Today was a pretty awesome day. I woke up, spent some time to myself and got ready for the day. Everything starts around 7:30 most days, so Larry and I started off the day by going down the road to pick Guava on a property owned by some local missionaries. After Larry climbed the trees shaking the branches to make the ripe guava drop, I gathered them for making jam later. After we gathered guava here, a neighboring farmer offered one of his trees to us for harvesting. So we followed him past his corn field (which had video tape lines across it to scare away bird with the way it reflected the sun as the wind blew it! Appropriate technology at its best!) to a field in the middle of a jungle-like area where there was a guava tree. Larry again climbed and the other farmer and I gathered the guava that fell along the plants below.
When we were done, Larry and the farmer talked a little in spanish as I managed to pick up a few words (including the purpose of the video tape) and we went back to the property. As we were leaving, the new owner arrived with his two boys along with Papa Jack. Papa Jack is one of Larry’s spiritual fathers so it was a blessing to be able to meet him.
When we got back to the house, everyone gathered in the kitchen to make jam. This jam is used for a micro enterprise for Larry and his community. The jam is sold locally and taken back to the states to be sold for support. The community here makes a lot of the things in their kitchen from items they grow, including: hot sauce, kefir, ketchup, jam, peanut butter, and much more I am yet to eat or discover.
After making jam we cleaned up and Yui and I were able to rest for a little while in the hammock room. This was much needed. We stay so busy here and I’ve struggled to find time for myself to recharge. I love living in community and staying busy, but I also need to be intentional in finding time to spend with God and recharging for the events of the day. I am going to try to be more intentional with my mornings as those times, please pray for me to find balance in this. I want to take in so much but I also want to keep myself in the best condition for serving here and being present and to do that I need to find time for Christ and my introverted needs. So yeah, pray for my balance of community and Christ.
Every Saturday, many young people from around the community are welcomed to campus (we call the community we live on Campus) to spend some time with us playing games and eating snack! Today we had about 21 kids come and play a game called Nuke ‘Em on the volleyball courts. Many of these kids are orphans and though they misbehave at times because of those roots, they were really fun to hang out with today. Some of the interns living with Larry and Allison used to come to these "young people days" to play games and are now being intentionally poured into by the Smoaks. This is one of the ways they have found students to disciple and really feed biblical principles to through intentional community. The intentionality of the discipleship program is unique here and I am enjoying learning from them on a daily basis.
When the kids left, Yui helped me harvest the areas I have been assigned. One of my responsibilities while i’m here is to harvest some peppers, guava, avocado, passion fruit and anything else they ask me. We use these in the kitchen for our own meals and to barter with our friend Mario in the market. I climbed up into our guava tree out front and tried to jump around as i’d seen Larry do earlier. It was fun. ALSO along with the these plants, we got a bread fruit! This is a fruit I tried in Jamaica and LOVED! Larry said these usually don’t fall until August so I was thinking I wouldn’t get to have it, but God blessed us with one today! When we were done harvesting, Yui and I made dinner. Larry showed us the Honduran way to cook breadfruit- deep frying it until golden brown with salt. It tastes a lot like french fries but with a more interesting texture. It was great.
Louis came home tonight as well and he, Yui and myself played a little settlers of Catan after cleaning up. Yui won.
Today was a lot of fun! I am very tired though and wishing I knew more spanish. Pray for me as I translate things. I am struggling at times to know when to try to pay attention and participate in Spanish conversations. There is only so much I can listen to through out the day. Trying to think in 2 languages is tiring, but I am really feeling God redeem all of those tears I've cried struggling to succeed in Spanish. PTL!
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