Introduction

Greetings! Please come in and make yourself at home. For those of you who don't know, I am leaving a summer at camp and venturing out to Honduras in a couple days to student teach math and possibly other subjects in an eighth grade international school classroom in La Ceiba Honduras for three months living with another teacher at that school and her family. Now that all the boring facts are over and done with in one sentence, let's get to some carne.

I entitled this blog EDventures not just to make a cutesy corny pun (I am an elementary education major though for a reason). I titled this mostly to remind myself of my main purpose in Honduras: practice educating. Yes I will experience culture, and speak en Espanol. Yes I will explore mountains and talk of God to new friends. But I seem to find myself dreaming more of these than lesson-planning and grading (can you blame me?). I know though that teaching is a privilege, and a great adventure. Ergo, welcome to EDventures.

I confess this first and foremost: while blogging I am tempted to painstakingly choose each word to impress upon you the beauty of my journey, but moreso the wonder of my own gifts and talents. The truth is, I employ speel chek and a thesaurus often.The truth is, I need to be doing other things with my life(yet will post hopefully twice a month to keep those I love fairly updated). The truth is, anything true or good is God's.  

I was inspired at HoneyRock. I was gifted with much that I desire to always remember. Harmonicas, Cabin Reflection, HPT, buckwheat pancakes, celebration service, BIF, Zacco, woodchip dust with exuberant worship, strong and courageous songs, challenging conversations. If I were to forgot these I would in fact be dis-membering myself. I must think of the past.

Now, I must think of the future. My depths have cried out to the deep of God. I know though that his breakers are all around me, and a "human merely being can not doubt unimaginable you" or so says ee cummings. I want so badly to know the way I should go each morning. I want the rough unknown Honduran places to be made smooth. What I am tempted to forget is this truth: Jesus is the way. I do know the way, and I just must follow His voice, with each step hearing more of unfailing love. What good news. And now that I come to think on it, a stubbed toe and stumble up an organic mountain path is quite stimulating and life-giving every now and then. 

It helps my easily-overwhelmed-through-transitions body to know that I am leaving one natural land where God overtly talks to go to a hotter nother. For me, God works to inspire quite frequently through grass, skies, and most other green and blue things. In fact, reflecting upon one late Sunday summer storm, and my upcoming adventures, I was inspired. And now please say to me,         

     "Grace, I know you've been verbally processing a lot already through this post, but could you in a rather dramatic and verbose way just tell me one more time how you are feeling, before you have even arrived at that country? The kids have stopped screaming for the first time in 20 hours and I'd just really love to read more of your words than anything else at present." 

     "Well, alright":

The thick air around me, mostly above me, leaves its condensing impressions.The jet-engines boom repeatedly and stimulate each and every atom that hears. Leaves dance as whirling dervishes and awaken their stiffened joints. Humans and chipmunks scurry to collect their belongings and find shelter. They pass over the gravel, laying down a crunching beat to the tune of Summer Storm.

I am a rock in the gravel. I wait for the storm; determinedly unsheltered. This vulnerability thickens the electric anticipation that now is tangible.
5 minutes pass. Boom.
Ten minutes later. Boom.
30 minutes then feel like a thousand when
blinding pink thick ribbons crash from the heavens, and the long-fought-against tears are dropped- no, thrown.
My eyelids close.
I pray. I pray for God to finesse those imminent drops in a way that upon contact, yields much good.
I think. I think of the irony:  acquiring so much dirt, so much unnecessary, so much wrong, while my days were spent sedentary and chatting in such a neat, such a pristine, such a uniform path.
I swallow; I know this storm will shake me up.
The wind hastens. It whispers how it will loosen grime, smoothen barnacles, and make jagged the places previously hollowed for coffins.

The first drop touches my head. It is cool, and I smile.