Finally, a real update

Hey Mom,

YEA! for having a working enter key again!

It's so amazing to me that money is still comming in for this!  Wow.  God is so good.  I'm still not sure about what we're going to do as far as a keyboard is concerned.  I would like to totally wait and get something (the right thing) this Christmas, but I'm wondering if I will be able to wait that long.  Apparently there is a sort of choir competition around Christmas time between the local bilengual schools.  This is really exciting and I can't wait to get involved, but I don't know what the rules are or if I will be able to do it without even a small keyboard.  I think I might be able to borrow one from the church or even possibly have music class in the santcuary.  I don't know; I guess we'll find out as this goes along.

So I'm starting to wonder about my laptop... is it alive, or did it finally give up the ghost?

I'll try to get with you later about those people who I still haven't been able to write thank-you's for.

The church is very large, although it has a smaller sancuary.  There are probably more than a thousand people that attend here at CEAD Church during one of the four weekend services they have.  The services are completely in Spanish, but once the usual translater returns from her vaction in the US, there will be regular translation in the 9 o'clock service via little earbuds like our church sometimes gives to the "hearing impaired".  I think it will be pretty cool.  The church does mostly Spanish Hillsong music (from Australia) and the services are so wonderful.  God has really been speaking to me here lately both through personal devotions and also at various special times or "events" that come my way.  I know without a doubt that this is where I'm supposed to be.  Although I think I'm glad for your sake that the international news has been dominated by the middle east as of late... ;-)

We have done some sight seeing as of late, but not too much.  Just stuff in and around Tegucigalpa.  There is a little art village real close here and I'm going to be very sad come December if I don't have some money saved up; there are so many wonderful things that I would like to buy and take back to all my friends and family!

It actually lookes like I'll be teaching more middle school than high school now that I'm here.  As you already know, there isn't a 12th grade because Hondurans graduate after the 11th.  However, apparently the Honduran Department of Ed. doesn't believe it's extremely important for their 10th and 11th graders to have music classes, so I'm only going to be teaching from 5th-9th grades in music.  The rest of my time will be taken up in teaching Bible classes (probably to the upper grades [including 10th and 11th]).  I'm really looking forward to that!

I haven't met many of the student's I'll be teaching at all, but I think I'll possibly have learned a little bit better Spanish by the time I come back.

By the way, I think I've decided that if I had to choose between having a keyboard/piano and having a computer in my life... even with the versatility and necessity of computers these days, I would still choose a piano.  I desperately miss having one around to go sit at and tinkle with!  I'm piano deprived.

PS- Although they probably should, no Honduran really has car insurance.  They look at it as pointless.  And I must say that the mint condition 1997 Speed-the-Light Chevy Trailblazer that the school is letting us drive is quite nice... even with the overprotective and too-eager car alarm!

;-)

Much Love,

Jason Scott Vawter

No enter button

Well, I'd like to start off by saying that having no enter button poses a good-sized problem when typing a multi paragraphical blog.  Having paragraphs breaks long treatices up into more managable pieces, while not having these paragraphs makes even the shortest paper seem quite dawnting.  I also wish I could spell.  Too bad.  >>>>Next subject: Getting in touch with those I love.  Now, if only everyone that I wanted to speak to had a handy-dandy little computer mic and either a program called "Skype" or some instant messanger type program like MSN IM or AIM... the world would be a much better place.  ;-)

Eight easy steps to buying a piano in Tegucigalpa...

When reading, please remember that Tegucigalpa is a large city with more than 1,000,000 people.

 

Number One:   Find a bus driver and ask for help in locating all available stores that might possibly have anything related to music; specifically pianos.

 

Number Two:   At the first tienda (store) notice the lone small keyboard on display and quickly ask to be driven to the next place.

 

Number Three:   Al la segundo tienda, be grateful for the wide array of guitars and sound systems as you walk to the edge of the store to find the keyboards.

 

Number Four:  You see two of worth.  Solomente uno en todo el tienda tiene "weighted keys"; es un Roland, and it's a keyboard so you have to buy a stand and a seat and a pedal and an amp to accomany it.  On el oltra mano (the other hand), there is a rather nice clavanova type Yamaha teclado (keyboard).  However, it doesn't have weighted keys.  Lo siento; you lose.

 

Number Five:   While speaking with the store worker you find out that a while back they sold an upright piano.  All the Hondurans with you seem very surprized; it's very rare for a piano to be sold, much less seen.

 

Number Six:   Find out that the third store is very much like the first.

 

Number Seven:  Find out that the main keyboard for la iglesia de CEAD (the church here) was bought in the US and then flown back into Honduras.

 

Number Eight:  Be satisfied in this, and then decide to wait and do the same thing once you go back to the states in Deciembre.

 

Smile; your eight simple steps in shopping for a piano in Honduras have been completed!

 

;-)

 

Re: Miss You!

Hey Mom!

 

I miss you too.  I hope you don't mind, but I figure whenever I send out an informational type email, rather than explain it all again to someone else, I'm just going to use it on my blog.  Keeps me from writing the same thing too many times... and then I don't have to worry who I've told and who I haven't!

 

The "apartment" that I'm staying at is actually much more like a very nice townhouse than an apartment.  It's in a gated community with 24 hours-a-day guard.  It's very nice.  Most places around here have guards, so I guess it's not as cool as it really seemed to me the first time, but hey,  I can pretend...  Anyway, the guys I'm staying with are great.  They're from Wheaton in Illinois I think and they are both very tall.  Actually, I don't know if I've ever felt this short!

 

The apartment is only a few blocks from school and it's in a very nice neighborhood.  I've heard that we're only a few blocks from the president.

 

CEAD is actually giving us a car to use!  And it's not a sad one at all; it's quite nice.  It's a Chevy Trailblazer and it's only a few years old.  Honestly, it's nicer than any of the cars we've got in our driveway.  It's a Speed-the-Light vehicle of course.  We've already taken a trip in it.  We went to Valle De Angeles yesterday afternoon and it was so beautiful!  Everything is so beautiful here.  PS- don't worry, although I so desperately want to drive, I haven't let anyone else know and have been eager to let one of the other guys drive anytime they wish.  Actually, I haven't driven once yet.

 

The food is wonderful!  I would take plenty of time to explain the way it "dances on the pallate" and frolics with the taste buds, but then again I guess you'll see soon enough when you come down and visit me!  ;-)

 

The flight here was great, although I must say that I was quickly "baptised by fire" so to speak in Spanish and that first couple of days between my complete lack of comprehension and the most intense headache I've ever had ( ever), I was almost ready to give up.  Maybe a little culture shock or something... how about language shock?  I didn't realize how little I knew about anything .  I was quite amazed at how quickly I could be shoved into a world where I was almost completely helpless.  Wow...

 

As for the baggage, I was able to "smuggle" in my extra heavy carry-on.  Actually, once I connected with TACA, they told me it was too heavy and that they would have to check it at the gate, but they didn't charge me.  (hahaha!  I win!)

 

What did I forget and wish I had?  SPANISH!!!!  I so desperately want to learn.  And I'm seriously trying to find a tutor who will spend time with me every week for a few hours and help me and give me lessons.  Carolyn, the lady who has been here two years before this as a science teacher (and a "Missionary Assistant"), has one last year.  Actually, she attended the intense, 7 week version of the A/G language school at Costa Rica, but said it didn't help as much as she would have like because within the month following the language school she was in American and forgot most of what she had learned.  She speaks really well as far as I can tell...

 

Well, I Love you very much and I hope things are going well with you and Dad and Stacey.  Sounds like Stacey is having a blast at FAF.  Tell her I said congratulations!

 

And if you get a chance, please come by and check out my blog.  I've made close to 10 posts without anyone commenting at all.  *sniff* *sniff*  It's lonely in cyberspace without someone to comment...

 

;-)

 

Love,

 

Jason Scott Vawter

An Update and a big Thank You!

Dr. Burns,

 

I was wondering if you might forward this to the rest of the Chancel Choir; I just thought they might like a quick update!

 

I want to thank everyone who helped out the other night so much for all that they did.  God is good and much money was raised!  I'm hoping to go shopping even today to look around at the options for buying a piano or a keyboard here.  I'm personally hoping for an actual piano, but the cost of constant tuning (even if only once or twice a year), may be a little prohibitive.  There is no need for air-conditioning or heating down here because the climate is so mild (it's WONDERFUL).  The day I arived I was astonished to walk outside the airport and have a cool fall-like breeze blow past!  But the point of that is that all the draftiness of not having a more controled climate indoors may keep having an actual piano from being a real possibility.  But even so, with all the donations, I'm sure it will be possible to either by that or a large, well-made keyboard.  I'm very excited!

 

God is so good!

 

During the past three-four days, I've been able to travel around the city for a little bit and acutally sort of get my bearings so to speak and figure out where things are in relationship to other things.  There are so many beautiful places down here!  The city is large, old, and fairly dirty, but there is just so much beauty that it would be almost impossible to miss!

 

There is a small village very close to Tegucigalpa that has many handmade arts and crafts and wood carvings and such that they apparently sell everywhere in Central America, but it's much cheaper there, I'm already planning to spend gobs of money there.  Of course I have to work long enough to earn it first!

 

Anyway, I just wanted to give you an update and an HUGE thank you for all the help that you and the rest of the church gave.  Thanks ever so much!

 

If you get a chance and would like to, come by and see my blog; there will be much more regular updates there.  But don't worry, I'll try to send an email every once in a while.

 

The blog can be found at http://afishymusicmachine.blogspot.com.

 

Thanks again!

-Jason Scott Vawter
 

Alright...

Ok... apparently cyberspace is suddenly devoid of all populations of people anywhere.

 

At least when it comes to this blog.

 

I keep hoping someone might come by and enjoy reading a little bit about my Honduran adventures, but so far (at least since I've been here) barely anyone has come by to comment.

 

:-(

 

How sad.

 

;-)

Anna's here

Well, it took long enough!  We stood at the airport waiting on her for about an hour and 15 minutes, but she finally came out.

 

I don't know what we're going to do about the piano, but I'm going to try and get with the music minister at the church here named Aldo.  We'll see.  Don't know when things are going to happen.

 

See you later!  (much later!)

Well hey, looky there!

It did work after all!

 

Hmm.

Testing!

Testing... testing... Testing, one, two, three.

Ok, so does this even work? I guess we'll see tomorrow morning. If it does, it would make things much easier. Maybe.

Anyway, I think I've figured out what I'm going to do for the first few classes. I think I might be allowed to have class in the sanctuary of the church that's attached to the school here. The only problem is that though the church is attached, it's apparently very separate. I would have to get things okayed on many diffent levels in order for this to work. We'll see.

Anyway, people down here don't use hymnals at all. It's a pain for them because most don't know how to read music (at all) and also the hymnals are very expensive. If a church does have hymnals, it's usually just a collection of the lyrics. Hymnals with the four part music would actually be used by the music minister and pianist and such. Bummer. That's going to make things a bit harder.

Catch phrase of the week: "We'll see."

Do you play the Piano?

Well now, that really depends on who's asking. At Central A/G, I was one of the pianists from time to time before I went to college (and even at times when I would return). The same is true this past year at FUMC, I would play piano sometimes while Luke played beautifully on the guitar. So, I guess if you were someone from one of the churches I attended, I would say, "Yes, I play the piano a little bit." Hey, why not? I've been taking lessons since I was in the 4th grade.

HOWEVER, if you were someone from Lee, I would have to imphatically say no. I'm not really a pianist, and I figured that out as soon as I heard a few of the real pianist, the piano majors that had been playing since they were 5 years old before they were ever in school. So for my entire time at Lee, I rarely (if ever) told anyone that I played the piano. If they asked, I wouldn't feel bad saying that I didn't play or if I was forced to admit it, I would quickly add that I didn't play well and couldn't really read piano music to save my life.


And so it goes with the ever increasingly important question asked here: "Hables Espanol?"

No, no hablo espanol.

Oi mi Cabesa!!!!

Sorry I didn't type more last night, but my head hurt so much! I ended up having the worst headache I've ever had in my life. I was hurting so bad I wanted to cry. Wow was it painful.

But God was good, I went to bed early and got plenty of sleep, and of course, you can't feel a head ache if you're asleep! I woke up early this morning and ate breakfast and then slept some more. I feel really rested now!

My first course of action is to try to get in touch with a guy named Aldo and see what the options are going to be with the piano/keyboard. I'm still not sure yet. So many questions and so little prior knowledge!

Man am I hungry, and it's only 9:36!

I'll have to find something to eat.

Am I finally here?

I guess so!

It sure took a long time! Gosh, before I got here it was like some cyber, ethereal (yeah I know I misspelled that), messed up time vortex that made time keep getting slower. Seriously. The closer I got to Honduras, the slower time went. I thought yesterday (travel day)would never end! But I'm here now and finally!!

Mr. and Mrs. Harrison took me as well as another teacher, who is returning from last year, to Valle de Angeles (Valley of Angels). The teacher (Carol) discribed it as sort of a "Woodstock without the drugs". There were so many beautiful things to buy with the minute amount of money that I had with me.

Speaking of money, we're going to have to see about that. I've got plenty, but apparently, it's easier to use a check here than it is to use Visa. Talk about backwards! Oh well...

Well, stay tuned. I guess. I don't have a lot to write about yet, but I'm sure things will come flowing soon enough.

FUMC Concert

The concert went so much better than I could have expected! The church was so generous in a thousand ways. There was delicious food gallore and wonderful smiles to match. Many people came and so much money was given. I am ever so grateful!

Now... I just wish I were there already!!! And tomorrow evening I will be! Yea!!

Gosh, this waiting part is getting tougher and tougher! (Either that or I'm getting more impatient as time goes by! ;-)

I hope everyone is having a great time!

PS- Thanks to Pam and Richard Ellison, you can now listen to the concert if you weren't able to come (of course you should do so at your own "ear"ful risk... :-) Just click on one of the links below (at least that's what I'm told...)

*Fixed (hopefully), cut and copy the first half of the link below, and then add whichever last half you might like to listen to* Maybe that will work.


http://dav.earthlink.net/lawyerelliston/MegaMail/
d2711d46fd9fee270fdd25c7c2effb7f
3ca81f33199ab7767c11529b40fd8a7c
107b0b368a1a5c2474ef6da75a9792d3
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ee42e770e63db0e51a230fda501b8598
be00b449950fa513c51de20a0101d215
c47175eb79677c16f96434e8a8013539
17fbbd97b92415abc74dd3fd2b18de9a
3b44a85a5ee32fdb42d6efc3046adb20
d4affd65921aace6a61df07a0a3705d5
3bb18c7497d5438314c1cdd0b9253b9a
481db7125af4b40b40c22283c8fbdeca
33376f6ea66a10e7d38d4a57ad28e9ca
5458aa3c38e18bb69f02c772457f0d1a
b9fcbc56925060a6dc1b65aab20968ec
eceaefc8f867dd88cf6cad435fab6262

Driver's License!!

Ok, so Mrs. Jorgensen told me about getting an International Driver's License from AAA.

The problem is that my TN commercial DL was going to be going bad very soon and I needed to get my Alabama license reinstated.

Guess where I was all day... and the examiner that was working to help me on her computer had the hardest time trying to figure out what to do about it all.

I was supposed to spend today packing, but so much for that! Maybe I'll get a bunch packed this evening; at least I better, because tomorrow is my last full day in Huntsville!

The Concert at Central A/G

Tonight's concert went very well.

But let me tell you, I was nervous starting it. I wasn't ready and things wern't going the way they should before hand. It was sad. I guess it started in the middle of the afternoon when I was heading back to church and got about halfway there before realizeing that I needed to go back home and get the church keys from my mom (which are still on the desk in my room). So I had to go back and get them. And then when I got there, things weren't working musically like they were supposed to. I was making thousands of mistakes in places where I usually only make hundreds :-). Sort of funny, but not really. And my mood soured more.

To top it all off, right before the service my pants go wet in an imbarassing place. I wasn't having a good time at all. My mom reminded me that I should probably give it to God and remind myself of the reason I was actually playing and doing this concert. So, I got alone with God for a little bit and things went much smoother after that. God is so good and kind and gracious!

Anna played beautifully and we did almost the entire concert; everything except the Darlene Zcheck set (however you spell her name...). I was surprised that people actually sort of went along with me on "He'll Take Care of the Rest" when I sort of did a play/sing-along with the CD. They seemed pretty stoic when I was explaining what was going on with that one and why I was doing it that way, but they were more than warm enough after it was over.

So... Thanks everyone! Things went so well and I can only hope that everyone enjoyed it half as much as they so quickly said they did. It was a very warm reception and now I can't wait to do the concert again at First United Methodist Church this comming Wednesday.

Only 7 days left!!!!!!

I can't wait to arrive. I feel like I've been in the planning stages for the better part of this summer, and truth be told last week I was even getting slightly irritable. (that sound like such a "girl" word :-)

But this week is better. I'm considering it my last week here in the States. Actually, I'll be leaving early in the morning on the 5th of August and arriving in Honduras late that night. But... next week will be filled with many things to include a couple of benefit concerts for the school (CEAD Christian School). I'm hoping to gather money for it's music library and also for purchasing a piano once I arrive. We'll see.

If you're in Huntsville this Sunday, come see us (Anna Shipp will be performing with me as well). And if you're not busy and in Cleveland the following Wednesday, we'd be honored to have you at First United Methodist Church on N. Ocoee St. I hope plenty of people show up. Anna and I have quite a "show" to put on. We've been practicing for a while now. Speaking of which... maybe I should go practice some more!

Thanks for reading!

Preparation!

Last night I worked on getting all the letters and envelops together and printed off. It's sort of funny, because I used up all the ink in my printer and we just got a new cartridge about a couple weeks ago. Sorry, Greg!

I'm very excited about going to Honduras, but I do often wonder if I'll be up to the chalenge. I most wonder if I'm spiritually ready. Sure, I can teach (maybe...), but have I fully taken advantage of the gifts God has given me and developed them through the opportunities He's place right under my nose? I continually wonder, and I usually have to say no. I never quite feel up to the challenge. I don't quite feel good enough, yet. Will I ever make it? Sure, I'll try. But, will I suceed? Or have I already fallen so far behind that I'll never be able to catch up?

God, I'm Yours. Make me what You will.