Hondurans. Honduran Food. Honduran Vocab. We're not in Peru anymore...

Las Nuevas Aventuras 

We survived our first weekend in Honduras. Not that I doubted that I would, but dude, we are in a whole other world here!

Charancaco

When we left Peru, it was the start of winter and the average high was 70 degrees AND there were days with blue skies! It was miraculous and beautiful. 

When we arrived in Honduras, it was at least 85 degrees at 8pm and humid, plus we were in long pants and jackets from the airplane. Welcome to the tropical Central America. 

Baleada Sencillo con Chicharron; Horchata

The best part about traveling of course is getting to try new food. First stop after dropping our stuff off at Carlos' house was to go eat baleadas. A baleadas is a flour tortilla with beans and butter on it. Yes, butter. It goes on everything! Also, it comes in near liquid form so you can just slop on copious amounts of it. Enjoy! Then, you can get scrambled eggs, chicharron, avocado, etc etc with it. Everyone we know that has visited Honduras says you must eat baleadas. Check! I thought it was quite good and definitely worth trying, but not the most amazing thing in the world. I will have to give it another shot maybe to appreciate their awesomeness. 

On Saturday, for lunch, we went to a barbecue place. Carlos kept changing his mind about where he wanted to eat and I think we ended up at the place we did so we could watch Brazil play Chile. Haha. It was a new restaurant for all of us. We ate pork, chorizo, beef, chicken, corn tortilla, chunky tomato and onion salsa, refried black beans, and fresh cheese. I thought it was delicious. And Brazil won (much to the disappointment of Carlos and Melissa)! Carmen and I were cool with the win. :)

Enjoying the Brazil v. Mexico game at lunch!

After church on Sunday, we went to the move theaters with everyone. While waiting for the movie to start, we wandered the mall and tried chocobananas, which are exactly as they sound. Awesome. It is a banana on a popsicle stick covered in chocolate and then frozen. They're healthy, right?!

Smile, it's a chocobanana!

Making tortillas is fun!

The other night, Isa taught Melissa and me how to make corn tortillas. Super easy. You just mix water with corn flour by hand until just mixed - a bit lighter/fluffier than the texture of playdough. Then you pat them down to the thickness you desire and throw it on a hot iron pan - no oil needed. Once golden brown, flip it over. In order to know if it is done, you push down on it with a paper towel and if an air bubble forms, it is done. We ate these for dinner with butter, scrambled eggs, queso fresco (fresh from Carmen's family farm), and avocado. Yum! 

This weekend we also got to experience the ministry here in Honduras. Everyone has advised us that it is quite different from other places - more of an evangelical/pentecostal vibe. Maybe we are just getting eased into things, but I thought it was pretty normal with a little bit of a mega church flare. 

The Band

Saturday night we went to church to celebrate the youth. Every so often they do an event to show their appreciation for their participation and dedication to the church. It started off with praise songs from the bands Sion and Nuevo Generacion (meaning youth/young adults from the band from the San Pedro Sula and Santa Fe congregations). So refreshing to have music led by people that know the rythm, can sing, and consist of more than a tamborine (no offense to Peru, where we had wonderful praise, just a pleasant change of pace here). Gonzalo seems to be the music leader and quite the musician. He sings and plays guitar, piano, and drums. After the songs, we had a mini-church service that Carmen led and Carlos shared some words of wisdom with the kids. Then, we ate some delicious food prepared by the church ladies = can't go wrong. To finish off the night, they did some games. One was a call and repeat action sort of song. Another game was where the leader said a word, and you had to sing a song with that word in it. We got home around 11ish pm.

Cupcake Spiral - Jovenes Ejemplares

It was a great opportunity to get an introduction to the church and most importantly, the youth, who we will be spending the next week getting to know and struggling with memorizing their names. Yay! (I hear we are going to have about 70 peeps in attendance!)

To continue with our church experience, we turned right around and got to church in time for the 6am service! We knew we were coming to Honduras to get to know the congregations. I didn't know that meant in the wee hours of the morning! I had to get up at 5am to be ready to go in time! It ended up being a really nice morning, though quite difficult to not yawn at times. Sorry guys, I tried not to. So from 6-7:30am, they had a more quiet and calm church service (which is all fine and good when you're in a prayerful, meditative mood, but slightly more difficult when you're still waking up from only sleeping for 4 hours, FYI). The next service started at 8am and went until about 9:20am. It was a bit more pumped up with the band starting the worship music. Also, we learned that we would not be asked to preach that day, so I felt a bit more relieved and could pay attention more. The final service started at 10am. This is the service with the highest attendance. The people that show up for the earlier services do indeed stick around until the end and then it fills in just before 10am. I think we had about 40-50 people in all. The most incredible part of the day was that youth showed up voluntarily at 6am and stayed until church ended around 12:30pm!

Praise Team

For the final service, Melissa and I were asked to share about our experience in Peru. It was good to get the first testimony out of the way. I always always feel like what I shared is less than adequate, but good to get the first one done, so that I know what to change for next time. It will be an ever evolving testimony, hopefully for the better.

It was interesting to be at church this Sunday because they just had their pastor resign last week, so they are in a phase of hurt and transition. They made a point of recognizing the priesthood in the church and making it known that are very important blessings to the congregation. The service ended with a Jesus style foot washing. Hermano Wilder made it a point to wash Melissa's and my feet so that we wouldn't leave without a Honduran foot washing. It was very sweet of him to keep us included even though we are not members of their congregation. There was lots of praying and crying, but also many smiles and hugs. Maybe a bit different than you would expect from how something like this would go over in the States, but not crazy awkward.

Church ended a bit after 12pm, so we headed to lunch. Unlike in CA, where we typically head to Wendy's, we went to Pizza Hut. Haha. Then, we went to a movie that ended up being in English with Spanish subtitles. Keepin' it (North) American.

And that was all we experienced in the first 3 days! There are many other details to share, but I'll keep it at that for now.

It may be uncomfortably hot, but we are adapting quickly and feeling right at home.

~nos vemos~