And so it has been decided....

I have had many people asking me recently what my plans for next year are. Up until recently, I have not been able to give an answer. So now, to let you all know: I will be moving back to the states next year. I have decided to go back to grad school to pursue my Masters in Communications. I have always dreamed of working as a journalist or in public relations, but that was put on hold while I had all of my fun, exciting adventures in Central America. I have thoroughly enjoyed being a teacher and will miss all of my 9th grade students greatly, but I am also anxiously awaiting this next opportunity. I will be working as a graduate assistant (meaning I will be teaching a 200-level course at the university) and I am curious as to how different it will be teaching a classroom full of college students who are invested in their education instead of 14-year-old kids who could care less about succeeding academically. My time in Honduras is not over yet and I am planning on enjoying as much Honduran culture as I can in the next 5 weeks before closing this chapter of my life!

Visitor

Jenny came to Honduras to visit me! It was extremely weird the first few days she was here because my worlds collided and I could not wrap my head around the fact that she could possibly be in Honduras so I kept assuming every time I saw her out of the corner of my eye that she was my roommate.

She got here on Friday and we pretty much went straight to the streets to play street soccer with my boys and the staff of The Micah Project. I was worried about how she would handle being around all of my street friends (the smelly, dirty, high-off-shoe-glue boys I have come to know and love), but as we were walking up to the field in the downtown streets, one of the men came out to give me a hug and Jenny reached over and grabbed him for a hug as well. I was impressed with how well she did. It means so much to me that one of my family members was able to be a part of something I am so passionate about. As I was on the field playing soccer, I kept running over to her making sure she was ok, but she barely ever had time to answer that she was because she was busy holding the little baby girls on her lap and spinning the kids in circles and loving on them and playing with them in a way they long for. After our hour on the soccer field was up, we set up the buckets to wash feet and she said, "Can I wash feet?" I told her yes, but warned her of how gross these guys' feet are and how you never know what fungus or sores to expect to find when you wash their feet. She didn't care, she did it anyways. It was awesome.

On Saturday we jumped on a bus and headed down south to Amapala (an island with a huge volcano in the center of it and black sand beaches all around the base). It was great to have a day to relax in the sun and play in the Pacific Ocean.

Sunday included church and Ultimate Frisbee afterwards up at school. It has been so HOT here recently that I was sure we were all going to pass out from heat stroke while we were playing, but we still had fun and Jenny was so hard core about it, she even flipped over a bench to catch a Frisbee, bruising her rib cage and doing some damage to her shins. Of course she kept on playing though......she is a Jones after all.

Monday and Tuesday were spent at school, introducing her to all of my students. They all thought it was hilarious that Jenny is taller than me and kept calling her "Super Jones" and me "Mini Jones." Apparently they all thought I was the oldest and couldn't get over the fact that I look so tiny next to her towering height (especially in Honduran standards). My girls each kept sneaking in the room and standing next to me, whispering in my ear, "Can you introduce me to her. I want to talk to her" and my boys......well, let's just say they all paid a little bit closer attention in class trying to impress the new Ms. Jones.

Today we are headed up to La Tigra to stay the night in the mountains and hopefully hike around a little bit and tomorrow will be spent in the town of Valle de Angeles, relaxing in central square and eating baleadas.

It will be sad to have her leave on Friday, but it has been so great having her here while I can!

Prayer Requests

The past month in Honduras has been harder on all of us than usual. Situations outside of our control have caused a lot of stress, anxiety, and loss of sleep for many of the teachers at my school. My intent is not to worry any of you because obviously we have no need to fear {Isaiah 41:13 says: "For I am the LORD your God who takes hold of your right hand and says to you, Do not fear; I will help you."}, but I am asking that you take a minute right now to pray for me and my friends/coworkers. Specific prayer requests:

1.) Pray for rest and energy as we are all running low on both. I have not been able to sleep through the night for about 4 nights now and it is starting to affect the quality of my work as a teacher.

2.) Pray for the strength to deal with students. We are in the last partial of school and students really don't want to be here. The temperature keeps rising in the classrooms and everyone is on a short fuse.

3.) Pray we are able to rely fully on God in all situations instead of trying to work through things on our own or doubting the awesome faithfulness and protection of Him.

4.) Finally, I ask that you pray for the broken, hurting people in Honduras. God is continually laying them on my heart and I need people to join in prayer with me. I feel so guilty every time I think about going back to the states to visit because it hits me that they can't just pick up and leave when things get tough in our little 3rd world country. This is their life, not just a 2-3 year adventure they get the opportunity to experience.

Thank you in advance for the prayers and support. It means more to me than you will ever know.

--Leslie

Way too long since the last update.

Has it really been over a month since I have updated my blog? I wouldn't be surprised if most of you have given up on me and do not check this anymore. That would be completely understandable. Life has been busier than usual the past month and I am doing all that I can to keep my head above the water.

I finished coaching the high school girls soccer team and now I am coaching a 5th-6th grade girls soccer team. The girls are a lot of fun and are enjoying learning to play soccer. They like to have the opportunity to play and are ready to show the guys at school that girls can be athletes too.

Classes have been going extremely well at school as we are reading through Romeo and Juliet. On Wednesday, we were going over a lesson on subtext in the play and the bell rang, signalling class was over. My students refused to leave the classroom. They begged me to teach for 5 more minutes because it was the last period, school was over, and the buses didn't leave for 7 minutes giving them 2 minutes to catch the bus. I unfortunately had to tell them no because I had to leave for soccer practice, but it still made my day they were so willing to give up their time to keep learning.

Tomorrow the school is paying to fly me and another teacher to a city up north in Honduras to attend a teaching conference on motivating students. I am excited to attend this event because I love learning new techniques to help me in the classroom and it is perfect timing because we do not have classes for the rest of the week anyways (our spring break is Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday).

After the conference, I am going to jump on a bus and head to the island of Utila for the rest of our break. I am so excited to head back to my favorite Caribbean island to relax on the beach for a few days and forget about the stress of work and decisions about next year.

Right now, I need to pack so I can catch my flight in the morning, but I will try to update again soon!

Back to warm weather, but missing the states.

I have been back in Honduras for almost a week now and still can't get over the fact that it is winter and yet so hot! Already in my first days back I was slathering on the sunscreen to try to save myself from getting a sunburn out on the soccer fields. It is fantastic!

It was hard getting back into the swing of things and the first day of school seemed to drag on forever, but I think I have finally adjusted my sleeping schedule so I will be ready to go this next week. I am kicking off Romeo and Juliet in my class this partial and have decided being a history teacher might have been a better profession for me because I absolutely love giving all of the background information on Shakespeare and the era in which he lived, even more so than actually teaching the material. I have a lot of great activities planned though and can't wait to have sword fights, a masquerade, and teach the kids Shakespearean insults (all in the name of good Shakespearean fun of course!).

On Wednesday I begin coaching a 5th-6th grade girls' soccer team (I have never done this before, but I am already looking forward to it) and will also continue working as assistant coach for the high school girls' soccer team.

Not much else new and exciting is going on, but I will post again with updates in the near future.

(P.S. I would like to say Happy Birthday to my mama, Becky Jones, and wish her a very happy day despite the fact that I can't be there to help celebrate. Love ya Mom!)

Going Home!!

Today we finished up 2nd Partial exams and at the end of the day I packed up my classroom, shut off the lights, locked the door, and left the school for the last time in 2010. I am glad Christmas break is here because trust me, teachers need it more than the students do! Tomorrow I will be on a plane headed to the great United States of America and tomorrow night I will be enjoying the company of my two wonderful sisters and my adorable niece and nephew. To say I am excited to go see my family is an understatement. I cannot put into words how ecstatic I am! When I decided to sign the contract to come teach in Honduras, I thought I would be sacrificing the quality of life I had grown accustomed to in the states - I didn't realize that the only real thing I was sacrificing was the time I got to spend with family and friends. It will be great to have 2 weeks to be back with them again, catching up on all I have missed out on and de-stressing and relaxing from half a school year of teaching some of the most rambunctious kids I have ever met.

For some of you, I can say, "See you in a few days!" For the rest of you that live too far away for me to visit while I am home, I hope you have a wonderful holiday season and get a chance to be with friends and family this Christmas.

Can't wait to join you all in the U.S. tomorrow!!

"While you were out"....

I started out the week with a terrible cold, complete with fever and all, which I thought was pretty bad until I woke up in the middle of the night and realized I had food poisoning on top of that. Not fun. I was forced to skip school on Tuesday, go see the doctor, and then spent the rest of the day on the couch sleeping. Despite my lack of energy, I returned to school on Wednesday to teach a full day of classes.

As I walked into my classroom, the room was a complete disaster from my 101 students who come through my room in the course of a day and I quickly began tidying things up as I made my way to my desk. My desk was covered in Christmas decorations that were to be used for the annual Christmas door decorating competition and right in the center of all of this I saw an interesting decoration that I hadn't seen before so I assumed one of my students brought it in while I was out sick.

It wasn't until I was a foot away from my desk that I realized the giant "decoration" in the middle of the chaos was in fact not a Christmas ornament, but rather a 4 foot python, coiled up on my desk. I panicked. It took a brief second before I realized the snake was dead and there was a note next to the snake that said, "I win. Merry Christmas." in bright red letters. I immediately knew I had my friend Matt Goasdone to thank for this frightful friend I had awaiting me upon my return to school. It was an incredibly fantastic prank!

I cannot claim to be innocent in this because in all honesty, I was the one to start the prank war. I couldn't help it. On my way out of school one day, I found a dead frog that I picked up and put in Mr. Goasdone's coffee pot. This school year I have intermittently been placing dead geckos in his desk. The snake was the payback for all of this.

He was right when he wrote a note saying he wins, because honestly, how could I possibly top a python?