Mariah Easter 2010 dance - The Via Doloroso

Easter at Loma de Luz was filled with our own traditional styles of celebration. Many of us were busy in one way or another with preparations.  A month before, three of us ladies began planning the Easter program. We had a choir, dramatic readings, praise and worship, music videos, special music and other things to organize for the glory of our Savior. Of course there were also wonderful Easter dishes for the potluck to prepare as well. The most challenging preparations for our family began two months before Easter Sunday when Sharon, a dear sister, asked Mariah to consider doing an interpretive dance for the Easter service. We left the decision up to her. We encouraged her to do it but told her that she needed to determine what God wanted her to do. Dave and I and Suzanne prayed for her as she determined that very thing. After a week of prayer she believed that God wanted her to dance. Thus began the biggest spiritual challenge Mariah had ever faced.

For most of her younger years ballet had been her life. Since we moved to Honduras Mariah’s passions have changed from dance to music and the guitar. There simply is not a proper ballet studio here for her to train at and the majority of the youth at Loma de Luz play an instrument. Also, none of the girls here have had dance lessons and many have never seen a live ballet. Therefore her circle of friends here aren’t in the least interested in dance. There is very little negative about the social environment among the teens here, but they do have a tendency to tease one another.  In fact, many times they have teased Mariah about her “ballet past.” This was the main reason why Mariah did not want to dance; For fear that she would (mess up and) never hear the end of it from her friends.    

  

She did receive many encouraging words from adults which she respects greatly. She was even able to work with our friend, Carrie, who had done interpretive dance in the states. Carrie encouraged her to dedicate one hour a day to her dance weather it was in time with God, working out, meditating on the words of the song, or practicing the dance itself. Mariah applied these words of wisdom and dedicated an hour a day whenever possible. But a sudden change in her schedule threatened her dedication.

Part of being involved with the bilingual school she attends is to help two days a week for two hours with the “English as a Foreign Language” class offered to local students. We found this information out after Mariah had already agreed to dance and while she was in the middle of writing a thesis paper. We have always taught her to honor her word and reminded her that God wanted her to dance… Into my hita’s heart waltzed doubt, stress, and more fear – fear of failure. She was sure that she would not be able to do everything well and thus disappoint everyone - including God.

The word of God tells us in Romans 5: 2-5… And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.

With hind-sight I can see how indeed this scripture worked its way through Mariah’s situation. Nearly every day she came home and did her homework, worked on her paper, warmed her body up and danced. Nearly every day she said, “I don’t want to do this;” Some days she said it with tears. But she persevered.  Mariah had been advised not to show anyone her dance ahead of time for many different reasons. The evening before the Easter program, Amy – a older teenage friend of Mariah’s, asked Mariah if she would show her the dance. Amy wanted to prove to Mariah that her fears were unfounded. Indeed, Amy was a great encouragement to Mariah that evening. Mariah went to bed feeling much better about her upcoming solo.

Easter morning arrived and so did the doubts and fears again…and to add to all that the hormones of a 13 year old. There was much gnashing of teeth and wailing – she was definitely under attack by the evil one – both physically and spiritually. Dave and I prayed with her and encouraged her, gave her scriptures to proclaim over her fears, loved on her and told her that “In Christ she can do all things.” She was in her costume when we left for the service and was convinced she looked like a fairy. Upon arriving she basically began to panic. Then she found out that a local boy that had been unkind to her in the past was there. She really freaked out at that information. She knew that he would never let her live it down.  She continued to say, “I’m not going to do this,” or “I can’t do this.” Then Amy entered the office and prayed and encouraged her again. This calmed her down enough to listen to reason and truth and to start believing both.  

And so here you see some pictures of my beautiful daughter dancing before her God in obedience and trusting that He would be her strength. Mariah did a beautiful job. Her giftedness in dance shone through the storm as she let His light pierce the darkness of the devil’s schemes. Those who had known her struggles and had been praying for her were brought to tears to see her triumph over her fears. For days her friends only had wonderful words of encouragement for her. We were proud of her and her heavenly father was too.  

The character of Christ is built up in us through the difficult things in our lives. Mariah’s character matured greatly. Her hope in God did not disappoint her as God poured out His love for her through the power of His Holy Spirit. God is good – all the time. ~ Marinajo

Spanish Translation / Bible Study Prep Tools

I've been spending a lot of time doing Bible Study Prep lately in Spanish.  I am currently involved with two Spanish Bible Studies.   Until the Spanish part comes a lot more easily (when will that be??) - I am finding that one can easily double or triple their prep time as they try to figure out ahead of time what to say and how to say it.  To that end, I wanted to make you aware of a couple of Spanish Language Bible Study Tools and Translation aides that I have found most helpful in preparing in the hopes that they might also be found helpful by some of you.

Here they are:

http://translate.google.com

This is such a handy site because you can easily flip between English>Spanish translations and Spanish>English translations.  It also gives you an immediate translation as you type.  Lastly many times, there is a speaker icon which you can click to hear the words spoken in either language. 

http://www.biblestudytools.com/parallel-bible/passage.aspx?q=john+3:16&t=esv&t2=bla

This is quickly becoming my favorite on-line Bible.  It is parallel, so it allows you to choose an English version and a Spanish version to read side by side.  The best part for me is that it displays the verses truly side by side - so that if I get lost in the Spanish version I can more quickly pick up the English side - grab the word that I need and get back to reading the Spanish version.  I find this much harder to do in my Bilingual Bible. 

Please post anything that you've found helpful in the comments!  

Hope this helps!    

DF

US Ambassador to Honduras continues to advance hard-left Democratic agenda.

Here is the link to the original story in the Wall Street Journal


By Mary Anastasia O'Grady:

The U.S. ambassador to Honduras, Hugo Llorens, continues to use his post in Tegucigalpa to advance the political strategy of some of Washington's most hard-left Democrats. His effort deserves attention because it is part of a broader ideological agenda for the region that runs counter to U.S. security interests.

Twelve days ago Mr. Llorens hosted a dinner party at his residence for more than a half-dozen members of President Porfirio Lobo's cabinet. The guests of honor were two visiting Capitol Hill staffers. Fulton Armstrong works for Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry, who heads the Senate Foreign Relations Committee; Peter Quilter works for California Congressman Howard Berman, who chairs the House Committee on Foreign Affairs.

Both elected politicians are known for left-wing sympathies. So too are their staffers. Mr. Armstrong is more famous than his House counterpart because of his working relationship—when he was on the National Intelligence Council—with Ana Belen Montes, the highest ranking Cuban spy ever to penetrate the Pentagon.

It is strange enough that the ambassador thought it appropriate to subject cabinet ministers to an evening with Hill staffers. It is even more bizarre that the staffers would think it appropriate to use the occasion to pressure the ministers on matters of domestic politics.

Yet multiple reports from the event all told the same story: The foreigners said that they are still sore with Honduran supporters of what the Obama administration had branded "a coup d'etat" last year. Those supporters, who argued that Honduras had the constitutional right to remove President Manuel Zelaya from power, had hired lobbyists to present their arguments in Washington. They caused great trouble for the Democrats, the Kerry-Berman emissaries complained.

The staffers had other meetings with government and private-sector VIPS where this issue came up. According to some of those present, the visitors implied that if Honduras wants to get right with the U.S., it should find a way to officially accept the Obama administration's coup d'etat narrative.

Mr. Armstrong's office says that the staffers' visit was "part of their normal staff responsibilities" and that they "discussed a whole host of issues with their interlocutors."

If that included pushing to make their version of the "coup" official, it's nothing new. Last year, after the Law Library of Congress opined that Honduras had acted constitutionally when it removed Mr. Zelaya, Messrs. Kerry and Berman penned a letter to the head of the Law Library to demand that the opinion be retracted and "corrected." The head librarian stood by the Library's analysis. But as the Armstrong-Quilter visit suggests, the lawmakers have not given up their quest to rewrite history.

The Americas in the News

Get the latest information in Spanish from The Wall Street Journal's Americas page.

Equally troubling are questions about Mr. Armstrong, who last year tried to block Republican Sen. Jim DeMint's fact-finding trip to Honduras. For much of his career as a Central Intelligence Agency analyst on Latin America, Mr. Armstrong's work was shrouded in secrecy. That changed when Mr. Kerry blurted out his name during 2005 hearings on George W. Bush's nomination of John Bolton as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. Mr. Bolton's adversaries claimed that he was unqualified for the job because he had tried to have Mr. Armstrong fired for political reasons.

Otto Reich, a former assistant secretary of state for Western hemisphere affairs, went before staffers of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to testify on Mr. Bolton's behalf. Mr. Reich says he told the staffers that he had found Mr. Armstrong's work consistently unreliable and that much of the national security bureaucracy saw it the same way. The late columnist Robert Novak wrote for Townhall.com at the time that Mr. Reich's views fit "complaints I have heard from Reagan administration officials about Armstrong's left-wing bias on Western Hemisphere questions in general, but particularly on Cuba."

Mr. Armstrong's name also comes up in the 2007 book "True Believer," by Defense Intelligence Agency "mole hunter" Scott Carmichael. It tells the story of how the U.S. busted Cuban spy Montes in 2001.

As the National Intelligence Officer for Latin America in 2000, Mr. Armstrong was "in frequent telephone and e-mail contact with Ana," Mr. Carmichael writes. "As NIO he was the senior subject-matter expert on Latin American affairs for the [director of central intelligence], and he welcomed Ana's participation in the fellowship program under his personal tutelage. They had discussed the nature of her research project in some detail, and preparations were already underway to launch Ana further and deeper into the U.S. intelligence community." The book does not say that he knew she was a spy. Mr. Armstrong's office did not respond to my request for comments.

All of this raises questions about Mr. Armstrong's judgment on Latin America and his qualifications to be the point person for the Senate in shaping U.S. policy in Honduras in 2010.

Write to O'Grady@wsj.com