Monthly Archives: May 2009

Earthquake and a Conference

(Andy)

La Ceiba made international news on Thursday for a magnitude-7.1 earthquake 80 miles north of the coast.  It was the first earthquake I’ve ever felt, and in my half-asleep stupor I foolishly thought it was the kind of tremors Californians feel all the time.  There were 6 reported deaths, a collapsed bridge, and a number of destroyed or damaged houses.  If the epicenter had been on land, it could have been far more catastrophic.  We haven’t noticed any damage inside the city and there were minimal effects in Armenia Bonito, for which we’re very thankful.  If you’re interested, you can read more about the earthquake at yahoo news or on the Pettengill’s blog.

What the papers won’t tell you is that Thursday was also the start of our city-wide pastor’s conference!  (Novice reporters…)  The past two evenings a dozen church leaders from Armenia Bonito and several pastors and leaders from other churches in La Ceiba have come together for some teaching on the grace of God by Bill Yarbrough, the director of Latin American missions for our sending agency.  It’s been a lot of fun — those who have come seem invested in and challenged by the material and teaching, and I’ve enjoyed trying to keep up with Bill’s Spanish :-) .  We’ve already seen our prayers for the conference answered in so many ways.  One more day to go!

Our personnel turnover the past month has been a bit dizzying.  Josh returned from a visit home this past Wednesday, and I’ll be going home for good this Sunday.  It was sad to say good-bye to the folks in Armenia — especially some of the kids I’ve gotten to know through kids club and ESL classes.  But it’s a great encouragement that all our departures don’t leave our work unfinished.  Let’s be honest, it wasn’t our work in the first place.  I hope I pray for teammates and our Honduran friends like Paul.  I thank my God every time I remember you. In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus (Philippians 1:3-6).

Carnaval de la Amistad!

(Andy)

For the past two weeks La Ceiba has been priming for Carnaval, a big celebration to honor San Isidro Labrador, the city’s patron saint.  Despite all efforts, I’m not sure Saint Isidore would approve…

Each night for the past two weeks, a different colonia or barrio of La Ceiba put on an all-night carnavalito. Thousands of people packed out streets lined with outdoor restaurants, home-made gambling games, beer stands, souvenir-type tables, and (the main draw, aside from the beer of course) stages with blasting music and promiscuously-dressed women.  On Thursday night I had the chance — nay, the privilege — of “hosting” the carnavalito along with El Sauce, the neighborhood where I live with our teammates the McCanns (who were wisely out of town :-) ).  I got myself pumped up and watched movies and House all night, but even with caffeine and chocolate chip banana muffins, I was tired when the music finally stopped at 4:05am.  The party was right on our street, but aside from from a man urinating on our front gate, there were no issues.  We even got a Salva Vida beer stand right in front of the house:

Carnaval El Sauce 054

Saturday was the main event.  In the afternoon there was a parade down Avenido San Isidro (the main drag running through town) that consisted of lots of decorated floats with (you guessed it!) blasting music and promiscuously-dressed women.  There was a bit of exciting variation — a break-dancing group and some Garifuna (black carribean) groups doing dance and percussion in traditional garb.  At night it was the same deal as in El Sauce, just much much bigger.  After I took a few terrifying rides on Mikes moto to get some footage, he put together a youtube video of the whole deal (below).

I was listening to a Tim Keller sermon online last week, and he looked at some period documents to explain some of the reasons that Christianity spread so rapidly in the Roman empire, especially among the poor.  One of the top three was a radical view of sexuality; a culture characterized by sensual indulgence and drunkenness (sounds familiar!) saw something captivating, exciting, and joyful in modesty and marital fidelity.  But he commented that those of us who have grown up in a Christian culture tend to think the opposite — that the excitement lies in rebellion of some sort.

C. S. Lewis has a great and famous quote in The Weight of Glory:

“If there lurks in most modern minds the notion that to desire our own good and earnestly to hope for the enjoyment of it is a bad thing, I submit that this notion has crept in from Kant and the Stoics and is not part of the Christian faith.

Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires, not too strong, but too weak.

We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”

Would that our team might truly experience and communicate both that strong desire and the assurance of our reward — our “holiday at sea.”