Hola mi amigos! How do I describe the life God has blessed me with in Honduras? I live in a tent, I share two freezing cold showers and three toilets with almost 40 people, the laundromat is my hands and water, meals are made from scratch, I live on top of a mountain overlooking Tegucigalpa, I am immersed in a beautiful community, and I am getting the amazing opportunity to serve and share God’s love with the people. I honesty could not ask for a better place to be in right now.
The ministry my team and I are working with is called Zions Gate Ministry. Tony is the great guy who runs the whole ministry (he grew up in Utah and lived not even fifteen minutes from me, so crazy!). He only discovered his faith five years ago and God has done some awesome things through him in the short amount of time. There are four main ministries we will do here: property, village, Los Pinos, and school, on top of reaching out and loving the kids who either live here or come by. Tony has his property completely open to anyone who wants to come through, it is truly incredible. I will be writing a blog every week about each ministry since the rotations are weekly.
The first two weeks of being here my team and I have been on property ministry. This means finding a project we would like to do on the 20 acres we have to work with and also cooking all the meals, cleaning and upkeeping the bathrooms, showers, kitchen, and the main room while spending time with the kids too. It is a 24 hour ministry! My team and I just finished a beautiful cactus garden for our project. There is something about taking dirt from the ground and turning it into something awesome that is so cool! I have learned a lot about serving others with an unending love and my patience has definitely been pushed but it was a lesson to be learned. This upcoming week we will be doing the Los Pinos ministry, I am a little nervous for it because it is the hardest ministry spiritually but it will be so good for my team and me. Please pray for us this coming week!
A week in the life of Honduras looks like a little bit like this: Monday-Thursday I get up at 5:45 and go for a run through the BEAUTIFUL mountains, get breakfast ready, have team time, work on the property project until 3:00 or so, shower/laundry/journal, get dinner going and served, and then have worship or time to spend with the squad and the kids, Fridays are our free days so we get to go to the store and have access to the internet for the day, Saturdays we have soccer ministry and spend time with the kids, and Sundays we have church on the streets. It is so crazy busy and I love it! I love everything about being here. God has already showed me so much and I cannot even imagine what He will do these next 9 months!
The next blogs I will write will definitely be a lot more personal and not so much information but I just wanted to let you guys know what life was like for me right now! I will be posting pictures on my Facebook soon so you can actually see it and not just try to imagine it. I still cannot even believe I am here sometimes when I look around at where I am, thank you for everyone who supported me in any kind of way, I would not be here without you! I am praying for you always. God is so incredibly good!
Love you always, Arielle
Hi Arielle, This is Kristen’s mom. I asked for the names of those in her family and have been blessed beyond measure this morning as I read updates and meet you through your writing. Thank you for sharing your week of training camp joy and restoration. Thank for your lessons to ALL of us on letting go of fear. That evil one uses it frequently to hold God’s beloved back. Thank you, too, for your word picture of the camp and your other pictures. Some of us are not your Facebook friends so what is here is very special to us. You are being prayed for by so many, some you may only meet in heaven. God bless you.