Susan Beth

                                                   

Lana Kathleen

Marta Elaine

Every year, I try to take portraits of my siblings for my mother.  Today I hung out with my youngest sister, Marta. She is always the greatest challenge in my family, either she looks at the camera with an entirely fake smile or she wanders away.  To keep her engaged and from acting too fake, I had her talk about her favorite things. When that didn't work, I asked her what made her smile, and she answered that cameras make her smile. I asked her why and she said because it's polite to smile when someone is taking a picture. I had to explain to her that you don't always have to smile and you should never force one.  Of course she didn't completely understand, so I just continued to talk to her and tried to make her laugh.  I think I eventually got a few good photos.
   

Soccer

One of my favorite things to photograph are events, such as sport events.  I took these on Thursday at my younger siblings' soccer games.    

                                   

     

This is my Family

I took these last Saturday. We were already dressed up for an event so it was a good excuse to take a family photo.  We did it really quickly and it was a relatively painless experience for everyone. :)

Jaire

Jaire reading the evangecube for the first time  

While I was in Honduras, I saw God worked in many amazing ways and I thought I would share a short story about one of those times.

During the week of clinic I worked with the children's ministry (like I said in my last post). Most of what we did, we did through translators. None of us could speak Spanish well enough to communicate fully, but on Thursday after a fairly 'normal' morning we were told that we would have to do the afternoon without a translator, because all the translators were needed elsewhere in the clinic. The idea of ministering to the children without an easy way to communicate was rather daunting to say the least.  One of the other girls on my team suggested that we get together and pray for the afternoon. So we did. We asked God to help us share Christ with the kids even through we couldn't speak their language.   We didn't know how He would do it, but we trusted that God would help us.


The afternoon started out a bit rough. Explaining how to play a game would be a game (of charades) in it self.  We still didn't have a way to share the gospel with these kids, until we found the instruction page for the EvangeCube, which is a cube with pictures that go through the gospel message.  The page has suggestions of what to say along with each picture and it had it in English and Spanish.  We started the cube by trying to read the Spanish on the paper ourselves, but our pronunciation wasn't very good.  Then we had the idea of letting some of the older children in the group read the Spanish. So we asked them.  One of those willing to read it was a ten-year-old boy, who had just came in with his younger brother.  His name was Jaire and we quickly found out that Jaire could speak English  It was incredible!  He became the unofficial translator of our group - his English wasn't prefect, but it good enough to communicate.  He finished the cube and then helped us explain games and communicate with the other children.


 
After most of the other kids left we got to talk with Jaire.    He told us about his family, that he and  his mother were  Christians and they both attended the church where we  were holding the clinic. Then he told us that "Jesus was not in his father's heart".  We asked him if he wanted us to pray with him for his father.  He said he did.  So, we sat there and prayed for Jaire's family.  I prayed first in English, and then Jaire prayed in Spanish.  As he prayed, I looked up at him, even though I didn't understand most of what he was saying I could tell he was being sincere.  Sitting there I was greatly encouraged, not only by Jaire's reverence and passion for God, but that moment made me realize How great of a God we serve - between us humans there was a language barrier to get around, but with God it doesn't what language you use, you don't even have to use words and understands and cares deeply about what you are telling Him.  

Jaire Sharing the cube with a friend

                 

    Later while we were cleaning up and getting ready to   leave,  Jaire picked up the Cube and played with it, flipping through it over and over again. He seemed very interested with it.   Abby, one of the girls on my team told him that he could keep one of the smaller versions of the cube if he let her teach him how to use it. He agreed and Jaire left that day with the cube eager to share Christ.

Ricky- one of our unofficial translators

 

The next day we were told that we didn't have a translator at all for that day.  Although everything went well the day before, I was feeling a bit apprehensive about the day, because it was a whole day of ministry without a translator, but not only did Jaire come back and help us, he brought one of his classmates, Ricky who also knew English .   Jaire told us that he had already shared the gospel via the cube with a couple people and was ready to do it for the group of children we had that day, and he did.  He and Ricky were tremendously helpful that day and God used them in great ways.    

Honduras

Very early on Saturday morning I returned from a two week missions trip to the beautiful country of Honduras.  During the first week, our team of about 15 students and 7 adults teamed up with a group of medical professionals, a group of translators, and local missionaries to run free health clinics.  While the medical team cared for the physical needs of the 1498 patients that came throughout the week, the missionaries went around sharing the great news of Christ with them as they waited.  I had the privilege of working on the children's evangelism team.  We spent time with the children who were waiting or whose parents were waiting to see a doctor.  We played a lot of games (especially soccer), did crafts, made balloon shapes, which was always a big hit, but most importantly we were able to present the gospel to them.  It was amazing for me to see how God worked in the lives of so many children, I even got to witness many children put their trust in Jesus Christ to save them. It was so beautiful to watch God at work!

My 2nd week in Honduras was as incredible as the first.  We had planned to perform the gospel drama that we had learned on Saturday, in several schools Monday-Wednesday.  We were told that at those schools we would be presenting the gospel to several hundred kids, which sounded like a great opportunity.  God had another plan. Most of the schools we were planning on visiting cancelled, leaving us unsure what we would be doing for those days... But of course God knew.  He opened the door for us to present the drama in two nearby High Schools.   We ended up only preforming the drama three times, but it was for over 2,400 students, much more than it would have been originally. After each drama, we were able to talk and pray with many of the students and we saw many come to a relationship with Christ. On Wednesday we had an opportunity to present the gospel message in a elementary school, where we also saw many children put their trust in Christ. That week our team was able to minister to over 3,600 people!   God was in control of that week (and every week).  We may have not known the next step until we took it, but I figured out that was okay and that I didn't have to know. One of the many things I learned was that it's okay to plan, in fact we should, but if God changes your plans it's because he has a better one.

 "In their hearts humans plan their course, but the LORD establishes their steps" 

 -Proverbs 16:9     

I loved photographing the children in Honduras, because unlike children here they aren't used to people taking pictures of them everyday, so when they looked at you or smiled at you, it wasn't fake or forced. And that is what I love the most about photographing people -capturing real, genuine emotions.  I shot all of these, except the one above, at the clinic during the first week.  

...And the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air...

"O say can you see by the dawn's early light,
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming,
Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight,

O'er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming?

And the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air,

Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there;

O say does that star-spangled banner yet wave,

O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?"

-Francis Scott Key

These were taken in Ocean City on Independence day. -this was really the first time I tried photographing fireworks, I liked how the light reflected off the water.