Family

My birthday seems to have fallen on August 18th every year for the last 23 years.  For 17 of those years it also happened to fall on the first week of school, often times on the first day.  This year, although I completed years (as they say in Spanish) on the 18th of August again, it did not fall on the first week of school for me.  Instead of getting up on my birthday and going to class, I got up and went to a humble house church on the outskirts of Siguatepeque where I met with souls that were hungry in more ways than one.   I was humbled by the invitation from Junior, my Honduran mason friend, to a party at his house to celebrate mine and his dad's birthdays.  Instead of sharing a meal with my family at home, I shared a meal with my family in Honduras.

Unfortunately, I forgot to bring my camera to the party at Junior's.  I can tell you, though, that their hospitality was comforting.  I would have taken a picture of the piece of cake I was given, but it'll have to suffice for me to tell you that it was the size of a brick.  It's a good thing I like tres leches cake or else it would have been awfully difficult to stomach something that was no smaller than a shoebox.  I'll also use this time to warn you that the juice that comes out of hot tamales will actually burn you.  I found that out the hard way.  I was given three tamales to take home with me that were fresh out of the oven or stove or boiling water or whatever mean is used to cook tamales.   Despite being a safety hazard, they were delicious.  

At my second birthday party of the day I ate a comforting American meal of grilled chicken, squash casserole, coleslaw, watermelon, and chocolate cake.  It's rough being a missionary sometimes, you know?  A few days later, I was surprised with a birthday banana pudding from some other missionary friends.  If you're wondering why that is noteworthy, allow me to put it this way: instead of having a wedding cake, Laura and I are having a wedding banana pudding.  Needless to say, it was hands down the best banana pudding I've ever had in a third world country.  

Like birthdays tend to be, it wasn't all that different from any other day.  I did, however, enjoy my first birthday in a third world country.  I may not have been with blood on that day, but I was with family.