I have lived outside of the United States for over 10 years now. I studied Spanish at a language school in Costa Rica for 8 months. My husband only speaks Spanish, so I speak it all the time. However, I despise speaking in Spanish in front of a large group of people. I stress, I panic, I freak out. Give me a group of kids and I'm good. Give a small group and I'll do it but don't ever ask me to preach in Spanish. I have lived in complete fear for over 10 years. Fear of man! Fear of being judged and made fun of (which happens all the time). For 10 years I literally have been saying no to God. I can't and won't do it. I won't be made to look like a fool. I can count the number of times I've preached or spoken to a group of adults on one hand.....in the last 10 years. Why? Because I said no. I can't do it. Even with my husband encouraging me," Kristal, you CAN do it. God uses you. You have a word." I'd say, "No, no, and no!"
Now I…
It has been a week since the Honduran Presidential Elections and the TSE has not announced a winner. I'm not going to go into detail but you can Google Honduras Elections and get the gist of things. I'm experiencing things, after 10 years of living overseas, I have never experienced before. Three days into the chaos I wrote this.
"It's only been three days of chaos,fear, uncertainty and worry. We had an escape plan; but now, even if we wanted to leave, we couldn't because every bridge is blocked. I've never experienced that feeling before. A feeling of entrapment or in a way, a feeling of abandondment. You start to wonder about your own country, who, at the moment, act like nothing is happening. Do they even care about the U.S. Citizens that are here? Why haven't they done anything? They could send us a message on STEP or at the very least a statement on their Facebook page acknowleding the situation.
It is surreal hearing gun shots and smelliing the burn…
It has been a whirlwind of a month. We hosted a missions team from El Salvador, classes started back (back to work), we had to move, raise funds for our residency, and Ruben and a team of youth leaders raised all their funds and are in Panama for a international leadership conference. All of that in one month people! I'd like to say things will calm down but that never happens.
So to summarize......
-We hosted a team from El Salvador the first week of August. It was awesome! God did so much.
-Classes started back. I am teaching 3rd grade and Ruben is the new Chaplin.
=We were basically told we had to leave the place we were renting, by the owners, we prayed and God provided us a slightly larger home in the same area we were living in
(with a huge yard; good for the kids and the dog).
-We raised $1,000 for our Honduran Residency. So now we are in the application process. Once we have our residency we will not have to take visa renewal trips every three months.
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