I went to dear, ol’ Texas for the Navidad, and I’m really glad that I was able to. I so enjoyed getting to spend time with my family and friends there. (I miss y’all!)

Last Christmas it was my first time to go home since moving to Honduras, and it was hard. I had adjusted really well to my new life in Honduras and then it was time to go back, and I wasn’t sure how to feel about it. When I got to the airport in Houston, I cried. And I felt like it took me a while to adjust and be happy about being home. When it was time to go, I was ready to get back here. Thankfully, this year was different. It was my third visit home, and apparently it’s like they say: the third time’s the charm 😉 I was happy to go home for Christmas and I enjoyed my time there. And when it was time to leave, I was sad. I couldn’t believe the time had gone by so quickly! And I think that that’s how it should be. I think I should feel sad to leave a place if I’ve enjoyed my time there. So I’m grateful. Wherever I am, I want to be all there and I want to be joyful.

On this lovely Saturday, I’m chilling in the city house. Saturdays are so nice. It’s the only day we don’t have any commitments…usually. I slept until 9:15 or so, watched a silly movie with Tiff & Amanda, ate a donut, played my uke while Michele played her guitar, drank coffee that our landlord brought by, and now I’m bloggin’ it up.

Now, let me tell you about the happenings here. We had two sets of mentor parents move back to the States over Christmas break, so we’re short a few people and it has led to some changes. My roommates and I are now helping with homework time after school and mentor time a couple of evenings a week. We’re still in the city on the weekends and on Mondays, but we’re staying at the Ranch Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday nights. This past week was our second full week with our new schedule. It was weird being at the Ranch for so long, but I think that I’m really going to enjoy getting to spend time with the kids outside of school. I feel more like a missionary. It was nice to be able to help my students with their homework, and our mentor time with five 6-7 year old boys was CRAZY and so much fun! I’m excited to see how God uses this time to grow our relationships with them.

Let me share a story (: One of the little boys who is in my second grade class is in the family we’re helping with homework. I get to be at his house twice a week for homework time. He came to class a couple weeks ago wanting me to play “Speak Life” by Tobymac.  This week when bringing his little brother home after our “mentor time” with him, my roommate and I hung out at their house for a while and this little guy asked me what the name of his favorite song was so he could tell one of the other boys. I asked why he liked it so much–was it the words, the sound..? And he said he didn’t know because he wasn’t even sure what all of the words were saying. So this week after he got finished with his homework, we wrote down the lyrics. I took a screenshot on my iPad and we wrote half one day and the other half the next. It was so good, y’all. I don’t know if it sounds like that great of a thing, but it makes my heart so happy. He wanted me to write the song down because he likes my handwriting (even though his is super good). At first I didn’t want to because I wanted him to be involved in it too, but then he said he’d read it to me so I could write it. The teacher in me saw all of the wonderful opportunities in that suggestion! What an excellent way to practice his English pronunciation, gain confidence, and share a little bonding time.

I’m very hopeful for other sweet moments like these, among the crazy ones that I know will come as well. These kids are so special. I worry sometimes because they don’t have the kind of family that God intends for kids to have. I don’t want them to have hard hearts. I don’t want them to be angry at God for what they’ve had to go through. I don’t want them to be cynical. I don’t want them to leave the Ranch without experiencing God’s love for them. I know that they’ve learned a lot about the Bible and that’s good. But it doesn’t matter if they never experience God for themselves. Head knowledge is good, but it’s not enough.

Please pray for these kids. And pray for the counselors, teachers, mentor parents, Sunday-school teachers, and all of the others involved in their lives. Sometimes I forget about their souls and I’m not thinking about the spiritual realities. These little (and big) guys have a lot against them, but they have a lot for them as well. Pray for breakthrough and healing and true relationship with the God who loves them and knows them completely. Pray that the people influencing them would join with Jesus and his plans for them. Pray that we wouldn’t forget what’s truly important.

Thank you for reading & caring & supporting.

Much love,

Lindsey

I feel tired a lot. More often than not, when someone asks how I’m doing, my response is, “Good, just tired.” I don’t like that! Why can’t I just feel “good”?! My schedule is pretty full and my days are long. I enjoy the things that I’m doing, but it just seems like there isn’t enough time in the day to do all the things I need to do, much less the things I want to do. I’ve thought that it would be wonderful if I could just press “pause” on the day to get some work done in my classroom, or to go take a nap before jumping back into real life.

Hmm. I read something once that said, “God has given you enough time to do everything He wants you to do.” I believe that. I don’t think God expects things of me that are impossible to accomplish. I don’t think He says, “Lindsey, do all of these things!” and then laughs to Jesus and the Holy Spirit saying,”Suckerrr! I didn’t give her enough time.”  God is nice.

Last week for Bible class, my kids memorized Matthew 11:28. “Jesus said, ‘Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.'” And then in verses 29 & 30, “Take my yoke upon you. Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy to bear, and the burden I give you is light.” I’ve heard these verses a lot. It’s easy for me to just skim over them and think, “Oh, that’s so nice.” But when I slow down to think about it, I wonder, “Why do I want a teacher who is humble?” That kind of seems weird. If someone were to ask me what I wanted in a teacher, I don’t think humility would be the first characteristic I would mention. When I think about it though, I do want a humble teacher. If my teacher is not humble, he won’t be proud and pleased when I succeed. If my teacher is not humble, he won’t be able to get on my level and teach me in a way that I can understand. If my teacher is not humble, he won’t be patient with me. But a humble teacher will be patient with my mistakes and misunderstandings, eager to celebrate my successes, and quick to encourage me and support me.

If we’re stressing out and feeling hopelessly tired, we’re doing it wrong. Jesus says that his yoke is easy to bear and that his burden is light. Jesus is humble and gentle, but the world is not. The world pulls at us and weighs us down and gives us more than we can handle, but Jesus tells us, “Come to me! I’m not like that. I want to give you rest. I want to give you the burdens that are right for you–the ones you’re able to bear. I’m a good teacher.”

I want to let Jesus teach me. I want to trust Him and go to Him always. I want to learn from the Only One who can truly give me rest for my soul. Because I’m tired. And I know that I need Him. And I was made to glorify Him and enjoy Him forever. So I want to do that. Pray for me, amigos! I’ll pray for y’all too.

XOXO,

Lindsey

“Take a moment to remember

Who God is and who I am

There you go, lifting my load again

No longer am I held by

The yoke of this world

Come up under the yoke of Jesus

His yoke is easy, His burden is so light”

–Will Reagan & UPB (Take a Moment)

School is in full swing!

I have 28 students this year: 12 in first grade, 9 in second grade, and 7 in third grade. I know it may not seeeem like many kids, but it really is. Last year I just had 5 & 6 kids in my two classes. And for more comparison, 4th-6th grades only have 14 kids in total: 4 in fourth grade, 3 in fifth grade, and 7 in sixth grade.

I wish you could come and meet them all in person, but for now, here are some pictures of the little guys:

You can’t see them all, but these are my 12 first graders. They LOVE to color!!

Here are my goofy third graders (:

This is one of our newest little guys on the Ranch! I worked with him during one-on-one before school started and he started out with me in first grade, but he’s been moved down to kindergarten to have work that is better suited for him.

These are three of the kids that come up to our school from the community outside the Ranch. They’re so sweet!

And here is little Franklin. He broke his leg playing soccer this summer, and for a while, I had to carry him up and down the stairs at school. (: It was not a burden to me at all!

Sadly, I don’t have a picture of all the second graders yet. I’ll work on that for the next blog or for a Facebook post!

All of these kids are different and they’re all so special. I love that I get to be their teacher. I’ve already been told, and I believe, that this year will grow and stretch me. I have more students this year–some, very difficult ones. I’ve especially struggled with the first graders, but I’ve already seen improvement with them since the beginning of the school year. Still, I would definitely appreciate prayers for how to teach them & love them & discipline them well. They’re a big class with some strong personalities, and they’ve been the most difficult for me to manage.

Also, pray that I would be able to think of fun & entertaining ways to teach them and keep them engaged! And please pray for the hearts and spirits of all of our kids. So many of them have gone through extremely difficult situations that have hurt them and affected them, but we want them to know how precious they are to God and how much he loves them. I so want them to understand their worth and value in the Lord. Pray that despite how their earthly parents have treated them or what they’ve gone through, that they’ll be able to see God as a good father who loves them completely and wants the best for them. Pray that the teachers, counselors, and mentor parents would be led by the Holy Spirit in the way that we love and minister to them. Pray that we would have eyes to see past the physical, obvious realities, and that we would see the real sources of their issues, and have the wisdom to deal with them as we should. I don’t want these kids to grow up knowing a lot about God and the Bible, but never really receiving the healing that they need and knowing God as a good & loving & perfect Father. Please join in the battle for these kids’ eternities by interceding for them.

And pray for me and my roommates, too. It’s been difficult to get used to our new schedule of traveling back and forth to the Ranch everyday, figuring out how to get everything done, spend quality time together, and still have time to sleep! Being a teacher is a lot of work. Not surprisingly, I never realized that as a student. The teacher was the one with the easy job..she just told us what to do and we were the ones who actually had to do all the work. But, I have learned a lesson. Teachers work hard. It takes a lot of time to prepare–and prepare well–for little learners.

My lovely housemates: Michele, Racheal, Tiffany, & Amanda

All of the teachers and our principal (:

Even with the changes and difficulties, I’m definitely still grateful to be here. Living in the city means having to drive back and forth to school everyday, but there are so many benefits to living in the city. We’ve gotten to go to grocery stores, coffee shops, & restaurants that we never knew about last year living at the Ranch. It’s also been wonderful that we can be more involved in our church and have increased opportunities to spend time with people and build relationships. Amanda and I are part of a house group now, and we’re so happy about it! It’s been such a blessing to be able to meet up with people from church to talk about Jesus and build relationships. We’ve gone out to lunch with friends, invited people over to hang out, and had dinner and coffee with friends from church. I’m excited about the new friendships that we’ve started developing! And I still get surprised when I realize I can have good relationships with people in Spanish! It’s so cool!

Grupo CASA (House Group) at our house, celebrating Amanda’s birthday!

Thank you, thank you, thank you for your support and for reading my blog. I’m so thankful for all of the people who support me financially, pray for me, and just for all of you who “get” what I’m doing here.

Thanks for being awesome (:

Lindsey

Hello!

It’s only been two weeks since my last blog, and here I am posting a new one! Progress! I would like to update you on Summer Learning Fun, city life, one-on-one instruction, and talk a little about what God has been showing me lately.

Amanda (one of my four roomies) and I were told a couple weeks before our furloughs finished that we would be taking over Summer Learning Fun–the half-day summer school program–when we got back. I had just assumed that I’d have two weeks to chill and hang out in the city when I got here, so I wasn’t super excited, initially. However, now that I’ve made it through the two weeks of the program, I can say that I’m so grateful we got to do it! It was a nice way to ease back into teacher life and get a read on the students I’ll be having this year. I had third & fourth grade and first & second grade for an hour each in the mornings, and then worked one-on-one with three of our new kids in the afternoons.

The third & fourth graders were my kids from last year, so everything was fine with them, except that I think they may be a little too comfortable with me. I’ll have to crack my whip when school starts again to straighten ’em out! 😉 The first & second graders were crazies last year, so I was actually a little nervous to work with them. We definitely did have some crazy times, but we also had some wonderful, productive times as well, so I’m optimistic about working with those little peeps. Oh! NEWS: I am now the teacher of first, second, and third grade Language Arts! Last year I just had second & third, and along with teaching Language Arts to them, I also taught Math to third grade and Science to second & third. This year I am solely teaching Language Arts and I’m very excited about it. Language Arts is my fave!!

Now, allow me to tell you about my afternoon one-on-ones. I worked for about 35 minutes each with two brothers, 4 & 6 (approximately), who came to the Ranch just about a week before I got back to The Hon, and a little 4/5 year old girl who came to the Ranch with her older sister at the end of May. I had the youngest boy first, his older brother, and then the little girl. We started out kinda rough, but we made progress! By the end of the two weeks, the older brother, who started his first day CRYYYYYING the whole time and refusing to respond to me or look at me, was sitting by me in chapel, holding my hand, and running out of his house to head down to the school when I came to pick him up for our one-on-one. Woohoo! I don’t know how much he actually learned, but I’m so glad that he’s not afraid to go to school anymore and that he feels more comfortable in the classroom. His little brother did well and I think that he’s going to fit right into Pre-K! The little girl is crazy smart and I feel very confident that she is going to excel this year in school! Here are a few pictures of the cuties:

We certainly have some gentlemen on the Ranch and we start ’em young! I love me some good manners. So, Summer Learning was a win, I enjoyed working with the little guys for one-on-one, and I’m excited for school to start!

Speaking of excitement and enjoying things…it’s been wonderful being in the city! I was sad to leave the Ranch and worried that I’d miss it, but city life has been so nice. We can go to the grocery store without planning ahead for the entire next week and it’s not a big deal if we forget something. There are so many cool places that we’re finding, we’re able to be part of a life group/home group now, and the drive to church is really short. We’re in a very good location, and it’s loads of fun being here. It’s more like real life. This past Wednesday, Amanda and I left the Ranch early because we had to be home so a repairman could come and fix our washer. After he left, we had so much time left in the day, so we went to this coffee/gelato/bakery place by our house, a cool grocery store we’d never been to that had some things we hadn’t seen here before, and we got dinner at a yummy baleada place.

And now, to the finale: what God has been showing me. These past couple of weeks, God has been showing me things about myself that I don’t necessarily enjoy seeing, but I’m grateful that He is exposing in me. I need to grow in loving people. And I want to. But I’m realizing that loving people is hard. I’ve started noticing how often I judge people and compare their words or actions to what I would say or do. I’ve realized that it doesn’t come naturally for me to help people and put them first and offer encouraging words. It also makes me so thankful that Jesus loves me unconditionally. He doesn’t feel differently about me based on the amount of good or bad I do. He isn’t constantly criticizing me or feeling disappointed in me. The love He has for His people is constant, unchanging, and unfailing. I think that as I grow in the Lord and rest in His Love for me, I’ll be able to love people better. As I am humbled by His Love for me, I’ll be able to humble myself to truly love others.

Would you pray that God would enable me to love people like He does? Would you please pray that this year will be a year of growth, encouragement, and deeper understanding of the Father’s love for us? I want my kids to excel this year. I want to be an excellent teacher that helps them grow in the Lord and further their education. Please pray that all of us teachers would have wisdom in how to teach, love, and discipline our kids. Pray that little hearts would be healed and that the Holy Spirit would have His way.

This is going to be a good year!!

Thanks for the love and support!

XO,

Lindsey

I’m happy to say that I am back in Honduras! Right now, I’m sitting in the kitchen of our new house in the city on one of the bar stools my brother built when he was here visiting. It was so nice having him come & letting him see the Ranch and meet my kids, see our new house, and go on unplanned adventures. I love my brother, so it was way cool that he was able to come and see my life here before I went back to the States for the summer.

It’s kind of weird having two lives. Two homes. Being part of two different cultures. Weird, but cool. It’s interesting to see the differences and similarities. There are some things I like way better in Honduras, and some things I prefer in the States. I have to say that I definitely prefer the movie theaters in Honduras. They’re cleaner and better quality for way less! I paid about $4 to go see Ant Man tonight with the girls and it was a lovely experience! While at home in the States, I went with my family to see the Avengers and I think we paid like $13 each (for 3D). It was hard for me to enjoy it just knowing that I could have seen three movies here for the same price! Also, if you pay about $10, you can go to the VIP theater with leather reclining seats and menu service. So yeah, on movies, Honduras wins! The US certainly takes the prize though when it comes to accessibility and convenience. Things are so quick and you have so much to choose from. When I first got back, I couldn’t stop freaking out about all the choices I had at HEB! And the States has Target. So that’s a big plus for them. I don’t think any country wins though. Definitely not. There are pros and cons to each and I’m thankful to get to experience the good (and bad) of both!

Wednesday night before I left to come here, I didn’t sleep. And for those of you who know me, you know it’s not just because I was super excited and couldn’t fall asleep; you know that I, of course, had saved my packing until the last minute and I was up until it was time to go getting it all done! I did get it done though AND (big plus) I was early to the airport! My flight was at 5:10 am and we got there at like 3:50. That’s the earliest I’ve ever gotten there for these early morning flights. So bam! I didn’t even have to rush. I will say that lack of sleep does not make for the best traveling experience, but I still made it to Honduras, and there were good things. I had coffee, the lady next to me on the plane was nice, I met a nice guy who is also a teacher & he helped me with my heavy bags, and I was greeted by my wonderful, beautiful friends when I came out from the baggage claim!! We picked up Popeye’s, came back to the house, hung out, I unpacked, we organized, etc. and then went to a store kind of like Sear’s (called Lady Lee) and paid for a couch and washer/dryer. They’ll be coming in tomorrow! We ran more errands today and I picked up curtains, a trash can, and a fan for my room. The curtains are awesome, the trash can is too small, and the fan didn’t work. We’ll be exchanging it tomorrow! And it’s sad because I was feeling so proud for figuring out how to put it together (with a tiny bit of help from Amanda). I’ll get another chance with my new one though and if it works, I can feel super proud!

I so enjoyed my time in the States. I loved getting to hang out with my sweet friends and make a million Target runs & drink lots of Starbucks. I got to go to Mid-Cities and go to the Spanish service! It was good to be with my family and spend time with them. My bed was really soft. And I had fun with my little animales. Driving was easy. And, you know, there was Target. I am so thankful for my six weeks back home, but I’m also really thankful to be back here. I know that this is where God has me and it feels good. I feel at peace (:

I’m excited to be living in the city this year, to be doing life with my four lovely roommates, and to be teaching second and third grade. I can’t wait to give you more updates as this year progresses! I’ll go ahead and tell you now that I’m planning to write a blog every two weeks. My original goal was once a month, but by the time the month was up, there was too much to write about and just getting started felt overwhelming! I didn’t write at all when I was at home during furlough and before that, I think my last post was at the end of May. So, sorry about that. Some of you may not have realized it’s been that long until now, but it has! Now though, that you know I want to write a blog every two weeks & you’ve seen it right here all typed up, you have permission to check in on me when I’m slacking. When it’s been 15 days and I haven’t posted a new blog, you can message me and say, “Lindsey, what’s up?! It’s been 15 days and you said you would write a blog every 14 days! I care about your life and your goals and so I just wanted to check in on you and help you to accomplish this goal that you have set for yourself.” It might sound like I’m kidding, but I’m really not. Help me out!! I’m giving you permission. I’m asking for it: Will you please check in on me?! Kindly..? (:

Okay. Thank you for reading my blog. Thank you for caring about my life. I appreciate it so much!! If you’d like to pray for me, I could use prayer to grow in loving people. Also, growing in obedience. God showed me while I was at home (through Spanish church) that I’ve been tolerating sin in my life and I don’t want to do that anymore. Please pray that I’ll continually choose the better thing (Jesus) and learn to truly delight in Him and enjoy Him. Pray that the next two weeks of Summer Learning with the kids will go well and be a good transition back into teacher life & that I’ll get everything organized for this school year. If I can be praying for you, please let me know! Message me, email me, Facebook me..whatever works for you!

May we be people who put our trust in God’s love and love others the way that He has loved us!

Love & blessings,

Lindsey

[Annnnd shout out to the people who came over to play games and drink coffee!! We must play Mafia again!]

This post will be like a photo album of the latest happenings here in the Honds (as we affectionately refer to Honduras). Also, I think I’m going to throw in some Spanish. We have a book in my class called Rubia and the Three Osos (Goldilocks and the Three Bears), and I love it because it’s mostly English, but lots of the words like soft, hard, Mama, Baby, plate, chair, etc. are in Spanish. At the back of the book there’s a glossary so you can see what the Spanish words mean if you aren’t sure, but how they’re used in the context makes it pretty easy to figure out. If you aren’t sure of the meanings of the Spanish words I use in my blog, I’ll have a little glossary at the end for you! 😉

Primeramente, at the end of febrero, we went to the Mission House (another part of WGO) and worked with a team from the Estados on a medical brigade. The first día I was part of the children’s center. We sang canciones with them, gave them bracelets, and shared the gospel. Then we checked them for lice, did lice treatments, washed hair, and fixed hair at the end. It was a long day and it was busy, but I really enjoyed it. One of the things I really liked was that I was able to share the gospel and tell these niños about Jesus all in español. I loved that I was able to do that! Learning another idioma is exciting.

The segundo día I was in dentistry. In the morning, I did a lot of standing around. In the afternoon though, I was able to brush a lot of teeth, and watch an extraction. It was humbling to brush people’s dientes. It was also humbling to not have much to do, and to realize that the medical brigade wasn’t about me. It was okay that I didn’t have a big, important role. It was such a different kind of mission trip because I knew that these people had raised dinero, taken off work, and prepared for months to come and serve for a week in “another country,” while we just drove an hour to join them. It was weird because Honduras used to just be “another country” to me, and I came here on a mission trip two years ago, but now I live here and I was able to join other people coming for a mission trip. It was a different kind of thing, but definitely really cool, and I enjoyed being able to serve here fuera of the ranch in this place that is now my home. I’d love to be part of another medical brigade.

I posted about this on Facebook already, but I had a trash pick-up day with my kids one Saturday, and they loved it! I really didn’t do anything to motivate them or get them excited about it. We read a story in our textbook about recycling and taking care of the planeta, and then they started talking about picking up trash. They kept on about wanting to do it, so al fin I planned a day for them to live out their dream! And actually, it was a lot of fun. Amanda and I took a busito out to the community and picked up my kids who don’t live on the rancho, and when we got back, all of the other kids were at our meeting spot ready to go! We split into teams, picked up basura, and then met up at the playground. I took pictures of their cute selves and all their trash, and then we drank Zuko (like Kool-aid) and played on the playground. It was a fun mañana!

Aren’t they the cutest?! I wish you could all meet them porque they’re the best.

In January we had a school spelling bee like you wouldn’t believe! It was SOOO much more fun than a normal spelling bee, with funny skits in between each grade level. I never knew a spelling bee could be so emocionante! And to make it even better, this year, our winners from each grade got to participate in a regional spelling bee at the International School in the city.  Tiffany, my roommate, and I got to be part of it también. She was a judge for the seventh graders and I was the caller for third grade. I really enjoyed my tiempo there and all of our kids had a great time too! We ended the day by going to Denny’s to eat lunch and celebrar. None of our kids placed or even got close (I don’t think), but they all had excellent attitudes and still felt good about being able to participate in the spelling bee. I hope I’ll get to go with them again next year!

At the end of March/beginning of April, we celebrated Semana Santa. For a whole week, there was no school, and pretty much everything shut down. Of course, Wal-Mart did not rest, but what can you expect? My roommates and I went to the city, shopped, spent one noche in a nice hotel and one in our friend’s apartamento, went to see a película, and watched a soccer match with some people from church. We had a blast! It’s always nice to have a break from the normal routine and just have some time to relax and have fun.

I think that sums up most of the major eventos that have gone on lately.

I’m gonna stop here even though I have so much more to share because I don’t want y’all to get bored! I will post a new blog with noticias about some upcoming changes for me here very soon! I’m gonna shoot for posting it within a week. Below, you will find the promised glossary 😉

As always, thank you for reading my blog. Thank you for praying for me, not forgetting about me, and supporting me. I’m so, so grateful for all the people who are excited about what I’m doing here and how the Lord is moving. I look forward to updating y’all on some exciting news very soon!!

Love,

Lindsey

al fin–at the end; finally

apartamento–apartment

basura–trash

brigada–brigade

busito–little bus

canciones–songs

celebrar–to celebrate

ciudad–city

día–day

dientes–teeth

dinero–money

emocionante–exciting

español–Spanish

eventos–events

febrero–February

fuera–outside

gente–people

idioma–language

mañana–morning (or tomorrow)

niños–kids

noche–night

noticias–news

osos–bears

película–movie

planeta–planet

porque–because

primeramente–firstly

rancho–ranch

Rubia–Blonde (Goldilocks)

segundo–second

Semana Santa–Holy Week

tiempo–time

If you know me, you know I’m not the most prompt, timely person. And you would also probably say that that’s an understatement. I know, it’s true. I wish I had written a new blog before now, but what can ya do?

I’ll try and catch y’all up.

The last time I wrote was a couple weeks before I was going to head home for Christmas. The two weeks of school before our break were so much fun and they flew by!! Here are some pictures of our good times!

Baking Christmas cookies!

This isn’t the greatest picture, but I got to have some of my second and third graders who live on the ranch over to my house to bake cookies for our Christmas party and I really enjoyed it! It’s so cool that I can just invite them over to my house. I might have been exhausted when they left, but we had a good time!

And speaking of our Christmas party….

Here’s a picture you may have seen on my Facebook of the cutest kids in the world celebrating together at school! We ate yummy food, gave presents, and watched Christmas cartoons.

And, we got to wear pajamas!! Another exciting thing that day was that we ate outside on the basketball court. That may not sound like a ton of fun, but check out our set-up!

When you can’t just run over to Walmart or Target or the nearest party store, you get creative. And we definitely have some crafty, creative people with good ideas here!

We had a big Christmas program and lunch on our last day of school, and then got out at noon. And then we (me and my teacher amigas) tanned under the warm, bright sun in the middle of December.

Explanation: My poor student got knocked in the eye with a music stand!! And, you may notice that I’m holding a ribbon.. We won third place in the Christmas door-decorating contest!

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And now I will transition into the going back to Texas part of this post. Honestly, it was really hard leaving Honduras. I wanted to see my family and friends, but Honduras is my new normal, so it definitely wasn’t easy to leave. I flew from Tegucigalpa to Houston, and then set my feet on U.S. soil for the first time in almost 5 months. That’s not a craaaaazy long time, but it’s the longest I’d ever been away from my family, so it was long for me. It was different seeing so many white people in public and not speaking Spanish to anyone 😉 I got a donut from Shipley’s, got some coffee from Starbuck’s, went over to my gate, sat down, and cried. I didn’t mean to and I didn’t even realize it was coming, but yeah, I cried. I had to remind myself again–like I mentioned in my last blog post long ago—that Jesus is my home. He’d been with me in Honduras, He was with me then, and would be with me in Odessa. After taking some time to journal and listen to Jesus music, and just get my thoughts out to the Lord, I felt comforted and way better. It took a while (like a little over a week) for me to really adjust to being back in Texas, but I really had a good time, and I was really grateful to get to hang out with my friends and family!!

Here are some pictures 🙂

Fun times with my hermanos going to see Christmas lights, making a gingerbread village, and hanging out (:

Awesome, last minute road trip to Ruidoso with my wonderful family! We had a blast snow tubing, hanging out, and almost burning down our cabin. Shout out to Dayna for noticing the smoke!

Here’s our little family photo shoot. This was also the day that I ate a yummy steak from Logan’s Roadhouse. Woot woot!

While I was home, we had some crazy, not normal, icy weather. I was supposed to head back to Honduras on a Saturday, but my flight was cancelled due to the winter weather. When I first found out, I was upset. Also, it was super annoying because I had to call United and talk to a computer that kept asking me if I wanted to book a new flight for “today or yesterday.” Really? Thankfully, I was able to talk to a real live person, and she booked me a flight for Monday. I still wasn’t happy about it, but I knew that it wasn’t a surprise to God and that it would end up being good, and that I needed to change my attitude.

So, of course, everything worked out wonderfully and I got to hang out with all these people that I wouldn’t have had the chance to see if I’d left on Saturday. I got to get coffee with a sweet friend, go to a super fun surprise party, go to church one more time, talk to my estudiante y amigo, have lunch with friends & family, and see some of the awesome people who support me. It ended up being a really good thing. God’s pretty smart 😉

It still took me a while to get back to my Honduras home because my flight was suuuuuuper delayed out of Midland due to unpreparedness on the part of United. But, since it was their fault that I missed every flight going to Honduras that Monday, they gave me meal vouchers, booked me a hotel room, and scheduled a new flight for me for the next day. And it was first class! That was pretty cool. I still don’t know how I feel about United after all this, but the free stuff helps. And I actually enjoyed having an extra day alone to think and relax. God knew that would be good for me too.

Anyways, I’m back again and I’m glad. I’m thankful for changes that I didn’t expect. I’m thankful that God always has my back and that He works all things together for good for those who love Him and are called according to His purposes! I’m also thankful that He has me in a place with pretty, warm weather during the winter (most days).

I’m gonna stop this blog now because I think it’s gone on long enough and I don’t want to cram anything else into this post. I’ll save more for another (hopefully soon) time.

Thank you for reading my blog, amigos y familia y patrocinadores. Thanks for the prayers and support. I so appreciate you all!

Y’all are the bomb.com!

Peace & love,

Lindsey