Responsibility

In the midst of the collage of randomness that has been my life for the past week, I have found myself laying on the living room floor each morning, in front of the fireplace, reading the Bible. It's a good place to find myself!
I'm on the last month of a "Bible in a year" schedule. Today's reading was Ezekiel 33. Here is an excerpt:

7 "Son of man, I have made you a watchman for the house of Israel; so hear the word I speak and give them warning from me. 8 When I say to the wicked, 'O wicked man, you will surely die,' and you do not speak out to dissuade him from his ways, that wicked man will die for his sin, and I will hold you accountable for his blood. 9 But if you do warn the wicked man to turn from his ways and he does not do so, he will die for his sin, but you will have saved yourself.

Does that strike anyone else the same way it does me?! I know that this passage is God speaking to Ezekiel about prophesying to Israel, but wow, does that apply to us now too?? I believe it does. I believe that the Lord at certain times lays it on the hearts of His children to speak to a non-believer, be it about salvation, sin, etc. And it's not an easy thing to carry out that task! But just read that passage again, it's pretty self-explanitory of God's command concerning obeying what He asks us to do.

Thanksgiving

My mom carving the turkey ~ Mi ma arreglando el pavo

Ahh, Thanksgiving. The day I possibly consume an entire block of cream cheese. This year was just as wonderful as ever, filled with food, naps, food, naps, and food. The Lanes and Anita came over to our home for Thanksgiving this year. My last holiday in the States for a while!!

Trenton playing with an olive ~ Mi sobrino adoptado Trenton poniendo una oliva en el dedo

Jobless!

I am no longer employed. Today was my last day at work! The week of Thanksgiving is always crazy at the bakery, and this week was no exception. Not bad crazy though, just really busy! Last night, we baked 511 DOZEN dinner rolls. Miranda, Jill, and I packaged 191 orders. Starting at about 10am today, I'd guess we had 5 or more customers being waited on or waiting to be waited on. I left at noon! I got the easy shift! My almost two years at Great Harvest were "great" (haha)! I'm glad I only had one holiday this year though, Christmas is pretty stressful. Although I'd MUCH rather do a Christmastime at GH than at a department store or somewhere! I will now proceed to spend the next 2.5 weeks sleeping, packing, sleeping, getting my bank/financial stuff in order, sleeping, cleaning, sleeping, and finishing packing. See a trend here?? hehehe! Oh yeah, and tomorrow I'll EAT lots too! It will be nice to have a 2.5 week vacation, followed by a 3 week trip to my favorite place on earth (thus far) Tegucigalpa Honduras!

Me with a rack of orders!

Jill bagging rolls

Bob, Erin, and Sarah making rolls

Bye Thunder-Chicken!

I saw my car drive away for the last time today... leaving only the huge grease stain on the street. haha! Hey, I had that car since I was 17! It served me well, even if we did have to replace pretty much the entire electrical system (over the course of 4 years), fix the driver side window, never have use of the rear defrost, and not use any part of the air system for the past 5 months (due to the dysfunction of the heater core!). I will miss it.
Today I leave the car, Wednesday I leave the job......
Two more days as a "Great Harvester."

Yes, It's True........

I'M LEAVING!!!!!
Yep, December 13th at 6pm I will see Oregon for quite possibly the last time for two years! That day, I will be going to Tegucigalpa with most of my luggage to stay for Christmas, ending up in Queretaro Mexico like the 5th of January!

I promise I will write more this weekend, but ever since I found a cheap ticket (sitting upstairs at work using the Sip wi-fi connection on my laptop), called the Delgados, got "permission" from little brother Ronald that December 13 is a good day to come, booked the ticket, excitedly twittered around the bakery, came home and twittered around some more, I'm kind of tired. And, seeing that I've been nastily sick for the better part of this week, I'm taking the liberty of going to bed. Just wanted to pass on the good news! hehe!

What Country Do I Live In Anyway?

Hey! I had the greatest weekend! It was great after my not-so-cool news of last wednesday. I'll leave eventually for Mexico, just not in the next month or anything. So here's the lowdown on me:

Friday Evening:
I went to Iglesia to help the 4-6 grade sunday school class with a food drive. It was pouring down rain, so I wasn't too much looking forward to it. Only 3 kids showed up, so me, the kids, and Nora (the sunday school teacher) set off in her van. We first went to houses/apartments of people we know from Iglesia. We started off at an apartment complex where the tenants are mostly hispanics. The kids were shy at first, and at the first house where they encountered an english speaker, they were like, "Uh, hi, we are um.... Yessica!!" So I came over and explained what we were doing - collecting canned and boxed foods to make Thanksgiving baskets for those who don't have enough food to eat. We went to more houses, including a few more people from the Iglesia. After the initial apartment complex, the kids got more bold, and would each go to separate houses to collect food, even the two who have a more difficult time with english. By the end of the evening, Nora was saying that she had to get back to the church for worship team practice, and the kids were like, we just want to finnish this block! And then they'd move on to the next block too! They were having such a good time even though it was so rainy. Nora says it's a good example of why Jesus said that we a supposed to become like children to serve Him!

It was quite a cultural experience as well, and I saw things that the kids did that I don't think non-latino kids would do, and how the english speaking people act that is rude in Mexican culture. At all the English speaking homes, people closed the door and left the kids outside when they went to look for canned foods in their pantrys. The kids were pretty surprised at that! At the hispanic homes, the occupants left the front door open while they went to get food, and made sure the kids weren't in the rain. The kids liked to run across peoples' lawns and flowerbeds, and knocked on windows if no one came to the door but they could hear that people were home! So I certainly learned a lot that night too - about cultural differences, and about being a servant and making serving fun!

Saturday Evening:
We had the Watoto Children's Choir from Uganda coming to our church for the Sunday morning service, and I got the privilige of hosting some of them in my home! My parents were gone this weekend, so we had a spare bed. Alyse (24), Gloria (8), Charity (8), and Dorothy (7) stayed at my home. We didn't get home until about 10pm, but we stayed up talking for about an hour. English is the second language for each of them - Luganda is their first. They are extremely polite, and the young girls call me "Auntie Jessica!" We prayed before we went to bed, and Gloria and Dorothy prayed in english, Alyse and Charity in Luganda, and me in spanish. It was cool to be able to share our languages with each other! They found it strange but cool that I can speak a language that they've never heard before! I fixed them Baleadas for breakfast - that is a flour tortilla with cheese, beans, and eggs in it - a traditional Honduran breakfast. There was cinnamon chip toast, apple sauce, and fruit salad also, just to make sure that they had enough to eat if beans for breakfast was too weird!

Charity, Alyse, Gloria, and Dorothy at my house

It was GREAT to see their concert at church! There were 18 kids and 4 adults in the concert, and it was just really cool, if Watoto comes to this area again, definitely go see them!!


Charity, Gloria, Me, and a Watoto boy at church after the concert

Sunday Afternoon:
After Watoto and then service at Iglesia, I headed out North to stop by Oscar & Lety's home in MacMinville. They'd asked me over for lunch before, but it's just so far away, I never went... We ended up in Lafayette at Lalo and Tania's home for dinner. I LOVE hanging out with people from Iglesia, they are just so hospitable and don't show frustration with me when I don't understand everything! I ended up going to 5 homes of people from Iglesia this weekend, counting those on Friday, the people who were home brought us in their homes while they gathered their canned goods.

Anyhow, all activities of this weekend were either Mexican or African, I LOVED every minute of it! How was I born white? haha! My parents wonder that too! What other country can you live in and be involved in 3 different cultures over the couse of 3 days!?

Nooooooooo!!!!

Today I got bad news. I can't leave ASAP for Mexico. I still have donors who have pledged support but not sent it in, and I guess they all need to have sent in money for me to count them as donors. So I need to talk with people to see if they really are going to support me, or if they aren't able to.

That was a big blow to find out that I can't leave the beginning of December. My last day at work is the day before Thanksgiving. I'm not sure now either how or if going to Honduras will fit into this anymore. So that is even sadder, I don't think I could handle having to tell people I'm not coming. My Salvadoran friends ask me every week when I'll be there, and if I can stay for a few weeks, etc. Fran keeps telling me he's ready right now to move out of his bedroom so I can stay there, and that he'll sleep in the hallway room if necesary so I can stay as long as possible. It's certainly nice to be loved! I was never planning on staying there too long for Christmas, maybe 3 weeks, and I'm not sure what will happen now, I'd have to get a round trip Portland to Tegus ticket which was not what I had planned.

My team leaders are leaving Mexico for the States the middle of January for a 2 month furlough, so if I'm not there by the time the leave, I may have to wait until they return. But that's not too likely, as some other team members could find someone to host me (the team leaders are the only ones who have an extra room for me to use). So the problem would just be me getting 4 suitcases on a bus from Mexico City to QRO, and I'm guessing that if I went on a weekend, Emil (honduran friend who lives in Mexico City) may be able to take two of my suitcases as his own and just be in QRO for day or two.

So that's where I'm at right now. Confused? Me too!! Please keep praying for me!

Police Raid

I was escorted out of church yesterday by police. So were many other church members. They didn't like that we were singing songs about God.

Weird you think? Did I mention that the "police" were three high school boys headed up by our mission president?!

So this month is prayer for the persecuted church month. For the beginning of the service (this is at Nazarene church not Iglesia) we had no hymnals, no cross, the buletin had no mention of any religious stuff, and our Bibles were taken away. We were not able to sing any songs that mentioned the LORD (we tried, that's why we were escorted out). Why in Oregon? Because a picture was being painted of how people in other countries go to church... except that they have real threat of being hauled off to prisons that are way worse than ours here. We had things REALLY comfortable yesterday, but it was a small demonstration of others around the world. We totally take for granted the fact that we are able to worship freely, read the Bible, teach our children the Word, and fellowship together. It would be SUPER hard to live in a country where we didn't have that freedom. In Mexico, we'll still have the freedom to do that. My friend Elsy, she will have it hard in Asia in a country where they are not allowed to proselytize. She's leaving for her country in January!

Anyhow, it's amazing what other believers go through to meet together and study the Word in countries where it's illegal. A good book about that is Safely Home, by Randy Alcorn. I just read it. It's a fiction book, based on true circumstances, about Chinese Christians and a non-believing UnitedStatesican who goes into the Chinese Christian community. I highly recommend it!

At Iglesia yesterday, even though the message wasn't specifically about persecution, the main point was "Fiel hasta la muerte." Faithful until death. How much are WE willing to suffer for Christ?

Sooooo......

The day is quickly arriving for my departure. I put in notice of my last day today at work - my last day is Nov. 23. Monday I will call International Teams and see if I have the okay to leave in December... !!!!!!!!!!!!!!