Small Snatches

The laundry room

Maria and Mariella, dressed for a birthday party

The moment of the pinada

A lonesome fellow just past our gate

Encouragement on the ridge

A full larder

Manuela and the mountains

More mountains

The old Toyota that you can start with the storage room key

Typical plant around here--no, I do not know it's name

Represented here, a portion of our team, are Belize, Venezuela, Switzerland, Honduras, Costa Rica, and the United States.

Honduran mountains from a nice rocky ledge about a 30 minute walk from campus

Teammates Jacob and Eli--an interesting conversation

Waiting for the master bathing in the creek

Our classroom/chapel and "the plaza" of morning and evening worship

Currently my classroom, but each Sabbath, our church

The team--students and staff. Yes, there are many more women than men!

A Sunday Thought: In the Company of Puppies

Again and again in the Bible we are told that we are like sheep going astray and I do not try to correct this image--but somehow I think that we are also a great deal like stubborn puppies.

Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego are Honduran dogs, born and raised here, three brothers as different in personaliity as they are in color. For at least three months they have been at IBC in an environment of doggy heaven--food, love, walks--and yet, just as we have the effects of sin still in our physical bodies, these puppies are products of their environment. They constantly fight among themselves, they strongly dislike children and cars and bicycles, they destroy chew up anything that is left within their reach.

As I look at them, I see how much they have grown. They are learning to stay in the areas that are theirs. They are learning not to chase cars. They have learned that they can't accompany anyone in a skirt or dress pants. And they are learning to come a whistle.

In Jeremiah 10:8 God says that He will whistle and that His people will come running. And yet I I am amazed at how we, like these puppies, are constantly distracted--by a donkey in the pasture, a rock rolling down the hill, a mound of cow manure. Do they want to obey? Do we want to obey? Well, maybe here is where the metaphor breaks down. Perhaps they don't. But whether their training tells them to come or not, or whether we want to heed the gentle voice of our master or not, there is always the deeper instinct telling us to return to our "doghood" and to our "vomit."

"Who shall free us from this body of death?" Who can overcome battles with temperance, with low self-esteem, with selfishness? "Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord," we are not left as wretched puppies, eating the hides and guts of a butchered steer. We are children of the King, through His strength set free from the law of sin and death.

A Sabbath Reflection from Some Weeks Ago: Under a Tree

As we walked back from the primary school, talking and chuckling at the fact that we were conversing in Spanish, we heard the cheery voice, "Buenas dias, hermanas" from up ahead of us. After looking around we saw hermano Manuel sitting on the edge of the raod, in the shade of a large fragrant tree. He had come to enjoy the sunshine of a beautiful morning, and he had come to find peace. "Ah, hermano, tu estas como Natanael!" I said as we passed on, leaving him with a smile on his face.

Later the same day, but cooked up to a roasting heat, I stood by the dormitory, waiting to get the church key from one of our team members. As I felt the sweat beginning to trickle down my back, I heard myself saying, "I shall wait under the mango tree" and in that moment, as the perfume from the blossoms surrounded me, I thought again of Nathaniel and the fig tree and Manuel on the side of the road.

Micah 4:4 reads "But they shall sit every man under his vine and under his fig tree, and none shall make them afraid: for the mouth of the LORD of hosts has spoken it."

It seems then that the fig tree is more than a symbol of peace, more than a symbol of God's abundance, and more even than a symbol of contentment. Under the fig tree is a place of searching and spiritual revival and reconnection with God.

Even now as I sit between two rocks, a pine against my back, a good half-hour walk from IBC, I read these words and find comfort. I came here for refreshment, for peace, for the filling of a longing deep down. I have been waiting all week to find it, and now, my books on my lap, I have found it as I look out across the mountains of Honduras, at the edge of a valley, under a tree.