As many of you know, I have been away on a trip to Honduras with a 16-member team from my church. We know a family that lives in San Juan de Flores (“Cantarranas”) and we go down once a year to assist them in their ministry. I felt particularly blessed by this year’s trip, by its timing and by the friends I made along the way.

In previous posts, I have alluded to the changes coming in my life. Part of this change is that in a matter of two days, I will be working my very last shift at Starbucks. I chose to quit this job at the end of June, because I could no longer keep my heart at peace while working there.  While I have made preparations for the change, it is still a leap into the unknown and requires a little extra courage than other changes I have made in my life recently.

Working at Starbucks is a very stressful job for an introvert, even a seemingly outgoing introvert, and a person who likes the freedom to create, change, and invent. I have, however, thoroughly enjoyed my co-workers and the kind-hearted regulars who became my good friends. We have enjoyed many jokes, moments of laughter, and the making of memories. The lessons I have learned in this employment have been invaluable and I do not regret my time there. But I fully believe that it is time to find a new workplace and to minister to a new group of people.

As I said before, I was blessed by the timing of our trip to Honduras. The past year has been very stressful, both in my personal life and my work life. It was true blessing to have a week where I could step away from this stress and focus outwardly on serving the Honduras community and my teammates. I have also been immeasurably blessed by the people I spent time with. I befriended fourteen year olds as well as men and woman who are two or three times my age. It is amazing to see all age groups come together under one purpose and share as equals the grace of fellowship. And I am thankful that this trip was right before big life changes as it was refreshing and encouraging.

In a few days, I will share here on my blog a message I shared on Facebook regarding girls and their self-perception. I came home from the trip and wrote an inspired article for the girls on my team and for those who choose to read the message. My hope is that sharing it here may help an even broader audience.

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Now onto some photo talk!

I am currently waiting on the lab to develop my rolls of film and I look forward to the photo posts to come. In the mean time, if you are interested in learning about last year’s trip, you can preview my SmugMug album or search my blog for “Honduras.” Thank you to everyone who has expressed interest in my work and my trip! It has really been part of a greater lesson that God has been teaching me over the past four years regarding hospitality and love.

The first image in this post is one I took with my little point-and-shoot this past week in Cantarranas. This second image is one I took with film last year. It is neat to see that some things changed and some things did not! For next year, I am considering taking only my Mark II in place of my point-and-shoot and my film camera. It would be a happy medium between the instantaneous digital imaging and the thoughtfulness of using a prime lens. I would also enjoy high quality digital images rather than low quality ones.

It will take me some time to process images once I get my film back from the lab, because I do all the scanning and post-processing myself. But I will definitely share images as they become available! I look forward to seeing how a different type of film looks and also how the two rolls of black and white film look.

Thank you for following my blog posts and I hope you will follow along with the upcoming ones. Dios te bendiga.