poco a poco

Thank you sis the boys love their new footwear!

A Little Ketchup

I feel like I have been going non-stop since I got back to the island but I have been enjoying all of it. For the first time I felt like I was coming home when I got here. I have been able to spend some great time with the other teachers, my students, and other local kids in the community. It has been great to reconnect with everybody. The boys from French Harbour came over to our new apartments a few weeks ago where we fished, hung out and ate a couple of meals, one of which was their fresh catch of snapper. It was awesome to spend the afternoon catching up with the kids I built relationships with last year. These kids are the same ones I was tutoring in English last year and who God has really laid on my heart to pour into. There are about 15 of them total that I am blessed to know and love. They live in a really negative environment full of poverty, drugs and violence but they are incredible kids full of joy and just ridiculously fun. I will be writing soon about more plans God has laid on my heart to impact this community, he is leading a group of us into something much larger than ourselves and he is in complete control.
The new community of teacher is incredible, everything has been “seamless” up until this point. We get along great and have already been able to pursue the Lord together through some struggles. I showed up a few weeks late and I feel like I have been welcomed back into a group that is truly living in unity, grace and love for each other the way that Christ called us to. The second night I was back on the island, we decided to go down for a swim in the lagoon next to our apt.’s. It was so good! The moon was bright, the stars were out, the water felt great, there was plankton lighting up green around us every time we moved, the conversation was real and we worshiped the Lord. I love being in a place that you know is right. Thank you Lord for that moment. We also had a couple days off of school last week and had the opportunity to travel to the mainland and visit the Mayan Ruins in Copan. That again was an awesome time, I could say a lot more about that but you can just look at a few of the pictures below.


School has been great, the boys soccer team is up and running with the first game this Thursday, the girls Volleyball team start with their first game on Tuesday, and the girls soccer team starts practice this week. Things are coming together really well, we got over 20 soccer balls donated this year and uniforms for half price so we are finally looking like a team. Thank you for the support. My classes have been good as well. I am only teaching PE this year so I am trying to invest more of my free time into building relationships with the kids at school and preparing so that I can free up time outside of school. We are having our first youth group meeting in two weeks where things have worked out for us to have a former NFL player come and speak to our kids about the Lord. I’m pretty stoked about that! Keep us in your prayers, my plan is to also start a guys bible study after school once a week so pray for the Lord to open their hearts.

Ali.

So a ton has happened in the past 2 weeks. I returned to the Island on the 29th of August and hit the ground running. We started classes the next day and soccer practices start this week. We already have three boys soccer games scheduled, a boys volleyball game and a girls volleyball game. Hopefully we will be able to keep this pace. Classes have been going very well and I am crazy excited about everything at the school for this year. We have a lower enrolment because of financial struggles with many of our families but the students that are here are responding well to the new teachers and me. It has been laid on the hearts of my mom, another teacher (Jessica) and myself to support one girl in returning to the school. Before I came back my mom said that she wanted to support a student at our school by paying half of their yearly tuition ($1,000). I was very excited about this but didn’t know which student she should support. After a few days of being back, God laid a 4th grade girl on my heart who I hadn’t seen at school. I called and asked my principle about her and why she hadn’t returned. Her name is Alison, she is in the 4th grade and incredibly smart. Her parents worked very hard to keep her at our school but were not able to pay the tuition halfway through last year so she was 5 months behind and did not return to school this year. As far as we have heard she is not going to school right now and helping her mom who sells vegetables at a small shop. There is a lot of potential in Alison and even if she does begin going to the public school, she will not be challenged and most likely fall through the cracks. The next day I went to school and one of the other teachers pulled me aside to tell me she had friends from Charleston who wanted to support a student at our school and she wanted to know if I had anyone in mind. Its so exciting to see the ways God lines up his will and provision for us, all we have to do is step out and follow him. We set up a meeting with Alison and her dad to tell them the good news. As we sat in the principles office yesterday and told Alison’s dad that our friends in the states wanted to support a student at our school and we decided that student should be Alison, he began to cry. He told us he has been praying for this with his wife and his church as well as how hard he has worked to keep Alison in our school because it has always been his dream to have her in the best school possible. I love to see the Lord glorified in our obedience. Thank you to everyone who is praying for and supporting us here. There are other students like her who need assistance to continue their education in a place that will challenge them and provide opportunities for higher education. Our school costs about $200 dollars a month, if you would like to be a part of supporting Alison or other students to attend this school or one of the other bilingual schools on the island, let me know or send a check to my address. Include a note that says what it is for. I may post things like this often with different opportunities to support the people of Roatan. I am not just trying to drain people dry but if the Lord lays it on your heart to give than we are told to give. These are just specific situations that I am presented with so I want to present y’all with the same opportunity. Much love!


Harrison Johnson
4321 Poplar Creek Ln.
High Point, NC 27265