Karaoke: Breaking Down Cultural Barriers

Nothing says I love you like karaoke! Greg and I celebrated our 2nd Anniversary yesterday (October 7) singing a duet of the Bice rendition of Bryan Adams’ “Everything I do, I do it for you!” (Es verdad!) We had a ball! Yesterday was the 10th birthday of Alex (our landlord’s son and one of our favorite Honduran ninos!) We celebrated big style with a fiesta on the base. I would say there was around 50 people present. As always, they had delicious food (shish kabobs, beans, rice, tortillas, salsa, cake, ice cream, and it wouldn’t be a party here without sodas and chips!) So lunch was great! After eating, they broke out the piñata! The victim this time…Winnie the Pooh! He took a pretty good beating (even Greg took a few blows) but in the end, Pooh didn’t take it personally. (See photo right) We planned to go to El Torito for dinner in honor of our anniversary…it is rumored to be the fanciest and tastiest restaurant in all of Comayagua (priciest too). Well, lucky for our budget, we (mainly Greg) ate so much at lunch, that we decided we would have to go another night if we actually wanted to the enjoy the food! (Actually, we passed the restaurant on the way back in to town from the base and it was closed! Greg felt like he was ‘off the hook’ because that was now his excuse for not taking me out on our anniversary!)

After the party, Alejandra and Jony invited us back to their house to continue the celebration (basically a time for the adults to kick back and relax). We gladly accepted! We had no idea what we were in for! We sat around and chatted for a little while, then, the computer came out. They wheeled the whole desk out onto their patio, hooked up the microphone, and Shazam! our very own karaoke machine! One by one each person took a turn and belted out a familiar tune (well, to them at least, most were Spanish hits!) They actually had some songs in English too (think 80’s and early 90’s jams…Mr. Big, Ace of Base, Michael Jackson). It was awesome! We were all up dancing and whaling on the microphone for hours! Finally around 10:00pm we remembered we had school the next day. Sadly, we had to leave…however, we feel confident that last night was only the first of many more karaoke nights to come! J Besides, karaoke is a local favorite here in Comayagua….karaoke bars are about a dime a dozen! Good ‘ol karaoke…crossing cultural boundaries and bringing people of every race, nationality and religion together! I love it!

We also had the great pleasure of watching our first Ohio State football game this season on Saturday night! It was so good to see then tear up Purdue! We got to watch it on base on the big screen TV (no offense Coby). It was quite a treat! The next morning, Greg lead the church service at the Friendship Chapel (on base) because the chaplain was out of town. He delivered a great message on be willing to take risks (inspired by Matthew 14:22-36 when Peter walks on water with Jesus). This was his second weekend in a row delivering the message at church. God is definitely using Greg and speaking through him!

Thanks for all of your prayers for our missionary friend, Mark. He is out of the hospital now and is recovering well. He is still weak, but said he should be back to school later this week. Praise the Lord he is feeling better and will return to school soon!

As always, MAY GOD BLESS YOU!