The God of the IMPOSSIBLE

God is a God of the impossible!!! I have been reminded of that so much lately. Many times I don't understand at the present why things are going on. How many times have I seen God's hand at work in the past? I know that I can trust Him with what He is doing. Sometimes at the present things look hopeless. But God has said that He will do exceedingly and abundantly above all that I can ask or imagine!! When I see God do this or think about the fact that He can, it moves me to great emotion. Tonight I read one of my favorite Bible stories. Hannah pleading before God for a son and promising to give him back to the Lord if He gave her one! God gave her a boy!! This makes my heart sing and cry with gratefulness to God. He desires to give good and perfect gifts. He loves me so much! He knows my wants and my desires. He knows my needs and will always provide for them. He can do the impossible to show His power . Tonight as I fall asleep, my heart is worshiping the God of the impossible.

School Pictures

I thought that I would upload some of the pictures of me and my students. We had a cultural day a couple weeks back so some of these pictures are from that.The one up on the right is my 5th grade class. They are all really smart and obedient. The ones on the bottom right are a project that my sixth grade class. They had to build a mall..some of the students went all out!

The other picture of the American Flags is me with some of the teachers. And the rest are of me and my students

Our Office

This is our office...We sit and work in Dunkin Donuts all day long. It really feels like our office too!!

Who goes to school on Saturday?

Is there ever a good reason to go to school on Saturday...here in Honduras we go!!!! :) We got up at the normal time 4:45 am and were at school the whole day until 1pm!!! Parents had to come and pick up their report cards. Since I am not a homeroom teacher, I didn't have to do much.. I played with the children, and I spoke Spanish with them. This was very fun and relaxing. It was also helpful in building more relationships with them. It is hard to get to know 140 students! At least I have learned all their names praise God for His help!!! One of the first grade boys names is Jacobo. For some reason, I thought that his name was Hector. So for the first 5 weeks of school I called him Hector. He would respond, but very slowly. I couldn't figure out what was wrong with him. One day, He raised his hand and looked at me and said, "Miss Bethany, my name is Jacobo." I started laughing and laughing, all the first graders joined me and we joked about it for a couple days it was really cute.
Anyway, back to school on Saturday. I was talking with one girl in Spanish, and she kept responding in English. Finally she said, "Miss Bethany, I don't like it when you speak Spanish." I thought this was a very interesting comment. So I asked her, "Why don't you like it? Is it because I don't speak well, or is it because I always speak English with you and it is weird for me to speak Spanish?" She replied that I always talk in English to her so it is weird for me to speak Spanish. So we began to once again speak in English...and I ended up sharing Christ with her!!! And from what I can tell she understood and accepted Him as her Savior!! It made me very excited. This made going to school on Saturday worth it!!! :)

God made frogs for little boys

I think that God made frogs for little boys to play with. Here in Honduras...boys are afraid of frogs!!! In fact everyone is. My friend Denisse told me they are nasty! The other day there was a group of boys by the wall at school. I wandered over to find out what was going on. They were all watching a frog. Everytime the frog jumped they would jump. Some of the them would scream like little girls!!! I thought, "This is so wrong...boys are suppose to love to play with frogs." They are suppose to scare girls with them. So as much as I dislike touching frogs, I decided that I was going to have to pick this frog up to show them there was nothing wrong with it. So after a couple tries I caught it. A couple of the boys got brave enough to hold the frog by themselves and they even chased it and caught it!! Hopefully now in the future these little boys can enjoy frogs. It took me getting my hands a little dirty...but it was worth it.

Let the earth hear His voice...

So many things have happened in the last two days... First let me share the most exciting news. Every Friday night we have a children's ministry that starts at 5:30 and goes to 6:30. Tonight was no exception. Except we got there and no one was there...We prayed for a little while that God would bring who He wanted and that He would save these children. Six o'clock rolled around...no children...Six fifteen, Six twenty, finally at 6:25 two boys showed up. They said that there were more kids on their way.. We decided to wait and even though it was time to end we would do something with these children. The children that showed up were all older children (5th to 6th grade). Usually we have a program that is more for the 2nd and 3rd and younger. But tonight none of them came. We totally completely changed all our plans. We played a game that was more for their age group. Then we sat in a circle and share the gospel. Laura translated for me. Every one of these kids, 3 boys and 4 girls, sat with their eyes glued on me then Laura. They were listening with every aspect of their being. I don't think I have see kids ever more interested than these. They were so ready to hear the gospel. We gave an invitation for them to come to know Christ. Three of them looked up!!! The rest did not. But as far as the Spirit working in their hearts, I wouldn't be suprised if all of them came to know Christ tonight. It was so excited. God answered our prayer so specifically and quickly!!! He is so good. So tonight there are angels in heaven rejoicing and partying with Christ!!! Praise God.
I also wanted to share another cute story of the week. Yesterday, I was teaching in my first grade class. One of the boy accidently elbowed me in the eye. For some reason it hurt awlful and it brought tears to my eyes and I couldn't stop them. And you know how sometimes you start to cry and you just can't stop, not because of pain but because of the emtion of all the circumstance. HAHA so there I was with tears rolling down my cheeks. I couldn't really do anything but continue to teach, and I didn't want the boy to feel bad because it was an accident. All of the little first graders were completely silent and just stared at me. They didn't understand what had happened. One of the little girls got up and came and gave me a hug it was the cutest thing ever!!! Anyway, it is good and necessary to have a good cry sometimes..but probably not in English class. Right now I have bruise on my eyebrow that hurts to touch. Anyway, it will heal but it will be a story I will remember always.
God is faithful. I am so thank that He cares about my needs before I even know what they are going to be. He provides and shows His love in so many ways. I had been praying to find the movie Facing the Giants. I want to show it in some of my classes. I couldn't find it anywhere here. There are not alot of movie place. Anyway the other day Laura and I took a walk to another plaza, there was a movie rental place there. We went in just to ask and they had the movie!!! I was so excited. Then the lady told us that on Nov 15, 16, and 17 they are selling all the movies in their store because they have to many. The movie is on sale for 75 lempiras which is like $3.50 american dollars!!! Praise God!
As much as I miss my family and friends...God is right with me and for that I am thankful. Also my computer has a virus, but He has been helping me and Laura to figure out how to fix it and make it work... I could go on and on about the things that He is doing and has done. But I need to go to bed!
"Rejoice in the Lord always...again I say REJOICE"

Happenings:

What a great holiday we had... Yesterday our school celebrated International Day. Going into the night I had no idea what to expect. We had no school on Friday as we spent the whole day decorating. One really cool thing about preparing for an evening like that is that here people are so laid back they don't get stressed out over stuff. It was a very relaxing atmosphere to prepare it.
For the evening each class represented a different country. They prepared a display table and many of the classes prepared a special thing to do to show off their country. The 1st graders represented America. They all said in English different facts; it was very cute.
I was able to meet many of the children's parents. I enjoyed this a lot. I was able to communicate with them as well. Although by the end of the night I was so tired I had no idea what I was saying any more. A couple of the parents didn't come. This made me sad. Because these are kids that it seems that their parents don't care a lot for them. One boy told me that he lived by himself. I couldn't believe this. I think what he meant is that he lives with his mom, but she has to work all the time so he can go to this private school. So he is literally by himself all day and almost all night long. Here people work 7 days a week.
I was able to talk with one parent who is a believer. It was encouraging to fellowship a little with here. She bought my dinner which was really nice too :).
Something that we have noticed about the culture here. Is that women are taken care of in the sense that men do the hard laborous jobs and provide for the women. But emotional women are tore down so low that they are made to believe they are not worth much. So the women look down on those that are lower than them so that they feel better about themselves. For example, after the evening we began to clean up. There was trash everywhere so I got a broom and Laura and I started sweeping. We were told not to do this because it was the maid's job. There was so much garbage that it would take her forever to clean it up. But we noticed that really none of the other teachers talk with the maids. How sad. God loves us all so much that He made us special to Him. He loves all people.
My prayer is that I will be able to allow these people to see God's love through me. Especially these ones that have nothing.