Buenos tardes from Costa Rica!! I’m currently sitting across from my teammate Daliah in a local coffee shop! But I’m not here to talk about Costa Rica just yet. I’m writing this to share with y’all my beautifully challenging time in H O N D U R A S !! Honduras, woah woah, what an experience! My squad ( all 30 of us ) camped on the side of a mountain for a whole month! We hiked to gather lumber to use for finishing the building of the church, started building chairs, tables, and bunk beds. We helped our ministry host and their team put on a VBS for the local children and painted a few nature scenes for the church. We even created an assembly line up a mountain to send concrete mix to a house we were helping with. That was the most insane moment of my race so far. Passing off concrete bags in the middle of a mountain in Honduras….. Beautifully challenging!
S U P R I S E!!!!! What do you instantly think of when you hear the word surprise? Most people would think of surprise party….right?! ( did I get you there ? ) Well the definition of surprise is “an unexpected or astonishing event, fact, or thing.” When I think of surprises or allow others to surprise me I am filling that void of until with wonder. I have often told waitress/serves to surprise me when they ask for my drink order or with their choice of sauce for fries or nuggets. Most times they instantly look stressed, but I always tell them there is no wrong choice here just fun! I didn’t put any expectations on them to do right or wrong. I say this because I heard of a lot different things going into my second month on the race that made a lot of people nervous, living in tent, hard manual labor, etc. I made an active choice to go into this last month with no expectations and the Lord greatly surprised me. Surprised me with how beautiful Honduras is! Surprised me with how beautiful the mountains are there! Surprised me with how beautiful the weather was! Surprised me with how beautiful the challenge was that month! Surprised me with how beautiful the Hondurans are!
We were located in the mountains of Comayagua. The scenery made you feel like you were in a movie! Everyday I was at awe with my surroundings. Birds singing in the morning, time to sit and watch the clouds move swiftly in the sky, stop to watch the full moon rise between two mountains, to watch the sunset over the city while standing at the top of the mountain. I was in constant thanksgiving this month for everything. Nature, people, things we have in the States that I would never think of thanking God for. For example, level ground, power tools for construction, boneless chicken, enough endurance to make it through the day. It was truly breath taking to unzip my tent every morning to see mountains right in front of my face.
Almost every night we would play uno with our Honduran friends. We taught a few of them how to play and they loved it! We would play round after round, and they would laugh at my Spanish pronunciation. This quickly became my favorite part of the day.
—-Currently dancing in city San Jose, Costa Rica!
Abby Frank 🙂
Your such and inspiration to me sweetie. I living this through your eyes and loving everything about it. God bless you and all your crew of new friends. Keep safe and I’ll be in. Prayer for you all. But I think I need to ask that you pray for all of us here back home. God sure is shinning in your life and showing you beautiful things and people. Much love to you and keep enjoying what he has to offer!!
Sounds like you had an amazing time in Honduras! Makes me so happy to hear about the wonder God is taking you through. I’m not an outdoors person by any stretch of the imagination, but reading your descriptions makes me want to see it myself. I’ll continue to pray for you as you continue on your journey, have a wonderful time in Costa Rica!
Abby, I’m so glad to hear that you are enjoying God’s creation as you work to help the Hondurans in your ministry. Sending up prayers for you and your team. ??????
The expression “Stop To Smell The Roses” comes to mind. You certainly did that while you spent time on the mountain. What a blessing for you and those around you.
“Beautifully challenging.” Well said, Abby. While we know that month wasn’t easy, you lived it beautifully—and the Lord showed you His love above and beyond all you could ask or imagine. Praying for more of the same for you this month. Love you!
The more I hear about the squad’s month in Honduras, the more thankful I am for a God who surprises! Thanks for the sweet reminder, Abby. And thanks for continuing to dance with God.