I'm sure this won't come as a surprise but I'll mention it anyway. I sure do miss my fiancée Jill. We exchange e-mails everyday and talk most every night courtesy of Microsoft's NetMeeting 3.0. Occasionally the audio quality is too poor and we type back and forth but more often than not the audio quality is passable. (I don't think the dime-a-minute long distance carriers in the U.S. have anything to fear from the Internet.) It costs me over a dollar per minute to call the US and it costs Jill 60¢ per minute to call me. So $2 per hour Internet connect time for me and $20 per month unlimited for Jill makes our talking affordable.
A random observation: My second day on the island I noticed that I walk a lot faster than most of the people here. I've since noticed a few other fast walkers but I've tried to slow it down a bit.
The things I don't know about getting along here are numerous. It's fatiguing just learning what they are. Fortunately I have the church. They are loving me and patiently answering my questions about how things are done, what people's expectations of the pastor are, etc.
Experiencing frustration is just a part of adjusting to life here. Some examples... From time to time I find the cistern totally and unexpectedly empty. Usually I can figure out the cause but even so, I didn't have the water when I wanted it. Occasionally the power's not on when I want it on. Some things don't get done when I think they should get done.
Most surprising is that the littlest frustration makes it feel like the whole house of cards of frustrations is coming down at once! My immediate way of dealing with it is to pray. I've got no problem saying, "Lord, right now I hate it here. I just hate it." (That has most often happened when I'm in the shower and run out of water.) And if I feel like shedding a few tears, I do. I'm aware even in the moment that the feeling will pass and sure enough, it does.
To offset the frustrations there have been a lot of joys. I love hearing people's accents (there's a pretty wide variety) and idioms. When someone offers to show me around the island I readily accept and so I regularly make new discoveries about my new home. Plus, I just like seeing the place through their eyes instead of only my own. The island feels bigger than I thought it would, people-wise and area-wise. I'm thankful for that. It looks so tiny in an atlas! Lastly, I am doing ministry here and that in and of itself brings me joy.
When the weather is just right you can see the mountains on the mainland at the very edge of the sea. They're very beautiful. My second evening here I had walked down to the airport. There was a rainbow over the mountains. That was a tremendous joy.
Though I struggle with the differences between Utila and the US, this place is definitely not "the third world" as we sometimes call it. Conditions where I live are significantly better than the rest of Honduras, I'm sure. I'm especially thankful that an English speaker like me can still get by here. While I'm pressed to use my little bit of Spanish communicating with those who know no English, I'm grateful that I don't have to surmount a language hurdle right at the beginning of my time here.
The problems that my church faces here are not so different from what many churches in the US face. My experience here will help equip me to minister here and in other places, probably in more ways than I can now imagine.
My final observation, whether I can see it in every moment
or not: God is good... All the time.