My First Sabbath

August 15, 2009

Today was my first Sabbath here. The service started at 9:00 a.m., but Melissa and I arrived fifteen minutes early. We figured it would look bad if we, as missionaries, showed up late on Sabbath. I helped my friend make a sign on the sanctuary wall out of masking tape and crepe paper. It read “Los Bodas del Esposo” and the lesson was the parable of the virgins that were supposed to hold the lamps at the wedding, but fell asleep. The women are very involved in the church here. The women ran the pre-service, were leaders in the Sabbath schools, and even led out during the main service. Males are involved as well, but not as much as the females. I find this fascinating for conservative Adventists. More “liberal” churches such as La Sierra have females as head pastors and Loma Linda has many females play a major role in the church. I have never seen a women give the sermon at Loma Linda, however. That would be a sight, but I’m sure many people would call and complain. I am happy that women have taken on leadership positions here in Honduras because that encourages young females in the community to get involved, feel important, and become educated to gain similar functions themselves. One of the first things a society needs to do to become more advanced economically and socially, as many would agree, is to uplift and educate the women while keeping their same cultural customs. Some customs, however, should not be excused just because it is part of someone’s culture. For instance, here in Honduras, many people find it acceptable to pick their nose in public then blow their nose onto the ground. That is not really harming anyone. It is just gross. People visiting can deal and adapt to that cultural difference so it is acceptable. On the other hand, if the Honduran people were engaging in much more dangerous customs such as rampant drug use or having sex at very early ages, those are customs that cannot be excused. Even if dangerous customs like these have become part of a culture, it does not mean it is alright. There is such a thing as having too much cultural relativism. Post modernism has led people to believe that if it is fine with the person engaging in it, then there is no problem. Accepting the gross booger problem would be experiencing cultural relativism, but accepting that there are eight year olds having sex or Adventist leaders doing drugs just because “it is part of the culture” is enabling the people and letting them continue because one is too afraid to spark change or offend someone. The job of a missionary is to create some sort of change because if everyone were peachy without missionaries, then what is the point of being one?
The entire service was in Spanish so my mind drifted quite a bit. We were surprised that we were not invited over to someone’s home for lunch. Maybe they felt weird with the language barrier, or perhaps they are too poor to feed two more mouths, but it felt strange either way to left high and dry our first Sabbath here.
After church, I showed Melissa the Cathedral and parks I discovered yesterday. She enjoyed them. We then took a walk down the other side of our street and discovered that it was a much more affluent area until you got too far down and then there was nothing but trees and more trees and quite a few drunk men so we hurried back to where we came from before we got into any trouble.
Vespers was supposed to start at 4:30, but no one showed up until 5:15. On the way to the church, Melissa almost got pick pocketed by a teen with a baby. I always hold my bag in front of me. Melissa will now too. The vespers was much more fun that the church service. We played Bible baseball. Someone from your team would say a Bible verse and move to first base. Someone from your same team has five seconds to get up and say a different Bible verse and move on to first base etc etc so when enough people have gone “up to bat” or said a Bible verse, your team member can run home and score a point. An inning lasts as long as team members can say verses every five seconds. Once a team strikes out, it is the other teams turn and score is kept of how many home runs have been made. It was pretty fun. My team won! … I think. They then asked people to come and share their favorite Bible verse and explain why it is your favorite. I chose Mark 16:8 because that is when Jesus rises from the dead and tells the women to go tell the disciples and Peter what they have seen. I like it because Peter is the one who denied Jesus three times a few nights before and was filled with regret and remorse for denying his savior. God knew this so when he rose from the dead, he wanted to show Peter he still loved him so he wanted the message to be relayed specially to Peter that their relationship and friendship had a second chance and that God had forgiven him. A young man named Edward was able to translate for me. The people always say amen after someone says something they like so they all said amen when I was finished and that made me happy 
The people are so nice and welcoming. They all say Feliz Semana once the sun goes down which means Happy week. That is a cool concept to me. I think I will bring that home to the states when I return.
I made friends with the cutest little girl. He name is Andrea and she is very sweet. Her mother and grandmother are very nice as well. Andrea’s grandmother let Melissa and I use her hymnal. I feel so blessed to be welcomed into a new church home despite the language barrier.
Two more missionaries come tomorrow from Walla Walla. There will finally be enough people for a proper card came. Mel and I have just been playing speed and slap jack. How lame.