Jose y Raquel los peregrinos

In which Jose el peregrino predicts the weather, is lost, and is found.

After five days, I'm becoming ok with the fact that I have no idea what is going on around me. This wasn't always the case.
Riding into San Pedro Sula was a bit of a shock. Couldn't talk to the customs guys, the taxi driver, the hotel lady... The background noise was foreign (ha ha) to my ears.
I found an English newspaper in the hotel room, and found that the city was having transportation wars between bus companies. This isn't a euphemism. Last weekend 14 civilians were killed in 3 separate attacks on busses in the city. (Incidentally, the contract for these killings totalled around $480 USD). I began to count the hours until our bus trip in the morning...

But God is near. It seems easier to trust Jesus' promises when I feel safe, but faith and trust are grown when there is nothing to trust but him. Very cliche statement, but that doesn't make it less real or true.
So we got to La Ceiba by bus very safely and moved into our house. We're living with Don Chon and his family. There are about six other people living here, but so many people come in and out to visit that it seems like more.
The first few days were interesting, as Rachel and I don't speak a lick o' Spanish and they speak no English at all. For a while, they would talk to us at length and we would stand there open-mouthed, not understanding a thing. After they realized that we hadn't understand anything they'd said for two days, they began talking about simple things... Every time I see Don Chon we both comment on whether the rain will come. (It comes regularly every afternoon, so it's not much of a conversation.) But he knows that my limited vocabulary includes "lluvia" and "agua", so it's a place to start.
Our family is Protestant, but a very different sort of Protestant than I am used to. The first night we got there, we were told that church was @ 7. Since it was a Saturday, we were surprised. "But maybe it's a cultural thing?"
But 3 hours or church Saturday night, 5 hours Sunday morning (a city-wide march for the national day of the bible), another couple on Sunday night, Monday night, and Wednesday night, and a bible study thrown in on Tuesday?!
Our first visit to the church was interesting. The Mission de Resurreciones is an open air church that seats about 600 or 700, I suppose. Quite different than I am used to. Dancing, spinning, swaying, shouting, crying...
We stood up when the visitors were supposed to stand up, and they shook our hands. Innocent enough... but it came back to bite us.
When the altar call came, a few folks went up to teh front, and we got ready to go. But suddenly, a vice-like grip on my shoulder began to pull me up!
NO HABLA ESPANOL! NO COMPRENDO!! I cry!
"Let's Go," She barks.
Up to the front we go, to get saved. I was lost, but in a completely different way than she was thinking.
I think she was praying with us and trying to knock me down like the others, but it didn't seem to be working.
So here we are, in Honduras, in front of 700 rejoicing Christians, getting saved.
It was awful.
After awhile, a guy who spoke a little English came over. It turns out that when we stood up as visitors, we somehow conjeyed that we had never been in any church before. I guess they wanted to get us while they had the chance.
It's difficult to digest all these new situations, and I find my head either feeling like a waterfall - information pouring through unchecked - or like a desert - peaceful, but empty.
Ironic that we came here to think, to pray, and to talk. I find myself mostly listening.
But of course, that's when God speaks.