Learning the Honduran Way

   For a person who REALLY likes to be able to plan her day, anticipating each event and activity of the day,  and who greatly values predictability, living in Honduras is giving me plenty of opportunity to become as flexible as a former kindergarten teacher needs to be.  As I have been away from the classroom longer and longer, I find I am (was?) settling into far too much of a rut.
Yesterday morning I had anticipated being picked up at a certain time, and going about the shopping trip planned for the day in a given way.  Yet 30 minutes before the set time I was to be picked up,  (those who know me know how little I like sudden changes of plan) a different driver came to get me  Neither of us were able to communicate very well.  Eventually I was given to understand, I think, that there had been a change of plan and so I went to El Cordero with him.  Once I got there, I came to realize that the original driver was at Casa LAMB to pick me up, yet I was no where near!  OK.  Not a big deal, but I hated to be the cause of an unnecessary trip for a person who is already extremely busy.
The way ones gets anything out of a store here to keep your receipt in hand as you exit the store and at least one person checkes everything over-a la Sam's Club style.  I stood at the door of one store waiting for Brenda to finish her purchases, and yet, although I had already been checked and my receipt marked OK, everything had to be checked again before I was allowed to leave the premises.  There does not seem to such a thing as a quick trip.
Today I had thought I would be at school all day so I arranged for the taxi driver to pick up at 3:15.  Yet at 12 we all had to leave for the fumigator to do their job.  Are they following me around?  Another sudden change of plan to recall the taxi before the fumigation started.
Despite the fact that I have been here 4 times before, and here already for 2 weeks, I marvel at the way things get done.  This is a statement, not an valuation.  Yesterday as I went shopping with Brenda, the English teacher at El Cordero (the school) in Flor del Campo, I wondered what the message was in what I was experiencing.  I think it may be that I am still being shown that there are many ways to get a job done, and that there is no "right" or "wrong" way to do many of the things I get persnickity about.  As some of you know, I am very "picky" about a good number of things, and this may be a message that I need to lighten up and go with the flow.  Dare I say that I could become more spontaneous?
As I was thinking about the events of the day, I suddenly became more aware of the transitory life that Jesus lived.  Not planning in detail the events of the next day or two ahead, but rising to greet the challenges and opportunities of each day as they came.  Traveling about constantly, accepting the hospitality of people on his path, using each day to teach, heal, and show us the way to live in true community with God and each other.  The most important thing is not to have a life so perfectly planned that nothing is unanticipated, but to meet whatever comes my way with grace and openness, and to use each experience to the best of my ability to love and serve God and my fellow companions.
The flower is not concerned for his clothing, nor the birds for their home.  But everything is given to us as we need it by our gracious God.