A weekend in La Ceiba and the end of class (Joshua)

Thanks for the pretty photo Andrea, we miss you in it!


Introduction Video

Last weekend we went on a trip with a local Mennonite church from Tegucigalpa. We packed thirteen people and luggage (some luggage on the roof) into a van and left on a seven to eight hour trip, or so we thought, as it turned out to be about nine hours each way! We made the rule to only speak Spanish in the van and tried to speak it most of the weekend. I get the feeling many times that people don’t understand the difficulty or respect our decision to do that, but we know in the long run it will help us and make the locals feel more comfortable with us. We feel sometimes our personalities come across as very different because of our limitations in speech, but that can be overcome as a smile and laugh translates easily and accurately.

The weekend overall was very draining as this retreat did not believe in sleep, at least that’s how it felt. We fully understand how much change can make a person tired and when something like this happens, we feel the full force of the lack of sleep. The girls were able to put mattresses in the aisle on floor between bunks (we arrive at about 2:30AM Saturday morning, so all the beds were occupied) in the girls dorm and then got trampled on all through the night. Andy and I had to put mattresses in the main passage area between the sleeping quarters and then pulled a chalkboard and coke machine for some privacy (though I was so tired I couldn’t have cared less).
And that’s how the weekend started.

A devotion at 4:00AM Saturday morning started shortly after we arrived.

I think we were all surprised at how reserved others were and unwilling to speak to us. I personally found that it was awkward to approach the girls and the guys weren’t interested in getting to know more guys. We were able to have some conversations with a few locals and some of us were able to understand pieces of the services that were going on all day. We managed to get a break Saturday afternoon to go to the beach which was very close; it was great to have an hour and a half of English town.

Saturday night there was a good speaker who had actually lived in Pennsylvania very close to Harrisburg (where we trained for this trip). Afterward there was a good time of worship followed by some crazy dancing that I didn’t think Mennonites were capable of doing (see video below). This was a fun and confusing time for all of us and we enjoyed the energy but I think most of us were relieved when the commotion and craziness stopped and we didn’t have to dodge people. This was followed by a talent show and we left to hit the sack because there was no hope of understanding and we were zonked.

Here's a short clip of the Saturday night dance worship.

The next morning we stayed through lunch and then left with our group to stop by the beach (might as well being so close). Then we left for Tegucigalpa and got in at about 2:30AM. The weather wasn’t great and we know we were in God’s hand through the long trip and were protected in many ways. We actually saw one accident on the way home that did not look good at all (what an expression, how can an accident “look good”). It felt weird to be with a church group and not stop to help when others weren’t there, but I asked and found out thats how it is here, it’s dangerous to stop as it can be a setup or many other bad things can happen. I felt I had my hands tied, but at least I could pray and I am learning more about the power of prayer each day.

Please enjoy the pictures and videos below! If you have any ideas please email them to joshua.hershberger@gmail.com as I want to continue to make this blog interactive, fun, and informative for everyone! We also love to receive posted comments, though please keep them appropriate and free of information that is too personal as they are publicly posted.

A couple brief saga’s from the weekend:

“Do you ever have trouble pronouncing a foreigners name? Well the same is true here. Saturday morning the MC was calling out the names of every new person at the conference. He was calling out the first and last names of everybody, at least until he got to us. This is how it went: “Andrea … Simmerman, Andee .. Logs… Andy, Joshua ….. …. Joshua, Karen Ess, ee Karen Weelson. For those of you who don’t get it, it is, Andrea Zimmerman, Andy Logsdail, Joshua Hershberger, Karen Hess, and Karen Wilson. Once again, a fun way we can laugh at ourselves in this place that is still so new in many ways”

“We were sitting in our seats while the speaker talked and we are trying so hard to understand. They were calling out the names of the churches and cities represented. As our time neared we didn’t know what we were going to do, cheer or not since we weren’t technically part of the church we had come with. We sort of all had the same idea to wait for the locals from our church to stand and cheer and we would follow suit. Churches were called and people screamed, finally, we heard, “Y Tegucigalpa, el capital!!” – at this point, imagine crickets chirping and people looking around to see the people representing the capital city – finally, three to four of the five gringos timidly rose and gave a weak, faint attempt at a scream. The place burst into laugher, us included. We had been expecting support from the locals in our group which turned out to be absent. Getting embarrassed yet again in front of 400+ people was a fun experience in a way, but the type that reminds us how foreign everything is because we are foreign to everything.”

We only made it to the beach for a little, but that's more than what we had expected. How do you expected us to be so close and not indulge at least a little?


Spanish class is over as of 12:00PM on Friday the 25th of January. Here are pictures of each of us with our incredibly patient teachers!





Karen H giving some information about how our mornings start, the only out of date information is that starting next week, we have no clue how our mornings will start. Then Karen W lets us know about Spanish class, the only problem here is those classes are over (not that we are dismayed).