Jonathan & Kristy's

As we begin this post, we are looking out the window 31,000 feet over the Gulf of Mexico. For the first time in nine months we are returning home for a visit (two weeks). We are excited to have this time to connect with family and friends. We will certainly be packing a lot into the next two weeks!

Leaving Honduras has caused us to reflect upon the past nine months. There is no way to name all that we have experienced, all that for which we are thankful, and all the fresh ways the Spirit has opened our eyes, mind, and heart. We hope you feel the same.

Three weeks ago was Jonathan’s birthday, and it was celebrated with a typical Honduran fiesta. The amount of love the Hondurans poured into the event, and as such on to Jonathan, will never be forgotten. There is no question that the community has welcomed us in as an intricate part of the whole. We are blessed to have been so accepted and loved.

It would probably not surprise you to hear that both of our birthday parties we have had here were different than those in the States. For people not used to the type of celebration here, e.g. North Americans, a birthday party can actually produce a fair amount of anxiety!  At the heart of the party (and any social gathering in general) are dinamicas. These are interpersonal games… think “ice-breaker.” Oh, and a dinamica is always predicated on making you look silly. This goes double for the guest of honor. We bring this up to illustrate how the center/foundation is person to person interaction.

It is no secret that Latino culture is often found by North Americans to be more relational, to be person-oriented. This is distinct from being, say, task-oriented or result-oriented. Now, is this a sweeping generalization? Are there plenty of exceptions? Yes and yes. One of the more enlightening aspects of our time here has been learning of the many exceptions–that which you do not have the opportunity to see when you are here on “short-term” trips. Yet speaking generally the culture is highly relational and person-oriented.

This is how someone that visited Honduras from the States this summer described it, “They have time for you. They always have the time for you.” This is a good word for those of us (we are certainly included in this) that are too often task-oriented and result-oriented to the extent of not having the time for people. Even when we see our task as God’s will, we need be wary of letting the “task” at hand hijack our person-oriented calling exemplified by our Lord Jesus. See how Jesus stops everything to be person-oriented, even given that he was in route to an emergency healing (doing God’s will)!

Mark 5:22-34

²²Then one of the synagogue rulers, named Jairus, came there. Seeing Jesus, he fell at his feet ²³and pleaded earnestly with him, “My little daughter is dying. Please come and put your hands on her so that she will be healed and live.” ²⁴So Jesus went with him.

A large crowd followed and pressed around him. ²⁵And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years. ²⁶She had suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors and had spent all she had, yet instead of getting better she grew worse. ²⁷When she heard about Jesus, she came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, ²⁸because she thought, “If I just touch his clothes, I will be healed.” ²⁹Immediately her bleeding stopped and she felt in her body that she was freed from her suffering.

³⁰At once Jesus realized that power had gone out from him. He turned around in the crowd and asked, “Who touched my clothes?”

³¹“You see the people crowding against you,” his disciples answered, “and yet you can ask, ‘Who touched me?’ ”

³²But Jesus kept looking around to see who had done it. ³³Then the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came and fell at his feet and, trembling with fear, told him the whole truth. ³⁴He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering.”