Weekend Update

It was a typical Comayagua weekend for the most part. Except I stayed home from church on Sabbath…I took the day and listened to some sermons that we received from some WWU packages. I took a nap and had some quality chats with Mark and Lori. When I got bored I baked some cookies for everyone…and Lori helped me sort some beans so they could soak over night. We have never soaked them over night but a lot of us get stomach aches after any meal with beans (and we have a lot of meals with beans) so we decided to see is soaking them would help…plus it cuts down on the cooking time so it saves us some propane as well.

Oh I have one fun story to tell that happened Saturday night…Marks toilet exploded…and I do mean that in a pretty literal sense. I guess water just started gushing out…pretty much water covered his whole room cause all the water in our water tank drained out of his toilet and into his room. We thought we were going to have to go without water till his toilet got fixed…but thankfully Pastor Trundle told us about some gage on the side of the toilet that we just had to shut off and now we can have water back! We are very thankful for that cause it was going to be a pain in the butt to have to go over to the house anytime we need to do anything that takes water…showers, brushing teeth, cooking, cleaning dishes, laundry…its no fun not having water!

This afternoon I went to the internet café and called home…my parents were gone into town but I got to talk to my foster brother Billy. It was just nice to be able to talk to someone form home. But don’t worry mom I’ll call again soon!

Friday was my last day teaching 9th grade language. Basically since the first day of class I felt that I should not be teaching them. Secondary teaching is just not from me. If I could just chill and talk with them that would be great…they are good kids with great personalities but I just don’t know how to teach them. Language is a hard class too…and they really don’t like it. When I talked with Pastor Trundle and Norma about not continuing this class for the third and fourth parcial I was given a pretty big guilt trip…they really wanted me to continue…I felt like they were not hearing me out and understanding what I was saying. Honestly I feel like I have not taught them anything…they sit in class and talk in Spanish for the entire 40 minutes…they do not want to listen to anything I ever say. I tried to explain that I did not feel like I had the respect of the students and it was impossible for me to discipline them and any time that I tried I never felt supported. One time I had the students working in groups and the next thing I knew two of the groups were chucking rocks at each other (who knows where the rocks came from). I ran out and grabbed a counsellor only to have her come in a joke around and laugh with the students in Spanish.

Mark was willing and able to take the class…he also teaches the 9th graders literature and he really enjoys teaching them so hopefully it will all work out for the best. Over all though I just feel like this is for the best…

Please keep all of us missionaries in your prayers this week. Discipline has been difficult these past few weeks…we are getting tired and burned out and basically don’t have any counsellor or administration support in the area of discipline. They just don’t follow through with anything they say so the kids are not afraid of anything. In some ways its just a cultural thing and there is not much we can do about it…but its been difficult for us all.