Holy Week!

It has been a bit of a strange past week. Last week was Holy Week so we were not at the school on Tuesday or Wednesday because it was shut, and we weren´t on the building site on Thursday or Friday either. Nevertheless it has been quite a packed full on week.

Tuesday was a relaxing day. We were all a bit shattered after the holiday and all the travelling so we spent the day going to the internet cafe and playing football with some of the locals.

Wednesday was Faye´s birthday. We spent the morning planning a drama for the kids club in the afternoon and relaxing some more. OIn the afternoon we went to the kids club which was awesome. I spent an hour blowing bubbles with the younger ones and it was hilarious. There was one girl called Fersé who had an incredible laugh and cracked up everytime she blew bubbles in my face (which she did quite alot!). In the evening we had a piñata for Faye which was great fun. Although spinning around a blindfolded essex girl with a large pole was quite scary but good fun!

Thursday we were takento a leisure centre called Parque Centrale. We spent the day playing basketball/football/touch rugby all mixed in with large amounts of swimming in a relatively cold pool which was amazingly refreshing. We spent ages waiting for lunch but it was good when it came. Thats about all we did there - got really sweaty playing sports before going into the pool to cool off. When we got home we had another immense game of monopoly. Heulwen and I (Team Joelwen) were so intent on ruining Guy and Katy´s chances of winning that we unwittingly gave the game to Faye and Matt but it was stiull great fun. We all get pretty competitive when monopoly comes out but we are very good at leaving it all on the board after the game so its all ok! Thursday was also Kossy´s birthday so in the evening we had cake and the guys sang a bar-bar shop quartet of ´Wade in the water´ because that was one of Kossy´s birthday wishes. She had a great day in all.

On Friday (Good Friday) we went to the city centre at 3pm to see processions that went through the streets. On Thursday people had spent the day making incredible drawings and designs on the ground using coloured sawdust. The processiong then came out of the catholic church in the city centre. There were quite a few floats, some with angels carrying things that Jesus said while on the cross, some with saints, a big one with Mary and then a couple of quite graphic ones with Jesus on the cross. The procession went through the streets over the sawdust drawings. It was an amazing bit of Honduran culture that im really glad we were able to experience.

Some of the artwork on the street.

Saturday was a fantastic day. We were picked up at 11am and drove for about an hour to the Primer Battalion De Communicaciones for a Colonel´s birthday (in case you have forgotten, Don Galo is a Colonel in the army and it´s his house we are staying in, hence all the army connections..). We arrived there and helped set up the room by blowing up`balloons etc... Luke and I went for a wonder in the woodland around the place, just looking at some of the fantastic views when a huge eagle flew over and started flying around us. We think it was probably checking us out for size but eventually lost interest and left. Was pretty awesome though. We went back and had an awesome lunch, BBQ chicken and some frijoles in BBQ sauce. Friholes are starting to grow on me which is good because they have them with pretty much every meal (including breakfast!). After lunch they took us to a shooting range! Those who wanted to could fire 9mm pistols and an M60 submachine gun. The force in just the 9mm was amazing, everytime i fired it jerked my hand up so far, and the noise was horrendous! We were all covering our ears as much as possible. Then i had a go on the M60. It was absolutely immense - just standing on the big concrete platform when others fired it I could feel my whole body vibrate. We used it on semi (1 shot at a time) but it was great fun. When those who wanted to had had a go, Guyy and I asked if we could have a go on automatic. They let us fire 5 bullets each on automatic. The power of it was amazing. By the end of the 5 shot burst my gun had raised so much it was ridiculous. It was hard to see if we were actually hitting the targets or njot because they were paper. Don Galo then showed us all up. Hector ties a balloon at the very end of the range which was about 30m away. Don Galo then popped the balloon with 1 shot. It was an incredible experience and made us all think alot about how horrific it must be in an actual war situation. At about 6 we climed a hill to watch the sunset (yes more sunset pictures...)It was absolutely awesome. The pictures didn´t do it any justice and it´s impossible to sum it up in words. It was absolutely breathtaking. Majestic... Awe inspiring.. its just so hard to sum it up! We sat there and admires the wonders of creation, praising God. We sat there until it got dark and went down to join the others. Back down the hill, another Colonel shared his testimony with us about how God is moving among the army which was really cool and gave us a sort of preach which was really nice. We then had fresh watermelon while looking up at the stars!

The inspirational sunset.

On Sunday, we went to Church as usual. They don´t really make a big thing about Easter here, most of the congregation were away but it was still a really good service. Pastor Victor was preaching from the bit of scripture about Jesus rising from the dead, but the message wasn´t necessarilly what i expected from a talk on Easter but it was still really good and the worship as ever was fantastic. Even though it is just from a CD and its in Spanish, its still amazing. After Church we went to yet another Army base (I think that makes it 4 army bases we have now been to!) where there was a swimming pool We spent the afternoon chilling, playing some ultimate frizbee, swimming and reading by the pool. It was a really good day and in the evening we had a really good prayer session as a team.

Yesterday Kossy and I were on domestic and we made an easter egg hunt for the team! I had brought out quite a few cream eggs and mini eggs and some fairtrade chocolate for Faye and Guy (who has now said that after giving up chocolate for lent - he is now only going to eat fairtrade chocolate). It was great fun and we all had a laugh.


The team is getting on really well. People are still getting to know eachother i guess but we now all know eachother pretty well after living together for over a month now! Its really exciting to see the work that God is doing in all of us so keep praying that it all continues. Pray that we all have patience with eachother, we haven´t had any arguments yet so im keen for that to continue!


Also, as you may know, Tegucigalpa is not the safest city in the world so please also pray for our safety at all times. Work on the site is also getting a little dangerous (working on the roof now) so also pray for that.


I dont really have any more time so will update more sometime soon.


Lots of love


Joel