Lake Yojoa, Honduras – January 2011

On January 4th, I embarked on a brief one week journey with the Hurst family to Honduras, Central America. Flying out of JFK, we had a short layover in San Salvador, El Salvador on the way to touching down in San Pedro Sula, Honduras. As this was my second time in Central America (I visited Guatemala in 2009 for about the same length of time), I was pleasantly surprised at the modern infrastructure and more relaxed atmosphere of the city of San Pedro Sula when compared with Guatemala City. The airport was impeccably clean and modern. A key indicator of the contrast between Guatemala and Honduras was the almost non-use in Honduras of concertina wire on top of buildings and fences as we traveled on the outskirts of the city heading South to Peña Blanca, Cortes.  Since there are no less than four towns called Peña Blanca in Honduras, it’s good to specify the district (Cortes) when asking for directions

During our time in Honduras, we stayed at the guest house of Christian Light Missions, meeting many of the missionaries, and touring the bookstore and warehouse filled with Spanish literature and a few pallets of medical supplies headed for the clinic located four hours away in Erandique, Lempira. We enjoyed many varied activities, helping raise the roof trusses on the addition to the church building down the road in El Eden, adventuring at the Pulhapansak Falls (going back to the cave behind the falls), swimming in the Atlantic up north near the town of Tela, changing a tire after a blowout on the way back from the beach, worshipping several times with both the missionary families and the national believers, eating fantastic farm-raised tilapia fish, hiking up a 900ft hill overlooking Lake Yojoa (the largest lake in Honduras), and going on more than one shopping excursion in Peña Blanca.

Several American youth are serving in various capacities there in Honduras and they all helped to make our time much more enjoyable than it would have been otherwise. Rhonda Z. (school teacher), Jeremiah & Ben J. (bookstore/warehouse), Natasha M. (clinic), along with several others were great hosts, translators and chauffeurs.  :-)

Honduras is a beautiful country, and as is always the case for me after visiting a new country, I now have a clearer picture in my mind of the people and geography of the place then merely a shape on a political map of the world.  I would go there again in a heartbeat.

Click the link below for a slideshow of photos I took while in Honduras.

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Enjoy! 

Audio Clips: 

1. Blessed Be the Day of Our Savior’s Birth

2. Christmas Offering (song from Casting Crowns)

3.  Hark the Herald Angels Sing

4. Jesus Was Born Today (Happy Birthday)

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Singing 

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All students, staff and alumni singing at the end of the program. 

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After the program, we drove up and spent some time at the Pagoda.

You can download the Picasna plugin for your own WordPress blog or website here.

Youth Bible School 2009… what a blessing, what an opportunity!  661 young people gathered together listening to sound Biblical teaching for an entire week.

What did we learn?

From David Janzen’s messages on Studies in the doctrine of Faith we looked back through the annals of time and reviewed the lives of several men and women of faith mentioned in Hebrews 11. We explored the reason for their faith and how the same power that upheld them during times of extreme persecution and hardship can be ours, thousands of years later. Out of these sessions, David’s graphic description of Noah’s faithfulness in building the ark over a 120 year period, will remain etched in my memory for a long time.

Dean Taylor spoke on the familiar theme, What Would Jesus Do? Standing in front of the crowded auditorium, he grabbed a can of spray paint and wrote on a white cloth-covered stand, “What if Jesus really meant Every word that He Said?” This remained the theme for his messages during the rest of the week as he explored areas of Jesus’ teachings that are often overlooked by the broader evangelical church community.

John D. Martin’s sessions on Seeking God’s Kingdom, was for me a culmination of many of John D.’s previous messages on Kindom living. He told several familiar stories as well as some that I hadn’t heard to illustrate the vision that Jesus left us on how we are to live our lives as Kingdom citizens.

The evening revival services, conducted by Leonard Guenther, John Ray Nolt, and Mark Brubaker, were times of soul searching and repentance. Several young people turned over their lives to Jesus and found glorious victory over sin after these evening messages.

I am amazed each year at how Earl Fox, the chorus director, is able to get 600+ young people to sing together in four part harmony for Sunday evening’s Youth Choral Program. Added to that the controversial removal of one of the song selections midway through the week, and one can only attribute the strength, patience and wisdom of this man to God.

Prayer and Sharing was a highlight to me this year as nine of us young men shared our thoughts and poured out our hearts to our Savior and Lord. Youth Testimonies were similar as several young people shared about God’s work in their lives to a broader audience. Both of these times are so necessary in Bible School as they deal with areas in life “where the ruber meets the road” as it were.

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I took several photos this year which you can view at the password protected link below. Also included in this album are the group photos that were taken by Roger Weaver.

Link to Album
Username: guest
Password: (first word lower-case of first song in chorus book)

My brother and I recently visited Seattle’s landmark, the Space Needle.  You can view more snapshots that I took during our visit HERE.

Time Lapse Round One from Sean Stiegemeier on Vimeo.

Same photo set on Facebook (Part 1 | Part 2)

Missions Conference '09

Just an aside, I wonder if those were Canadian Geese that got blendered?

]]> http://joshchampagne.com/blog/2009/01/16/miracle-on-the-hudson/feed/ 2 http://joshchampagne.com/blog/2008/12/03/wakeboarding-in-venice/ http://joshchampagne.com/blog/2008/12/03/wakeboarding-in-venice/#comments Thu, 04 Dec 2008 00:00:04 +0000 Josh Champagne http://joshchampagne.com/blog/?p=334 This guy decided to go wakeboarding during the recent flooding in Venice. Looks like fun to me!

Photo Credit: REUTERS/Handout/Euro-Newsroom.com/Joerg Mitter

Scattered here and there however, you will find more traditional fall color like the photos below that I took while out walking today.

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