"Are you challenged? Or are you changed?"

I think my understanding of life as I know it is changing. Last night at Perspectives, rather than going over the articles we'd read, we instead watched Revival: Hymn, something I'd never even heard of til coming here. Supposedly it's very famous. Last night i found out why. He talked about things I'd never even heard of before. Why was I never taught this stuff? Main point: The Lamb deserves the rewards for His sufferings. Say that a few times out loud. It's a monumentally different way of looking at missions and Christianity in general. And yet, it makes so much sense. Humanists, which is what most Christians

are, see God as a means to an end. God granted me salvation so that, in the end, I can be happy. But shouldn't God be the end? Our happiness is only a byproduct of giving glory to God. Why should we do missions? Why am I sitting in a third-world country sweating constantly and and placing dirty fingers on guitar strings rather than sitting at my safe, air-conditioned home in New Jersey? Not because these people deserve a chance to hear about God. But rather because God deserves the chance for His people to know Him and worship Him and live for Him. He deserves it! He suffered and died for us and what does He get in return? Ten percent of our wages? He deserves us giving up our lives to serve Him. Once you realize that... well, it sort of changes everything.

Honduras, as usual, is wonderful. Hot and sticky, but wonderful. Strangely quiet without Liz and Julia, but still wonderful. Probably made even more wonderful because Amanda is now here!!Since writing last, schools have been cancelled so we haven't had much teaching to do. We did attend the weekly class in Margarita on Saturday morning which was awesome as usual. Nancy, one of the new workers at the hospital who

Julia had become close with, came this week, and picked up the guitar extremely fast. And her english wasn't too shabby either. The 4:00 class in Lucinda is going well too. I finally know all of their names and some of them even break out in a little smile when they see me coming. But otherwise I think they think I'm a slavedriver. I question them about a million times "What day is today" and they give me blank stares until they realize that I'm going to keep asking, so they finally give in and answer. At about 4:30 we always head over to the smaller classroom to play piano/guitar with Mito and whoever else comes. Mito hasn't come in about a week, so we always find ourselves with about 7 or 8 little kids who can barely read but are so engrossed by our presence that they always come. We sing songs for about 45 minutes together and they belt every word, even when they don't know them. One girl, Darlene (or Stefani... I've never understood the two name thing), is 16 and has started coming every day to sing with us. She has a beautiful voice and her English pronunciation is pretty good. She invited Natalie and I to the youth group at her church on Friday night, as well as possibly to come over to her house on Sunday. The fact that these Hondurans actually want to get to know us and spend time with us is so awesome. Hopefully we'll be able to learn a lot about her life. The whole language barrier tends to make that a problem, but maybe we can like draw pictures or something.

Probably the highlight of the past few days was our adventures on Saturday after teaching in Margarita. We had originally planned to go to Rio Esteban to play in a beach volleyball tournament (Yes, try to picture that one) with a youth group from La Ceiba. However, with all the political stuff going on, the group didn't come. Dr. Don decided instead that it would be fun to go visit Deyni & Delmi's house in Rio Esteban. So Miss Penny drove Me, Natalie, and Lindy from Margarita to Rio Esteban, while Dr. Don was talking to a few people still in Margarita. We arrive at their house with open arms. Bictelia (their mother, whose name all this time i've been spelling wrong) and Walter (their brother aka Luis, again with the two names!) were extremely gracious in taking us in. Delmi was sick so she wasn't talking much but still had a huge smile on her face. Deyni arrived and we all sat around and chatted and made birthday videos for Dr. Don. Then Deyni decided we should go crocodile hunting. Yes. Crocodile hunting. So we run for like 2 minutes into this swamp-like area with the most incredible trees with roots like 5-6 feet high. Deyni says she's seen crocodiles there before and leads us in climbing up the trees to sit on a branch about 10 feet over the water of the pond. We didn't see any crocs, thank goodness, although we did see a dead dog in the water. Maybe a crocodile was close? Deyni then led us about 20 yards further to the beach! It was gorgeous and we all frolicked along in the sand/water.

Deyni then turns to us and asks (in spanish) "What's blue with lots of little black spots?" We were all stumped by the riddle, so Deyni turns around and points over to the water full of people and says "The beach at Rio Esteban". I love people who speak Spanish with a sense of humor. Wonderful. After returning to Deyni's house, we chatted some more on the hammock (hamaca) and Bictelia cooked us a huge lunch. We drank the water (and took medicine today so that we wouldn't get a worm hahah). Her hospitality is still so humbling, what a precious woman. By 2:15 we had to leave because our only means of getting home was with public transportation. Honduran public transportation is a most amusing thing. It is simply a rejected yellow school bus from the States, decorated nicely inside with messages in Spanish, such as "Don't have a bad temper! Smile!". Natalie and I were of course the only gringos on the bus. It was quite the experience. We were dropped off near the missionary compound and I handed the man 30 lempira, about $2 for the both of us. Extremely efficient. We spent the rest of the day at one of the missionaries' houses having a 4th of July cookout. It was the weirdest thing ever. Everyone was decked out in their America shirts and I was just so confused. It certainly did NOT feel like 4th of July.

As for what the politics here are looking like now, I really don't know. We haven't heard much, it's been pretty quiet. There were rumors Sunday of Nicaraguan troops at the ready to help Zelaya return to the country, but that clearly didn't work. Zelaya was unable to land on the runway in Teguc and was directed to San Salvador. He was supposed to meet with Clinton today in DC I believe to work out "negotiations". The longer Zelaya is out of the country, the better. But, we're daily placing this whole situation in God's hands, praying that He'll get us out of the country safely when the time comes. There is still a curfew every night, although it pretty much

changes every day. A government mandate was supposedly issued yesterday for schools to start up again, finally. So, we'll have work to do! We're going to the school in Balfate tomorrow morning, and then Dr. Don and I will be heading up in the mountains to the schools in Diamontes, Las Flores, and Satal. Should be an adventure. All of this for God's glory. He deserves it.