398dsfjlk3q9ydvjsfd!!!!!!!!

So yea. I'm in Honduras. A land of no Apple Stores and few Mac users. And my Mac had a serious breakdown for no apparent reason on Monday afternoon.

So I've been out of a computer since Monday. As of right now, a friend helped get it going to do an internet recovery, and now I need an install desk for a Mac operating system. So on Saturday, I'll be traveling out to San Pedro Sula to meet someone there, reinstall an operating system, and hope and pray that it works and my computer will be up and running again. Even if it does, I probably lost all my photo and music files (thank God my documents were backed up online).

Please pray for me as I'm struggling along without a computer, pray for my peace of mind about the whole situation, and pray for my travels to San Pedro and back on Saturday-- that travels will be safe and that the attempt to fix the computer will be successful.

Thanks! ~Emily

Once there was a tree...

It's that time again. Time to redecorate our doors in celebration of fall and thanksgiving. Rather ironic here, since it neither feels like fall nor do Hondurans celebrate Thanksgiving. But nonetheless, there are fall leaves, turkeys, pumpkins, and pilgrims appearing around our school as teachers gradually get their doors finished (note: turkeys cooked are "done," work gets "finished" ; P )

Being the fairly non-creative person that I am, it took me a while to come up with an idea for my new door decoration, but I settled on a Giving Tree theme...and then scrambled to find a copy of the book to read to my students (thank you to Kristi for lending me her personal copy!) 

Once there was a tree...                                                                                                

If you haven't read this book, you should. It's a timeless and beautiful story of the love between a boy and a tree. The tree and the boy play together, but as the boy grows up, though, he grows apart from the tree, distracted by the cares of life. However, the tree loves the boy so much that she only wants him to be happy, and will do everything possible to make him so. Although the boys distance from her makes her sad, she gives of herself sacrificially to him until she has nothing left to give.  

On Thursday I read this book to my students and we talked about how it related to Thanksgiving--focusing especially on the giving part rather than the thanks part. We also talked about how it points to Christ and his sacrificial love toward us, and how we too are called to love others sacrificially as Christ loved us, or as the giving tree loved the boy. I asked them to think about two things: first, who in their lives loves them like the giving tree--parents, grandparents, siblings, friends, etc. They had to only think of one person, so long as it was not God. The second thing I asked them to think about was someone they could love like the giving tree, and how they might show that love towards that person. On Friday, on a bunch of cut out apples, I had them write on one side "I am thankful that _____________  loves me like the giving tree." On the other side, they needed to write "I can love ______________ like the giving tree by...[and list practical ways to show that love]." 

For the first side, I got a lot of the typical but still touching answers-- moms, dads, grandparents, and a few scattered siblings. On the second side, again, it was usually family members (one or two friends listed), with a variety of ways on how to show love: hugging and kissing them, saying good morning, making food for them, giving them gifts, respecting/obeying them, getting good grades, sharing with them, playing with them, and even dying for them.  These apples will be going on my door  and hopefully throughout the next month or so I'll be challenging them (and hopefully equipping them as well) to show love to the person they thought of as well as to perform other random acts of kindness for family, friends and/or teachers. 

My favorite apple of all: a student who wrote: "I can love Miss De Boer like the giving tree by: not disrespect she, obey she, give she a surprise, and be with she when the bad days come."

Some bad days have already come, and more will be coming I am sure, but it is the students like that that make it all worth it. I am thankful for my students who love me like the giving tree, and I pray that I will learn how to love them sacrificially in return. 

Gracias a Dios for this day and this place

Our house church was cancelled this morning, so I spent the morning exploring in Gracias and hiked up to the San Cristobal Fort to do some sightseeing and reading. As homesick as I've been lately, it's impossible not to appreciate the beauty all around me here! Here are some pictures I took this morning as well as a video that a friend found of Gracias.

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=475310842610887&set=vb.127171764091465&type=2&theater

Leaf Cutter Ants don't believe in a day of rest-- they carry close to 10 times their body weight!  

approaching the fort

entrance to the fort

There were a bunch of statues similar to this outside of the fort, and I wish I knew a little bit about their history.

I found swings up by the fort much to my delight! This may be my new favorite spot in town...

Questions

Yesterday I told my students that for devotions on Friday I wanted to be able to address questions they had about God, the Bible, Christianity, the church, etc....anything really that they might want to ask. I told them to be thinking about their questions, that they'd be writing them down anonymously on Thursday, and I'd answer some on Friday morning. I collected those questions today and what an insight it is into my students, even if I don't know who wrote which questions. I love the questions I got, even if I find some of them intimidating. In no particular order, here is the list of questions I got from them. I've translated them into understandable English as much as I could where it was necessary. I hope you enjoy the slight picture of my students as much as I did, and I hope you'll be praying for me and for them as we begin to grapple with some of these hard questions together tomorrow!

God

Who created God?

Who is the mother of God? Who is the grandmother of God?

What is the name of God? What is the real name of God?

Why is God called alpha and omega? 

How is the face of God?

How many years does God have? 

How did God get to the skies?

Where did God get his power?

What does God do when he is lonely?

Jesus

Who was the mother of the mother of Jesus? (like who is the mother of Maria the Mother of Jesus)?

How many names did Jesus have?

Why was Jesus baptized if he was the Son of God?

Where does God have his Son?

Why did God choose Jesus to be his Son?

Salvation

Why does Jesus want to save us?

How old was Jesus when He died for our sins? 

When did Jesus die?

Creation

When did God create the world? 

How did God create the world? 

Why did God create the world?

Why did God create us?

Was Adam a baby? 

What is the first word of Adam?

Sin/Evil/Satan

Why did God let Adam and Eve eat the tree of the bad? 

Who created the devil?

Was Satan an angel? 

For what Satan was an angel and wants the place of Jesus? 

Where does it say that Satan was an angel?

For what Satan is bad?

Why did Satan become bad? 

Why does Satan exist? 

Why could only Jesus see Satan?

End Times/Heaven

When will we go to heaven?

When we die do we go to heaven right away or do we stay in our body and then when Christ comes we stand up and go with Him? 

Can you tell us about the coming of Jesus? 

Is it true in the book of Revelation that the monster comes and kills us if we don’t put the mark in the hand or on the head?

Bible

Who created/invented the Bible?

Why did God create the Bible? 

How did God write the Bible?

How many years does the Bible have?

Noah (we’ve been reading about Noah in our devotions)

What happened when Noah let the animals pass? 

Why did God tell Noah to build the ark?

Why did God want to end humanity? 

Random 

Who is God’s favorite angel?

If God created all we can see and I think we see ufo’s and aliens, and the Bible says all the persons or alive things are brothers so we’re brothers with them then. What impact would have the Catholic church if Obama or somebody big with population (teacher note: I think he means popularity) says aliens are real and they want to kill us?