No Pare, Sigue! Sigue!

Today there was a quote I liked:
"If you can't stop thinking about it, don't stop working for it."




*No Pare, sigue! Sigue!
Translation: Don't stop, go on! Go on!

Visitors

I love even fuzzy pics with homeboys who travel thousands
of miles and create an opportunity for us to reunite.

I was so pleased to see the first Tennessee faces to appear in these middle-of-nowhere mountains - faces that belong to my friends Al and Jordan Murphy.

I know people can’t always find the money to travel abroad for a visit…and people have busy lives that make it hard to find time to place a phone call...

Anyways, all I’ll say about it is when someone from home makes contact in some fashion, it sure feels nice.

Stick A Fork In It

Year one is officially done!

It feels good to be celebrating twelve months here. My dream was always to live abroad for just that amount of time and then return home.

I can remember how much I didn't want to hear it when my living abroad advisor pointed out that many people get to the end of year one and up deciding they want to stay longer. They realize one year is too short for their experience.

Often, that amount of time ends up being just enough to learn the language, figure out how to exist in the new land, and start hitting a comfortable stride in general. Then after all the hard work, a calendar year has already flown by with no time to really enjoy the fruit of so much effort.

All that makes sense to me in a different way now. I can't imagine going back home after just one year.

Get In My Belly!

Thankful today for the season of pineapples and these guys.

If you've never eaten lychees, the texture and taste are comparable to that of a peeled grape.

This Is Me

I don't remember why I started scribbling these thoughts onto a page. I must've been in the middle of a thought process that stemmed from the fact that the experience abroad continues to help me discover more of who I am.

I am…

organic

and earth tones

fingers on wood & steel & nylon

live strings

unplugged, stripped down, acoustic, acappella

sparse production

sparse decoration…space…absence of clutter

"simple elegant solutions"

vocal harmony

solo acoustic

rustic surroundings inside - this is what feels like home

brick and stone

piece of wide open sky

flock of stunning white birds in Honduras

being where the green grass grows

hammock underneath white puffy rolling clouds and swaying lazy leafy branches

perfect breeze

dark scary pre-storm skies

blanket beneath stars and meteor showers

place beside the river, watching the river run

no cosmetics

natural

classy and classic

Where did I get this from?

Where did my style come from?

I don’t know.

My Sky

In a land where power outages are frequent, I am thankful for star-filled skies:

they're a nice place to direct attention that would be focused on frustration otherwise.

I Was Sent Here

Thinking tonight about a thousand little ways different friends helped me go when I wanted to move to Honduras.

Storing my belongings in their attic, lending me a truck for my hauling needs, giving me the grace to bust up the gang and head south of the border, and other kindnesses.

I don't know how I could have done it without all these gifts and the beautiful people who delivered them.

Little-Bitty World

Years ago in undergrad, a radiant human from Spain taught me how to dance salsa.

I lost touch with her after leaving Tuscaloosa,
there was never any sign of her on facebook or Google,
and all I could do was wonder about what ever happened to her.

The answer came earlier today on a random street in small town Honduras where she ran right smack into me.

The world just keeps getting smaller.

Andy Again

1. I freakin' love Andy Stanley.
2. He meddles in my business sometimes.
3. I needed this phrase from him so I can preach it to myself repeatedly:

"Every woman I see is made in the image of God,
her God is Heavenly Father,
and the same Jesus that died for me died for her."

Dedicated To My First Foreign Language Teacher

Here's to Mademoiselle Zumudio, my 5th grade French teacher:

I haven't seen or heard of her since I left grade school, but I've realized that there are times when her excited, animated language instruction informs the moves I make with language learners I teach today.

I have also realized that the day Mademoiselle Zumudio announced that she was soon to become "Madame Dabbs" was, in fact, the worst day of elementary school. The memory still stings a little!

For Better And Worse

No clue if I'll ever live there again after Honduras, but one thing is for sure:

Nashville is changing in ways I never expected.

It's changing for the worse and also for the better.

Worse - some of my favorite people are leaving town to live elsewhere.

Better - I have a growing collection of friends who have decided to move to Tennessee and give Nashville a try. Folks in this category include a few Americans I met in Copan...people who spent a few years in Honduras and then happened to settle on Music City for their next stop.

Return

Here's to another successful collaboration between American Airlines and me -- round two of me landing in Honduras to stay for a while.

As soon as I saw it, I took a liking to this painting by one of my teenagers. It is beautiful.
I was caught off guard by the skill of my student.
And maybe the solitary man in a boat sky-gazing subconsciously reminded me of me.

Last time I touched down here for July in Copan, there was so much that felt foreign. So much to figure out...accept...learn to live with. I had a lot of adapting to do twelve months ago when I arrived. But today, the simple life in this small town somehow makes more sense than life back home in the U.S.

I'm not sure how I'll feel if the time comes to adapt back!