scores- one score reflected how others perceive us, one was how we work under stress, and the last was how we perceive ourselves. Each score had a section that talked about characteristics that went along with people who received that score. Mine was very accurate about how I perceive myself and how I work under stress, and probably even accurate at how other people perceive me. It was really good to do in a large group as a “get to know” kind of exercise. It really helped us to see what other personalities were like ours and how to involve other people in our life to try and balance out some of our weaknesses.

Wednesday was a fun trip into the city. A few of us spent most of the time walking around the mall just looking through a lot of the shops. I had a few things to pick up and was able to find everything, which doesn’t happen too often here. The exciting part of the day for me was getting to drive up the mountain road to the ranch. I have been thinking a long time about wanting to drive some to see how the busitos, (vans) handle. The vans here are not much bigger than our typical 8 passenger van in the states, except they are supposed to be for 15 passengers. The seats are very thin, and there are 4 rows of seats plus the driver’s row. They run on diesel fuel and the transmissions are standard. Luckily, I have driven a stick before and felt pretty confident with a stick shift, but it had been many years since I had driven one and never before in the conditions of the mountain road. The bumps are horrible to try to get through without feeling like your killing the people in the back of the van, and the vans don’t go up hills very well in 3rd gear like a Chevy S-10 would. However, I feel like I did ok, with much room for improvement.

Wednesday night after we returned was our second session of Spanish class hosted by all of us that do not know hardly any Spanish. Jason has the Rosetta Stone program for learning Spanish that is much like a game. It is very fun to learn with as we all try to use better accents and apply what we learn each day. Jason has a cable to hook up to the TV so that the program shows up on the TV screen. I think it is the most fun way we could possibly learn Spanish.

Thursday was a great day of soccer at the campo--- not really. I have played goalie a lot and feel like I am getting a little better finally. Or at least I did until yesterday. One of the guys that plays is Alejandro and he is very, very good. He can kick the ball very hard--- very, very, very hard. Well, to my bad, I was on the receiving end of one of those kicks yesterday. I got hit in the face and thought I saw stars. It really hit the side of my face from my ear to my cheek. Luckily, it did not do anything other than sting for a few minutes. More than luckily, my glasses didn’t even fall off and they didn’t get damaged at all. However, I did retire from soccer for the evening, go home, and relax.

Yesterday afternoon we played some AMERICAN football against the Honduran kids and LOST!!! It was soo funny--- they have so much speed they would just hand the ball off and GO with it. We finally got some momentum going but it was not enough to come back for the win. Today has been pretty slow-- I went to a birthday party for one of the kids this afternoon which was pretty fun, and that has been about it other than just hanging out with some people.
I know I say it every time, but every week things seem to get more and more comfortable and the kids are starting to open up and it is feeling very natural to be around them, teach them, and just hang out with them. It’s hard to explain the barrier there is between us and some of the kids here that are not believers. It would seem very easy living at a place like this for kids to accept Christ. However, some have come from such hard backgrounds that they want nothing to do with it, while they are still very fun kids to be around and outwardly display a very loving, kind, gentle nature. It is very neat though to see them develop and change and start to act “themselves” around us new people.

Please feel free to e-mail or write! It’s great hearing from people and I do my best to write everyone back.

I hope everyone enjoys their Labor Day weekend to the fullest and has a great time. Please let me know if there is anything I can do to pray for or help you in any way.
Love from Honduras,
Jesse Tiner