In Honduras, September 10th is National Children’s Day so as a school this past Friday we celebrated Children’s Day by canceling school and throwing a party with Pizza, cold Coke, tons of cakes, music, games, and piñatas. We celebrated from 9-12 and it was so much fun getting to love on and play with our kids without worrying about having to flip a switch and become teachers again after 20 minutes of playing around. All of the kids get all prettied up and fancy so they can sweat on a 108 degree day (real feel) as they run in sack races. It wound up getting too hot so Josh and I raced in our class’ stead. We had a little Michael Jackson show up and show off his moves, and we had a future CCA student show off all of his moves while everyone cheered him on. Keep on praying for our awesome kids that God will raise them up in Him for His glory.
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Here are a couple of pictures of Andrea this year during recess. Please be praying for our buddy, Andrea, because we cannot help her at our school so she cannot come too often but we are using some connections to see if we cannot find a special needs ministry or school somewhere near us that we can recommend to her mother. Pulhapanzak is a 150ft waterfall here in Honduras where we went as a group of teachers on Saturday the 26th in order to bond before the school year. At Pulhapanzak we went ziplining over the waterfall and some of us waded through the base while being buffeted by the waterfall, and all of it was so amazing. God has made some amazing things for us to marvel at and enjoy. The view from above the waterfall is absolutely breathtaking. It was awesome getting to enjoy each other’s fellowship and hear all of the teachers laugh with each other. God is good.
The Global Year Students and I flew into San Pedro Sula around 1:00 local time on Saturday, August 19th, and we have been working to get our school ready to start Monday. While typing this up, I am noticing approximately 60 tiny bugs of different varieties that find my bed as comfortable as I do. Woohoo! If only I had brought bug spray. Since we stepped off the plane we have been working at the school painting bathrooms, moving large office-desks from classroom to classroom, unpacking PACEs, and every other little thing that needs to be done. Today, one day before school starts, we are ready to start school. There has already been a pretty nifty God moment come from an annoying situation we had with preparing the school. Our first grade classroom has a gigantic crack in it so a local charity organization, CEPUDO, is going to fix it so it doesn’t fall off the end of the building, which will take 3 days, so our first graders will be starting on Thursday. While this has been a thorn in our side, God has used it to provide because we now have enough chairs for all of our students until we receive extra desks and chairs from CEPUDO on the first day of school. He is definitely good, and He promises to provide what we need if we are seeking Him first. After 261 days in Honduras, Jesus has brought me back home to Roswell. These are some pictures from the airport in San Pedro (Meg got cut out, sorry Meg!) and from a couple different times that mom forced us to take some pictures, including her birthday. I've loved being home for both Mother's day and her birthday! In an insanely short summary of the year, God used us in amazing ways and 36 souls have accepted Christ, all under the age of 21! God is so good and I feel so blessed to be a part of His work in El Doradito! Now that I am home I am mowing yards for some spending money, spending time with friends and family, pouring into Atlanta Street Baptist Church as much as I can, and most importantly, preparing for my return to El Doradito in August. I have seen how the village and kids are so accustomed to missionaries coming, loving, and leaving. I want God to use me as a more consistent example of His permanent, consistent, and undying love for them. I will be working to raise monthly support for my return because this could be 1 more year, or the rest of my life. I am going to follow Christ wherever He calls me. Thank you all for all of your love, prayers, and support! I would love to talk to any and all of you who would like to spend time together talking about God's work, so please email me at [email protected] or contact me at 678-608-8850 so we can get together! Also, please pray that God uses me in radical ways and that He provides exactly what I need to keep serving Him. If you would like to know how to support me in any way, please don't hesitate to contact me. You have all been answers to prayers and I hope God has touched you or blessed you through all of this. Love y'all! God is good! We are making progress with the Aquaponics but we are still not done. We filled the entire system with water and are currently stopping leaks before we can get the system running 24/7. We spent 8 hours on a Saturday putting the system together and filling it with water from a neighbor’s pila. Thankfully, we had a lot of help, mainly from Estiven with his little paint can filled halfway with water. He was helping us fill up the tanks while his younger brother Ethan Josue was swimming in a bucket pouring water on his head.
Today is Father’s Day in Honduras, Dia del Padre, and we had a day filled with performances for the fathers. We had an awesome time preparing all of the different grades’ performances throughout the week. 5th grade put in a lot of effort to make our showing of the Prodigal Son good and fun, but our Prodigal Son still hasn’t returned from his house to our school so we had some role changes right before we started but our kids did great and had a lot of fun. Justin gave an awesome sermon about what it means to be a good man, and a good father, walking with Christ. Hopefully that takes hold and the men start to sell out to Jesus.
A sweet lady from the village, Amparita, will cook us dinner 4 nights a week, and we are on our own for the other 3, and recently we have been getting creative. When I say we, I mean Mike is cooking and every once in a while one of us will lift a lid for him, or stir, or even cut ingredients, but Mike is an amazing cook and he has really been outdoing himself recently. This week we ate Chicken and Dumplings and Biscuits and Gravy with some potatoes, and some of those flavors made me stop and say wow, partly because Mike is just too talented, but also because I haven’t tasted them for months. It’s funny how food does that, I was blown away by soy sauce last week because, again, I hadn’t tasted it since I was home. Thank Jesus for good food and good people to share it with.
This is Mike hard at work making chicken and dumplings in our kitchen/dining/living room. Andrea has started coming to school more frequently, she had stopped for a few months after getting surgery on her knees. I can’t teach her anything substantial, but I know I don’t have to. My constant prayer is that if these kids understand one thing, it is the love of Christ. Even though she doesn’t exude enthusiasm for learning the alphabet, she does work if I promise to buy her an ice cream cone after she is done.
This is Dad getting the low down about school from Aaron. Dad wound up teaching while taking a break from teaching, and he talked to our class about David and Goliath. Dad flew down for 4 days in February during the Global Year Parents’ Week. He got to see us in action at the school, hike up to a local cave, and eat some amazing village food. We took him to eat at Concepcion’s, an insanely sweet lady who loves to feed people at her pulperia. He provided a lot of very good advice for teaching and proceeding through the transition of authority down here. There is a reason Proverbs is always saying to listen to the instruction of our parents, usually it’s pretty good, and I’m very thankful that I’ve got great, godly parents who provide awesome advice.
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AuthorEthan Smith. I'm 19, I graduated from Roswell HS, I love Jesus, I love my friends and family, I love band. This is my second year teaching at Cornerstone Christian Academy. Archives
September 2017
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