Honduras - Day 10

We woke up bright and early to leave Copan. Ishmael had to be back to Siguatepeque by 2 O'Clock so he could get to work by 5:30.

The ride was very pleasant. We got to see the country side and take some good pictures of the moments around Copan. The ride also gave me a chance to really think about the events of the previous night and evaluate where I would be if this was where God was calling me.

I thought about things like getting a horse and just kind of riding around. I also thought about getting a solar panel to charge my various electronic devices. I thought about the myriad of opportunities all around the world for me to go. As an Asian, I have the unique opportunity to do things and to go to places traditional white missionaries wouldn't have access to.

I also thought about different ways that my skills and talents that God had given me could be used out in the field. I thought about boostrapping the work with what I was doing back in the states or even being a tent maker and going that route.

There's so much out there that I could do and that needs to be done. I understand the risk and know that not all of it will be fun and sunshine. But no matter how dangerous or how fruitless the excursion, my responsibility is to obey. Like Abraham and Isaac, Abraham obeyed as difficult as it was for him.

We got back to Siguatepeque, rested for a little bit, and headed out for lunch. We were eager to have some beef stew but they had closed down for the day. We went over to Gloria's to have lunch.

In the middle of lunch, Joy came down and had a small argument with Ernesto about preparing some materials for training that night. It was awkward for Linshuang and I to sit in on this exchange as there were valid arguments on both sides.

After lunch, Linshuang went to the office to work on her Excel training. Ernesto and I went up stairs to finish up the Quickbooks importing. This was really the first time that I got to work with Quickbooks for any length of time. And I have to say, it's not a very good product. It's clunky and lacks a lot of simple features you would think a system like this would have. Then again, I haven't really tried anything else yet, so I'll have to see.

Then I was off to the internet to upload four days worth of entries and chat it up with a few friends. I managed to chat with M, who I miss dearly, for a little bit. It was hard because of her DSL and the connection I had. But we managed to chat a little bit.

I also got to chat with Jamie and talk to her about the whole idea of full-time missionary. It was good. She put a lot of things in perspective and reassured me on how to look for God's confirmation.

It was pretty late by the time I got out of the internet, so I headed over to the office to give my moral support to the trainers. Jesse and Grace were there so I hung out with them for the time. Grace and I competed in drawing things with pen and crayon and having Jesse guess what they were. I had drawn a picture of Trogdor that Jesse really liked.

After dinner, we debriefed and took a Meyers-Briggs personality test. I had taken tests like this before online but never really thought much about them. If you know the test, I ended up being an XXTJ leaning closer towards an XSTJ. It was actually very interesting learning about this and seeing how the various personality types interact with each other.

One of the things that we applied the test to was my conflict with Ethan. Based on what I knew of him, we guessed his personality type and looked him up. The description in the book was 80% Ethan. We also talked about different strategies to use to try and resolve the conflict issue. It was all very good and encouraging.

One of the things that I thought about was how Satan may have been involved in creating the conflict to try and keep us from doing our work. From the outset, we had said that we wanted to do this "...for the glory of God". And you know how much Satan likes those sort of things. We prayed and was confortably armed with some new approaches to interacting with Ethan.

Both Joy and Ernesto turned in while Linshuang and I stayed up to chat some more. We talked in more depth and detail the conflict between Ethan and I. We also talked about some of the philosophies that Forward holds in terms of how we run the business.

It was all just a great time chatting and sharing about different things that we had experienced and had learned. Things that we had thought about or had found interesting. It was very good.

One of the best things about this night was the time of prayer that we had. There was something about Copan that has really invigorated my prayer life. It feels so real and so close to me. I haven't felt this good about my prayer life in a while. Hopefully, God will keep it up and bless me with even more.