Honduras - Day 4 - We kept working.

As Tuesday morning began, I once again woke up much earlier than both me and my alarm wanted me to. David was once again getting up early to take four more youth to milk cows. Part of me felt bad each morning watching him get out of bed an hour before I did to walk up the hill to the barn and stand in manure for half an hour, but he was enthusiastic about it and I had milked cows before, so most of me didn't mind.


We all repeated our routine from Monday morning, eating breakfast, changing clothes, putting on bug spray, filling our water bottles, and, thankfully, applying layers of sun screen. I didn't notice the sun during our seven hours of work on Monday, but the 20 minutes playing frisbee in an open field lit my neck on fire.


Going into our work day, we knew we had a huge project to work on during the morning hours. The second porch at the two homes I had worked at the first day needed to be completely filled with concrete. Since it took five of us working for three and a half hours to complete the slightly smaller porch the morning before, we gathered a team of five of our strongest guys to work on the job.


After we arrived at the village to another heartfelt welcome, we divided into our groups and went to our work sites. I hate that I can't speak for all of the groups since I was only at mine, but all of the work we did was tough and meaningful.


As my group approached our homes, we were greeted by a new group of men from the village, none of whom I had worked with the day before. This was slightly disappointing to me since I had begun to work very well with Carlos and Alex the previous day, but it was the nature of the job, so I continued to work hard no matter who was next to me.


We soon found out that we would have to complete an interior room in the house before we started working on the porch. The floor was very deep in this room, so before we could start mixing concrete, we first had to carry buckets of dirt to help even the floor and also to help save concrete mix. After half an hour of spreading dirt across the floor in a semi-even layer, we began mixing concrete in double and triple batches for the remainder of the morning.


Within an hour and a half or so, we had finished the interior room and started working to fill the large porch. I knew we wouldn't be finished by lunch time, but we all worked as quickly as we could hoping that we would somehow manage to finish before our meal arrived. Between the five Americans and the five or six men from the village that we worked with, we finished about two-thirds of the porch before lunch.


As our work progressed, we found out that the house we were working on was Daisy's, the leader of the village. It struck me that the leader of the village lived in a mud-brick home without concrete floors, but I was quick to realize that it's the people that make the home, not the homes that make the people. We worked that morning with Daisy's 20 year old son, her 16 year old brother, and a few other men that may or may not have been family.


As we started to break for lunch, we thought we should help them finish before we left, but we were shooed away by the men. They told us it was better for us to take our break than to keep working, that they would keep working while we ate. While I appreciated their kindness and willingness to work around the schedule HOI had set for us, I wanted to see this porch completed.


After a lunch of seasoned beef (BEEF!), rice, tortillas, and more refreshing, glass-bottles of Coke, we decided to change some of our work groups. I traded with one of the girls who had not yet mixed concrete and a few of the guys traded to take some pressure off of our tired backs from a day and a half of nothing but concrete work.


Being able to work at a new house that afternoon was exciting for me. It was a further walk from the soccer field than the houses I had been working at, but I didn't mind seeing more of El Rodeo. As we approached the house, I saw a raised chicken coop with a large pig and several piglets laying in the dirt below.


We walked behind the house and there were two men working on a latrine. One of the men was Julio, the craftsman I had worked with the day before. They were trying to find boards to cover the hole of the latrine that we would later cover with concrete. As they worked on this, I sat on the back porch with the two youth I would be working with for the afternoon.


The daughter of the woman who lived at this home came out and sat between us. She had a plastic Barbie-type doll in her hand and a bowl of water. After taking a drink from the water, she went over to the family's outdoor bath tub and grabbed a bar of soap. She then proceeded to thoroughly wash her doll's hair with more than enough soap. And then she broke her doll in half.


Seeing a tiny Honduran girl snap a plastic doll, whom she had just shown love for by washing her hair, was hilarious to the three of us sitting there with no work for us to be done at the moment.


One of the girls I was with spoke a little more Spanish than I did by this point, so every few minutes she would say one or two words asking if there was something we could do. The man I didn't know was very kind and told us we could keep our seats.


After several minutes sitting and watching them work, they asked us to help them put posts up around where their new latrine would sit. They had a huge chainsaw to cut the posts with, after measuring things closely of course. Once they had the correct posts cut, they would level the posts and fill in the holes around them with dirt. They first handed one of the youth a long poll to stamp the dirt around the post, but after a few hard pats with the poll, Julio called my name and flexed his muscles towards me. He wanted me to take over since I was stronger.


When Julio flexed, his bicep literally bulged from his arm like it was trying to jump high into the air. Me and Carolyn, one of the youth I was working with, glanced at each other in amazement when he did this. He was asking for me because I was strong and he was this built? I'm still baffled by the people of El Rodeo.


After getting the posts secured in the ground, it was time to mix concrete to cover the large hole that had been dug for the latrine. We counted out 80 shovels of dirt, I carried over a bag of concrete mix, and we started working.


By this point on day two of working in the village, almost all of us had mixed concrete more times than we cared to think about. The three of us started working flawlessly together and had a batch of concrete ready in no time.


Pouring the concrete onto the top of the latrine was much quicker than it was pouring it in the rooms and porches I had worked on previously. Since this concrete did not need to be flat or level, we dumped our buckets quickly and went back to refill them. It wasn't five minutes after the concrete had been finished mixing that we had carried the entire batch over to the latrine.


As we finished this batch, three of the members of our group who had gone back to work on finishing the porch from the morning arrived at our house. They had finished the porch and came to see what they could do to help us. The six of us quickly mixed another batch of concrete and carried it over to finish covering the latrine.


Right as we finished, one of the men selected me, David, and one of our stronger youth to go work on another project. We had never been selected so directly until now, so we were all nervous that we would be working on a very difficult project.


After we had been picked, Daisy led us away from house and down the path. She stopped before we got back to the main road and ducked through the barb-wire fence on our right, as if she were stepping through the ropes of a wrestling ring. We all laughed at the thought of the three of us following her through the wire even though we knew we all had to get through somehow.


David tried to go between the middle two wires with his backpack on and in the process caught both his backpack and the crotch of his scrubs in the fence. After seeing this, me and Isaac, the youth we were with, decided to crawl under the bottom wire. Thankfully, all three of us made it through without a scratch.


After Daisy led us back to the two houses with the larges porches, we put our backpacks down and our work gloves on, thinking there was more work to be done at this house. But then she told us to follow one of the men who we had been working with on the latrine project. With every step we took, we wondered what job was in store for us. We saw a pile of logs in the distance and hoped we wouldn't be carrying them in the hot sun.


The man who led us had a hammer and a small, black plastic bag in his hand. He led us away from the home and down the road we drove in on every day. We joked about how scary this situation was, being let into the woods by a man with a hammer, but our jokes were made to cover up our wondering minds about what job was waiting on us.


As the man led us away from the village, we started up the side of a hill. We weaved in and out of bushes and weren't sure where we were going. Finally, we saw the frame of a house standing on top of the hill.


Two other men soon met us at the house and we started holding boards for the men while they nailed wall planks to the frame. This was the easiest job we had done yet, but also the hottest. We were on top of a hill with nothing to shade us from the hot Honduran sun. And we had left our backpacks far away at Daisy's house not knowing we would be going to another home to work.


As I held up tall planks from the inside of the soon-to-be house, the man who we had followed looked through one of the large gaps and said, "Brian?" This brought a smile to my face and I said, "Si." By this point, I had started to remember my basic Spanish and asked his name. This was Johnny.


After taking turns with David and Isaac holding boards for the two men with hammers, we were beginning to feel the effects of the hot sun. The work day was almost over, so we decided to call it quits and head back for a drink of water and a spot under a tree.


After we had gathered our bags and headed back with the rest of the group, we saw that the group of veterinarian students who were staying at the ranch had come to our village to spay and neuter animals. They mostly operated on dogs, but they had just finished castrating a horse.


I wasn't there to see it, but apparently one of the female vets had just thrown a horse testicle at one of our youth and hit him in the chest with it. I was more disgusted than angry, but reactions around the group were varied. Thankfully, the youth who was hit took the situation in stride and reacted very maturely.


After we had calmed down from this incident, we refilled our water bottles and boarded the vans to head back to the ranch. On Monday afternoon, we were still filled with excitement and had the energy to play frisbee and soccer, but after our second day of work, we were all exhausted and ready to head back home for the night.


We all showered and got ready for dinner and a few of the youth going to play soccer with the ranch staff before dinner. We went to dinner a little early this evening to get in a few games of Bananagrams before it was time to eat. I don't normally like Scrabble or Words With Friends, but Bananagrams has the competitiveness to make it fun for me, even if I only win occasionally.


After having beef for lunch, we were back to chicken, beans, rice, and tortillas for dinner, but it was still delicious after our long days of work in the sun. After dinner, we played a few more games of Bananagrams and then headed back to our dorms for our devotion.

Two of our girls led the devotion this night. They had us go around and talk about our highs and lows from the day that was. I can't remember what else we discussed, but I know it was a good discussion. These are the times when I wish I had kept writing in my journal.

After our devotion, we had a few quick announcements and then the youth opened letters from the children of the church and another one of our youth advisors.

We spent this evening on the porch again, swinging in hammocks and joking with one another. Around 9pm, Tara had gone into our room to start getting ready for bed. She quickly walked out of our door and in a frantic voice said, "Brian. There is a frog in our room." I laughed, but jumped up promptly to help her, with several youth in tow wanting to see how big and where this frog had found itself.

The frog was under one of the spare beds in our room. It was a pretty big frog and had gotten itself in a corner and couldn't figure out how to find the door. After a few minutes moving beds and waving a towel at it, the frog hopped out the door and our first crisis of the week was averted.

We all went back onto the porch for awhile, still giggling at Tara's plea for help, but were soon all headed to bed. Within minutes of everyone leaving the porch, there was a knock on our door. One of our girls had gotten sick.

We all put our shoes back on and went on to the porch as quickly as we could to see what was going on. Thankfully, we think it was a bit of dehydration mixed with not eating enough throughout our tiresome days in the village. After an hour or so sitting with her to make sure she was okay, and a very kind visit from the ranch doctor, we sent her to bed and she was fine by the morning.

We were four days into our trip and we had only dealt with one tiny moment of sickness. We were all very thankful for this, especially after hearing doctors tell us about bouts with travelers diarrhea and other stomach issues. The group that had been at the ranch the week before us had 13 or their 16 members get sick, so I was hoping our fate wouldn't turn out similarly.

Though we were up a couple hours longer than we wanted to be making sure everyone was taken care of, we were glad that things were okay and we would still be able to get a decent night's sleep.

Honduras - Day 3 - We worked...

I woke up around 4:50am on Monday morning. The air was heavy with humidity, but the ceiling fan over my bed sent a chill over my body. David was getting up in less than half an hour to take four of the youth to milk cows on the ranch. Part of me thought about getting up and going with him, but all of me wanted to sleep until my alarm would be going at 6:15am.

Unfortunately, my mind never shut itself off and I found myself staring at the ceiling or my eyelids for the next hour and a half. I got out of bed around 6:20am with David changing out of his cow milking clothes and into his work clothes. Tara was already out of the room either at breakfast or getting ready for the day.

Breakfast was at 6:30 and we left for the village at 7:30. I put my work clothes on, grabbed a granola bar, and headed to the dining hall to eat with the rest of the group. The four youth who had milked cows were wide awake and laughing as they discussed how much poop there was in the cattle barn. The other youth dragged in one by one and started to eat their breakfast. After most of them had finished and headed back to the dorms, I walked back to finish getting ready for our first day of work.

Before we left, we all made sure to put on bug spray and fill our water bottles, but sun screen hadn't crossed our minds yet. It was warm on the ranch, but we had yet to see the sun. The back of my neck wouldn't be too thrilled with this decision come Tuesday afternoon.

Our transportation for the week, a blue Mitsubishi van and an off-white Toyota Land Cruiser, pulled up outside our dorms around 7:20. Ali had not arrived yet, so we all hung back waiting for our leader. Once she arrived, we piled in the two vehicles. Nine of us were in the van along with Ali and our driver Ubaldo and the remaining six went in the Land Cruiser with David, our security guard, and the driver (who's name I never got).

The running joke in Honduras is that it takes 20 minutes to get anywhere. Ali had told us it would be 20 minutes to the village, which we thought was actually correct knowing that the village was only 15km away. The drive turned out to be about 45 minutes over the rocky road, but it passed quickly since we were all excited for our first day working in El Rodeo.

We drove through the "larger" town of San Esteban and soon started to turn off the main road onto a small dirt road. We were instantly hit with the site of trash everywhere. Having no sanitary system, the village had dumped all of their trash in a low spot outside of their village. The only days I noticed the trash were on the first and last days that I went to the village.

After driving about half a mile up and down the hilly road, we finally saw our village of El Rodeo. We first saw a house that stood next to the village's soccer field. And then we saw the people.

There are only 75 residents of El Rodeo. On this Monday morning, they were all gathered to welcome us. They stood in three rows, the children in front with the women behind them, and the men scattered across the back row, all smiling as our vans drove up next to them. They had made a sign that said "Bienvenidos Second Presbyterian, Nashville, TN!" We couldn't believe the welcome we were receiving.

As we all excited the bus, not quite sure what was going to happen next, several women from the village shook our hands and greeted us with huge smiles. They had gathered 15 lawn chairs and desks from their homes for us to sit in. We took our seats in their semi-circle and Daisy, the elected leader of the village, began to speak to us, with Ali translating.

She welcomed us so graciously and openly. She told us how excited they were to have us with them for the next four days. We prayed together. And she told us that they had pulled the children out of school for the week so they could spend time in "bible school" with us.

This was something we had not been informed of. We knew that the children only went to school in the morning, so they would be around in the afternoon and we could play with them if we had time, but we had no idea they would be pulled out of school and left in our hands. Tara and I quickly exchanged nervous comments about what we would do with them for the next four days.

After Daisy had finished speaking to us, Tara, our only Spanish speaker, returned the welcome words to the village and thanked them for having us. We then introduced ourselves to the group, with the entire village repeating our names after we said them. Most of our names translated easily to Spanish (They had a Brayan, pronounced just like my name, in the village!), but some of the names had to be slightly changed so the villagers could remember them.

Once we all knew one another, or at least they knew us, the children from the village sang two songs they had learned. We danced along with their hand motions and tried our best to mouth the words with them. After they sang, Ali took a role of the families in the village that we would be working with. She told us the work that we would be doing with each family for the day and asked us to split into our work groups.

We had previously split the youth and adults into three groups, hoping to keep one adult in each group with four youth. But not knowing that we would need a separate group to watch the children, we had to do some quick changing before we went our separate ways. Tara and one of the girls went with the kids, leaving the remaining 13 English speakers to go and work with our new friends.

I took my three youth and we were lead to our work site for the day. There were two homes sitting parallel to one another with unfinished porches waiting on us. The two men we had followed to the homes carried five shovels. They took our backpacks and they began working.

Only knowing very basic Spanish, we were unable to ask them what we could do or volunteer to help. The two men began shoveling dirt out of pile and into a new pile on the ground about 12 feet away. They shoveled in a perfect rhythm, one heavy scoop would be thrown right after the other. We had no idea what they were doing or what we would be doing.

One of the men looked at me at some point and said something in Spanish. Having no idea what he said, I replied with the first thing that came to my mind: "No habla Espanol." A large grin grew on both their faces and the man who spoke to me said, "That's funny," in his strong Honduran accent and continued worked. This was the last time either of these men made any joke about me.

After they had shoveled dirt for some time, one of the men went into the home furthest from us and came back with a bag of concrete mix. They placed the bag on top of the dirt and began to mix them together. They first scooped the dirt from the bottom of the pile to the top. And then they began to turn the entire pile of dirt on top of itself. They slid their shovels under the pile on one side and effortlessly spun the shovel over to mix the dirt and grey, powdered concrete. The entire pile had been turned over in less than three minutes. Once this was finished, they repeated the same process in the opposite direction.

I watched in amazement at how quickly and precise these two men worked with their shovels. They had taken this 300-400lb pile of dirt and concrete mix and mixed it together completely in a matter of minutes as we stood around watching and waiting.

Finally, Ali and Daisy approached our houses. Ali talked to them for a few minutes and then explained to us that they were showing us what we needed to do and we would do the next batch. Knowing that we hadn't done anything wrong was a relief.

One of the women that had been watching us started gathering buckets of water from behind a tree about 30 feet away. A grey tarp was stretched between the tree and another tree close to it. We would later learn that this was the only water source for these two homes; it was their drinking water and the place where they washed both their clothes and themselves.

The men had now spread out their dirt mixture into a large volcano and poured two five-gallon buckets of water. The water sat in the middle of the mix like a man-made reservoir. The slowly began shoveling the dirt from the base of the volcano onto the ridge, making the circle of dirt smaller and smaller with each shovel-full. We stood around and absorbed every move they made, hoping to help as much as we could once our turn arrived.

After several minutes of shoveling the dirt carefully into the water, making sure not to let the ridge of the volcano break, the pile of dirt and water had been turned inside-out. There was no water vi sable and the concrete mix covered the pile completely. After a few seconds break, the two men began rapidly mixing the concrete. As they broke into the pile, small streams of wet concrete began to drain from their pile. They used the sides of their shovels to quickly gather the wet mix and put it back into the pile. After a few minutes of vigorous mixing and stirring, a finished batch of concrete laid on the ground before us.

Within minutes, the four of us were filling buckets and carrying them to the porch at the house next to us. A young man, probably no older than 18, pointed where we should dump each bucket and began smoothing out the poured concrete with a worn trowel. As the first buckets were filled, they were filled to the top of the buckets. Each of these full buckets of wet concrete must have weighed at least 75 pounds. After two or three trips with full buckets, we soon began filling the buckets halfway.

Our first batch of concrete was added to the porch quickly and we all began working on the second batch. One of our youth wanted to throw the dirt from the large pile to the smaller pile, now knowing that you had to add 80 shovels of dirt for each bag of concrete. The second batch we mixed would be a double-batch, so him and our Honduran helper would have to count to 160 together. His first toss landed about four feet short of the pile, which drew laughter from all of us. Unfortunately, his second toss landed in the same spot and one of the men took his shovel out of his hands.

Once the two men had put 160 shovel-fulls of dirt in place, they went into the same house as before and brought back two 100 lb. bags of concrete. I sliced them open with my shovel and we began mixing the pile. After we had mixed the pile initially, I began to turn the pile over with one of the men. As I mixed, carefully turning my shovel to incorporate the mix as best as possible, the two men both said, "Yes, Brian, yes." I was stunned that they remembered my name and even more stunned that they approved of my work so quickly.

After we mixed the pile and we waiting on water, I tried my best to ask their names, uttering a hesitant, "Te llamo?" They knew I didn't speak Spanish, so they didn't complain about my poor attempt to ask their names and graciously responded. Their names were Carlos and Alex. I would later find out that they were brothers. And they would later become my brothers.

Carlos was probably 30 years old, wore jeans, a black t-shirt, and a grey Atlanta Braves cap. His thin, dark goatee stood out on his thin face. Alex wore a tattered reversible basketball jersey and jeans, along with worn loafers and a straw sun hat.

For the next three hours, all we did was mix concrete and carry it to the porch. One of the youth in the group had left to go play with the kids, which was fine since the work was very hard and we had at least 20 children to entertain.

I was so proud of the work that me and the two youth alongside me did that morning. The porch we paved must have been 25 feet long and at least eight feet wide. We mixed at least eight double-batches of concrete to finish the long porch before lunch. As the morning went on, we all became more sure of the work we were doing and our lack of communication was no longer an issue.

After I dumped the last bucket of concrete into the corner of the porch, one of the men who had been watching us work looked at me and said, "Finished." I was thankful that we would finally get a break and even more thankful that lunch would soon be in our hungry bellies.

By this time, Ali, Daisy, Tara, and the youth who had been playing with the kids were sitting on the porch of the house next to where we had been working. I grabbed my water and headed over to talk with them, having finished our work for the morning. Tara and Ali told me that the women had been commenting on what a good worker I was and how strong I was.

Being an overweight, lazy American, this was news to me. I knew I was working hard, but I had no idea that anyone would take notice of my work ethic or strength. I was surprised that they called me strong, something that would continue throughout the whole week, and even felt guilty that I was not in better shape to help them more. Not being someone who takes compliments well, I thanked them graciously and sat down on the porch.

After our short break, we walked about a quarter of a mile to the house where we would eat lunch. The home that we had just finished working on had mud walls and dirt floors. I was surprised to see that the home we lunch was had tile floors, running water, and a bathroom. The chairs that had been brought for us earlier in the morning sat in the front room of the house waiting for us.

Everyone looked tired and dirty after a long morning of work. One of the other groups had poured concrete in an interior room of one of the homes. Another group had started work on a latrine for one family. We were only 1/8th of the way through our working days and we had already accomplished a huge amount of work.

Ali soon brought in tubs of chicken, rice, and tortillas for lunch. Ubaldo stood by the door and opened cold, refreshing glass bottles of soda for us. After working tirelessly throughout the morning and not having had a big breakfast, lunch had never tasted more delicious.

As lunch ended, the director of the HOI ranch had come to speak with us. He talked about the villages that they helped, the work the clinic did for the people of Olancho, and the changes he hoped to see made in his time as director. He also talked about the reputation the United States has in the eyes of his people.

He said that the new immigration laws in Arizona and Florida had turned many people off to the United States. He said that many people who had once hoped for the American dream no longer thought it was possible because of these laws. He said that many people who had previously moved to the States to work and send money back home were having to return to Honduras because of economic and political factors.

I was not expecting to hear these kinds of things. I think most Americans think that people in foreign countries, especially in the Third World, all view the United States as perfect and the place where everyone is happy. It's oddly refreshing to know that they have a realistic view of the goings-on in our country at this time.

After the director has finished speaking to us, it was time to continue working. We all remained in our working groups from the morning, returning to our same houses. By the time we had walked back to our worksite, the young man (who we later learned was named Julio) who had been smoothing out the concrete on our porch had finished almost half of our porch. Somehow, he had used his tools to turn the rough concrete into art. The surface was smooth as glass and he threw red and yellow powder on as decoration. It was beautiful.

After a few moments gazing at our accomplishment, we soon began mixing more concrete for an interior room in the house. I'm not sure why we didn't work on the kitchen in the morning and the porch in the afternoon, which would have allowed us to use the doors of the home, but this was the situation we were in.

After mixing the concrete mess, my job for the afternoon would be to lift the 40 pound buckets of concrete through a window four feet off the ground and hand them to the men working inside. Thankfully, this room was about one third the size of the porch we had worked on the in the morning, so our task was not nearly as daunting.

We mixed three or four batches of concrete to fill the deep, uneven kitchen floor and I lifted countless heavy buckets through the window. The man working inside was the same man who had told me our work was "finished" in the morning. With every third or fourth bucket that I handed to him, he spoke the only phrase of English that he knew to me, "What's happening, Brian?!?" This cracked me up every time he said it and he knew it. The laughter helped make the tough work easier.

By the time the concrete slab was almost complete, I was having to hand the buckets to the men standing at the opposite side of the room. Lifting the buckets straight up through the window was hard enough after 40 or 50 buckets, but now having to extend my arms and pass them to the men, knowing that a dropped bucket would cause them to have to redo a large portion of the work, was excrutiating. Thankfully, I only had to pass three or four buckets along in this fashion. I'm also thankful that the buckets we were using had handles on them, as I would later find out that most of the other groups buckets did not, forcing them to bend over and hug each bucket tightly in order to carry it.

Since we would only be working two hours in the afternoon, putting concrete in the kitchen filled the remainder of our work day quickly. Once we were finished, we said goodbye to the men we had been working with and went to meet the rest of the group on the soccer field.

Some of the group was there already laying underneath a small tree for shade. Still having energy left, I pulled a frisbee out of my backpack and had one of the youth run deep onto the field to catch it. We were able to throw the disc for about five minutes amongst one another before Tara and her children surrounded us.

We would throw them the frisbee cautiously, not knowing if they had ever played with a frisbee before, and they would throw it back to us as best they knew how. Their first few throws wobbled and went into the wind, but after five or ten minutes of practice, many of them began throwing the disc accurately and for some distance.

We played with them for about 20 minutes before we left. I stepped in a cow pie as I was running for the disc once. My group laughed at me, but no one from the village said a thing. As the week went on, we realized that manure was a part of their life. The children walked through it barefoot and the women walked around it as if it weren't there.

Before we started to board the bus, one of the children from the village came up to David and said something to him in Spanish. Not understanding him and having been talked to by the same kid three times that afternoon, David asked Tara to translate what he was saying. It turned out that this boy had been suffering from a tooth ache for some time and thought David was a doctor.

David, and most of our group, had worn scrubs to work in since they would keep cool and could be thrown out after getting too dirty. He is also Asian and was carrying our first-aid kit around. Unfortunatly, David is not a doctor, but we were all amused at this child's assumption; this joke would not die throughout the entire week.

After Dr. David had cleared up the situation, we re-boarded our buses and told everyone that we would see them tomorrow. We were tired, dirty, and hungry after our first long day of work. I'm not sure we said more than five words to one another on our way back to the village. But before we had even left the village, we got a flat tire on our bus and had to stop to get it fixed on our way back to the ranch.

We stopped at a service station and all piled out of the van while they repaired our blown tire. I got out of the van and began to survey my surroundings when I saw Alex standing at the repair shop. I'm not sure why he was there, but he walked by me, patted me on the shoulder and said, "Brian!" loudly. I returned the pat and said, "Alex, my man," knowing he couldn't understand what I said to him. It was nice to see him recognize me and be happy to see me after a long day working together.

Once the tire had been repaired, we finished our bumpy ride back to the ranch. We piled out of the vans, thanked Ali and our drivers for their help, and headed off to shower.

The showers at the ranch were the best terrible showers I have ever taken. The shower head was nothing more than a metal hose spout that poured a gently stream of luke-warm water onto my head about an inch away from the dirty shower walls. I was tired and filthy and this bacteria-filled stream of water felt amazing.

After we had all showered, we sat on the porch together discussing our day and waiting for the dinner bell to ring. Once we heard it, we headed to the dining hall and ate another delicious meal of chicken, rice, veggies, beans, and tortillas. After dinner, we stayed in the dining hall and played endless games of cards and Bananagrams.

Once we had our fill of fun, we headed back to our dorms to begin our devotional. Two of the guys in the group led our talk this evening. We shared our pros and cons for the day one by one and then discussed what our expectations were going into the trip and how they had been changed after one day in the village. It was awesome to hear how perceptions had changed after one short day with our new friends.

After several long minutes of too many people talking at once and getting off topic, we reigned in the conversation and decided it was time to pray together. We prayed prayers of thanks for our new friends, prayers for strength for the days to come, and prayers of joy for being with one another. I love when my youth pray (and don't giggle through the entire prayer).

After we prayed, I passed out letters from more members of the church. I think this night's letters were from one of our fellow youth advisors. She wrote Honduras fun facts on each of the youth's cards and also included Spanish stickers for everyone. Tara gathered most of the stickers and they were a huge hit with the children in the village the next day.

Monday evening ended almost like Sunday evening. We all sat on the porch and reflected after a hard, but overwhelmingly rewarding day of work. I think everyone was in bed by 10pm on this night, an odd sight for any youth trip, but a welcome one.

This was the last night I wrote in my journal during our trip. I stopped mid-sentence because I was so tired. I don't remember what I wrote about other than the village welcoming us and the work being so hard. I also wrote about how proud I was of the lack of complaints from our youth. They performed beyond my wildest expectations today. I am so proud. And so tired.

Honduras - Day 2 - We have arrived.

By Sunday morning, the realization that we were in Honduras was still setting in. Even as the week came to a close six days later, the thought that I was in Honduras baffled me and put the biggest grin on my face. Waking up in our nice hotel room and being able to take a hot shower helped wake my tired body that had traveled more than 1500 miles the day before. We had three more hours left in our journey and we would finally be at Rancho el Paraiso for the week.

After my shower, quickly re-packing my already stuffed backpack, and slowly eating a granola bar for breakfast to help calm my nervous stomach, David and I left our room and went to meet the youth in the lobby. Some of them were still finishing breakfast and a few were already there waiting on us. It was lightly raining this morning and the sky was cloudy. The security guard with his shotgun was standing by the door when we got to the lobby.

The kids who had gone to breakfast by the pool said they had fruit and pancakes. I'm not much of a big breakfast eater, so I stuck with my granola bars for the duration of our trip. After the previous night's long bus ride, we had no idea what could in store today. We knew we had to go up and down a mountain in order to get into the valley where we would stay for the week.

As we re-boarded the bus, we adjusted the curtains and windows carefully to keep the rain out as best we could, but also to keep as much air moving through the bus as possible. The next three hours on the bus would be a constant game of raising and lowering the windows next to our seats to keep us as dry as possible.

We stopped to refuel the bus a few blocks from the hotel, our huge bus narrowly missing buildings and street signs as it made the turns from street to street. Honduran drivers might scare the crap out of me at times, but they don't hit things. We drove past the capital building that was building sometime in the 1800's. It was a beautiful building made out of white stone that stood out from the blue and red shacks around it.

As we left town, we quickly began twisting and turning up a bumpy mountain road. In the rain, the trees and plants appeared even greener than the day before. We drove past a statue of a Honduran war hero who helped the country gain freedom from Spain. I couldn't see the statue on this trip, but Martha, one of our leaders, pointed it out and spoke very proudly about the man carved in stone.

As the rain came down harder, the bus grew warmer. Thankfully, a woman a few rows in front of me had decided that the rain would not be a factor for her; she had put on her poncho and left her window down completely. I sat next to one of our impressive youth on this trip. This particular teenager is impressive because he can fall asleep anywhere. We were literally on the side of a mountain, in the rain, with our bones rattled from the lack of suspension in the old school bus, and he was asleep for at least half the trip. I'm not sure how he slept or how he kept from hitting his head on the cold metal walls of the bus, but he did. David, I salute you.

About halfway into our trip, one of the youth came and told us that he had to use the restroom. We had been told there would be a bathroom break at some point during this trip, but we weren't sure if that was true or not. We asked him to wait 10 or 15 minutes to see if we stopped. After the 15 minutes had passed, he came back and we told him to tell Ali or Martha that he needed to stop.

Two minutes later, two of our youth were standing outside of the bus in the rain, peeing on a mountain in Honduras. Inside the bus, the rest of us were howling with laughter and some people were taking pictures. They took care of their business and were greeted with applause and cheers as they re-boarded the bus. These few moments of good-natured humor helped make the second half of our trip easier.

We continued up the mountain, moving at what seemed like a snails pace, yet the bumps in the road never seemed to let up with the slower speeds. Finally, the road began to straighten out and we had come into the deep valley of Olancho. After half an hour of rocky dirt roads surrounded by open pastures and rice patties, we turned onto a road that had a sign for our ranch. 1.5 kilometers stood between us and being able to get off of our bus.

We drove into the ranch, let the group we traveled with off at their dorms, and proceeded to be dropped off at our dorms. We had a little while until lunch to choose our rooms and start unpacking. We had three rooms in our building, so the boys took one, the girls took one, and the adults took one. I love my youth, but being able to have a separate room to relax and sleep for the week was spectacular. It took David and I a couple days to remember that Tara was in our room, but that was a small price to pay for quiet evenings and mornings.

After our first lunch on the ranch of chicken, rice, delicious tortillas, and more savory Coke, we met with Ali to discuss the ranch rules and what we would be doing through the week. We took turns reading each rule one by one and Ali listed a long list of projects that needed to be accomplished at our village. At the time, it didn't seem as daunting as it should have.

Ali then took us on a brief tour of the ranch. She showed us the offices where she and many others work in the evenings, the homes where the ranch staff live, the clinic and pharmacy that is open to the surrounding villages throughout the week, and all of the animals being raised on the ranch. The ranch had pigs, chickens, and cattle.

I was surprised at the varied reactions from our youth to the different obstacles and smells a working ranch provides. Having grown up in Indiana and spent many days on farms or around not-so-pleasant smelling animals, this was no big deal to me. But I quickly realized that the big city of Nashville was all many of our youth knew. This was both surprising and amusing to me.

After our tour, we returned to our dorms to relax for a couple hours before dinner. Most of us took the time to lay in hammocks and sit in rocking chairs, while a few of the youth played kickball in the rain. For dinner that evening, we once again enjoyed chicken, rice, beans, tortillas, and natural cola. After dinner, we returned to our porch and passed the time talking and laughing before our devotion would begin.

The devotion this night was led by the youth who had read from Tuesdays with Morrie. We started by going around the group and giving a high and a low from the day. If I remember correctly, my low was the rocky bus ride and my high was just the fact that we were in Honduras. I'm still amazed that I was able to make this trip and do the things I did. I hope I never lose that feeling of amazement.

After everyone in the group had taken their turn to share, Emily read a chapter from Tuesdays with Morrie to us. It was about doing the things you love and not worrying about money. It set the tone for our week perfectly and hit close to home for me. I work with these youth because I love it. I don't get paid and I don't want to be paid for the work I do, with money comes pressure and expectation. Seeing that these young adults were able to grasp the concept, if only the concept, of doing what you love over doing what gets you paid is so impressive to me. I envy their youthful wisdom.

After we prayed together, the leaders had a few announcements to share (confirming wake-up times, what time we be leaving the ranch, etc.) and then it was mail time. After a few mentions from different people leading up to the trip, the idea of having mail "delivered" to each youth every night got more and more exciting to me. In the weeks leading up to our trip, I organized several groups throughout our church to write letters to the youth that would be given to them each evening during our trip.

Most of the youth didn't know that these letters were coming, so they were very excited to receive them on the first night. Our first group of letters came from the junior high youth group and members of our church Session. Two of the youth got letters from my brother, a Session member, instructing them to give me lots of hugs throughout the week and to keep watch over me. They kept their end of the deal and I received many hugs from them as the week went on.

Our days at the ranch ended in the same way for the most part: after our devotion, announcements, and mail time, some people would head immediately to bed, others would stay on the porch for awhile talking and listening to music, and we would slowly head to bed one-by-one as the night grew later.

These were the times I cherished with these 12 young men and young women. The time spent where we were all relaxed and enjoyed one another's company. We swung in our hammocks, passed bug spray bag and forth too many times, and laughed with one another.

After some time on the porch, David, Tara, and I retired to our room for our first night on the ranch. Tara and David read before bed and I wrote in my journal. I wrote about our long and bumpy bus ride. I wrote about how amazed I was to be where I was. I wrote about how green the trees were. And then I slept.

Honduras - Day 1 - A world anew...

Our journey began very early last Saturday morning. I was awake at 2:45am texting with the two other chaperons for the trip. David and Tara are two of my best friends, so I was thrilled that they would be with me for the week. By 3:35, Jeff and I picked up Tara to head to the airport. By 4:10am, the parents of the 12 senior highs making the journey with us had found their cameras and were snapping pictures of everything. By the time we checked-in, went through security, and found our gate, there were already pictures of us doing all of these things on Facebook. I love the 21st century.

Traveling by air with 12 youth is something I have never done before. I taken many groups to youth conferences and mission trips domestically before, where all of our travel was done by bus or car. Airports and passports and boarding passes and carry-on luggage bring new challenges that I never expected. I have never counted to 12 more times in my life than I did this past week, with most of those times coming on our first day of travel. Thankfully, our count was always 12.

After our plane ride to Miami and spending about an hour at the airport, we were off to Tegucigalpa. Upon arriving, we had to go through customs, which went fairly smooth. None of us were submitted to random bag checks, so that definitely helped the process go quicker. After we got our luggage, we headed off to find our hosts for the week from Honduas Outreach Incorporated (HOI). We knew their names, but had no idea what they looked like, so this process was a bit of a challenge.

After asking too many random people if they were who we hoped they would be, we finally found Ali and Martha, two of HOI's staff. Ali would be our leader for the week, so she helped us put our luggage where it needed to go and gave us our instructions. We were told we had an hour to eat lunch before we would board the bus for our three hour journey to Juticalpa.

We all ate lunch at "Il Panini," a Subway-type restaurant in the airport where one employee spoke broken English and the other didn't speak any. As we all fumbled to order, we fumbled even further when we got to the cash register. Having only American money and not knowing the exchange rate, we took whatever change we were given. Lunch was only $5 or $6, so all was well.

After eating lunch and going back outside to find our bus, we were told that two members of another group that would be traveling with us were on a flight that was delayed. Thinking the delay would only be 45 minutes or so, we went back inside and sat down for a short rest. After the 45 minutes had passed, we were told that it would be another two hours in this foreign airport. Some of the group decided to go venture into the city while a few of us stayed in the airport. The group that left was back within ten minutes, having been followed by both a homeless man in rags and a clown (yes, a clown), and receiving many cat-calls.

With the entire group back in a tight circle on the floor of the Tegucigalpa airport for the afternoon, games of cards and Bananagrams soon began. They tried to teach me how to play a card game named Presidents, but I got angry and quit after three minutes of not understanding the rules. With the games and each other to entertain us, the two hours passed quickly and we were soon told it was time to board the bus.

We all piled onto an old US school bus that had been slightly converted to be used as a transport for HOI. The windows had curtains to block the bright sun and there as an overhead rack for luggage. We were on the bus with a group from somewhere in Georgia, a few of whom had made the trip previously. We were warned that the ride might be a little bumpy. That was the understatement of the year.

As we left the airport and drove through the city, we were instantly hit with the views of the shacks and shanty's that stood on top of one another across the mountains in the city. Entire mountains covered in homes. Thankfully, our eyes were to drawn to this poverty-stricken city to notice how scary the roads were. After spending 8 days in Honduras, I'm still not sure of the rules of the road, other than the fastest car passes whenever and wherever they decide. There was more than one occasion on this trip where I uttered a few curse words loud enough for my youth to hear because of the fright in our driving adventures.

As the city ended, so did the paved roads. Our trip soon became incredibly bumpy. The roads throughout Honduras are dirt and filled with pot holes. The soil there is so rocky that the rocks create even more bumps so the wheels on our bus never received a break of any sort except when we stopped. After what seemed like 14 hours, and was really only 90 minutes, we stopped at a Mennonite bakery, owned and operated by American missionaries, that was unfortunately closed. We all lined up to use the latrines and began discussing our bumpy ride.

Before we stopped and before the night sky had fallen upon us, I couldn't help but notice how green the mountainous countryside of Honduras was. I saw every tree and every bush like I had never seen plant-life before. The pine trees that covered the large hills next to the road seemed as if they were the first trees I had ever seen. The scenery was mesmerizing.

It was nearly 7pm by this time our brief stop ended and our night's journey was only halfway over. Having had lunch some seven hours early, we were all very hungry. One of the youth pulled out a jar of trail mix and began passing it around the group. Those few handfuls of peanuts and pretzels might have been the best food I've ever eaten. After being frightened by the bus, the roads, the other vehicles, and wondering if our trip would ever end, the sweetness and crunch of this small snack was heavenly.

With our spirits lifted by this small morsel, we re-boarded the bus and were on our way to Jutilcalpa. The second half of the trip went much quicker and we were soon into the city. As we approached the city, one of the youth had read to me a short passage from Tuesdays With Morrie that she had brought along to use in the devotional she would be leading later in the week. I was so proud that she had read Tuesdays With Morrie and even prouder that she had thought ahead about what her devotional would be about.

Having read me this short passage, I joked that she should read aloud to us. She effortlessly agreed and began reading from chapter one. She read the first two chapters of the book and it was perfect. I was able to close my eyes, block out the bumps of the road, and focus on the words of her book. Those 20 minutes helped calm me and prepare me for an excellent first night in Honduras.

As we drove into Juticalpa, we were struck with how run-down the city appeared. We would see signs for hotels and wonder if each one would be our destination for the night. Finally, after weaving through the streets of the city for blocks and blocks, we pulled into a gorgeous villa hotel. The first thing we noticed was the security guard who opened the gate for us. He had a handgun on his side and a shotgun strapped over his shoulder. This was definitely not what we were used to seeing at American hotels.

The hotel was fantastic. The front desk staff was happy to see us and had our rooms ready within minutes. Our rooms were air conditioned and had fluffy double beds with six pillows each. I couldn't have ask for anything more after such a long day of travel.

We all met for dinner by the pool and were served Coca-Cola, Coca-Cola Light, and Sprite in glass bottles. Since they don't use high-fructose corn syrup in their cola, the drinks tasted light and airy. They were perfectly refreshing on a warm evening. We had fried chicken, rice, roasted vegetables, and tortillas for dinner. It was delicious.

After dinner and re-stocking our bottled water supply at the bar, we gathered to end the night with a quick devotional and re-cap of our long first day. The discussion was focused on the poverty we had seen surrounding us all day. The men in the airport exchanging dollars for Limpera at a not-so-fair exchange rate. The children in the airport asking for food or money, only to run and hand it to an old man sitting in the corner if they were to receive a small token from a traveler.

This was one of the last discussions we had all week about the poverty. I'm thankful for that. We stopped letting their lack of money and possessions be an issue and started letting their need for help be the issue. We focused on their happiness and sense of family rather than their lack of luxuries.

As the night ended I laid on my large bed and wrote in my journal. I don't remember everything I wrote, other than the sentence, "the poverty here is awesome." That statement is still true, but as the week progressed it doesn't matter as much as it did that first night in Honduras. The people there are more awesome than the poverty.

After I finished writing, I went to sleep and got seven or eight wonderful hours of sleep. Our first day in Honduras was eye opening, shocking, scary, wonderful, and amazing. It was a long day, but we were thrilled that we were able to make the journey safely.

I left my heart in Honduras.

As our trip began, I intended to write something every night in a journal. My writings would be reflections from the day, the things I had seen, the emotions I felt, and the things the youth did that made me smile. But as our trip went on, I stopped writing. I stopped writing in the middle of a sentence on Monday evening. I was so tired. I was tired of writing, tired of trying to be poetic, and tired of trying to put our journey into a day-by-day log.

The first thing I wrote in my journal was, “The poverty here is awesome.” But less than two days later, my view of this new land, these new people, and, most important, my view of myself changed. I saw who I truly am and what I am truly capable of. I stopped seeing the poverty and started seeing the people.

I stopped seeing the poverty.

I wish this trip had helped me remember how to cry. There was so much that should have broken my heart, but the things that filled my heart made it too strong to break. Where I could have found sadness in the remote village of El Rodeo, I found joy and happiness. Where I could have felt guilty for the life I am so fortunate to have, I felt pride that I was able to help these people, if only for four short days.

I started seeing the people.

The people of El Rodeo, Olancho Dept., Honduras, Central America are awesome. They are beautiful, joyous, uplifting, funny, appreciative, caring, and loving. I was only with them for less than 25 hours and they made me feel like I could move mountains. They called me strong. They thanked me for my help. They laughed with me. They prayed with me. They filled me.

See the people.

The children in the village had smiles that melted your heart. The women in the village gave hugs that were real. The men in the village worked hard; they appreciated our hard work and showed it by asking to work with us.

The people.

I will never forget the moment that one of the men, Alex, interrupted me working on another project, put a shovel in the ground, looked me in the eye, and said, “I want to work with you. I like the way you work.” Moments like that give me confidence, strength, and faith in the people of this world. A man from Honduras, a man who makes less than $1200 a year, a man who works in the fields in the hot Central American sun (when he can find work) asked to work with me, a man from America, a man who makes more than 95% of the world, a man who sits behind a desk five days a week.

Or the moment when Carlos, Alex’s brother, and I worked together cutting rebar for his family’s new latrine we were building. The moment when I grabbed the bar close to the saw to make it easier for him to cut. The moment when I moved my gloved hand closer to the worn hacksaw to keep the rock that served as our work bench from shaking. The moment when we looked at each other and I gave him a trusting nod. The moment we became brothers.

Alex and Carlos are what I will always remember about my trip to Honduras. Working alongside these two brothers, mixing concrete with shovels in 500 lb. batches on the dirt, being careful to not waste an ounce as the slanted ground tried to steal our precious resources. Joking with these two brothers in two different languages, yet we somehow understood one another. Receiving gifts from these two brothers, who have very little to spare, to show their appreciation for the work I did.

I’ll remember our group leader Ali, a native Honduran who leads groups similar to ours throughout the year. Her passion and enthusiasm for her job is infectious. She cares about the people of Honduras. She cares about the people who come to help her people. Her smile and laugh will be in my mind forever. Ali is an angel.

I am so proud of the twelve youth that traveled with me and two of my best friends to Honduras last week. I am so proud of the work they did. I am so proud of their senses of humor. I am so proud of the way they represented our church. And I am so proud of them for being a family, for being my family.

I’ll remember how happy my youth were this week. I’ll remember how happy the other two adults and I would get when would hear the youth talk about their days. I’ll remember how bright they smiled when they saw me smile. I’ll remember how they supported one another through everything.

I’ll write more about our day-to-day accounts as the week continues and as I have more time to process the journey I have just arrived home from. But for now, these are the words I write. These are the words that matter. These are the people, the emotions, and the take-aways that have overwhelmed me.

Thank for you for all of the prayers and support this past week. I think I can safely speak for our entire group when I say that we had the time of our lives. God bless you all.

And thank you to David, Carolyn, Jesse, Anna, Bryan, Catherine, Annie, Merritt, Emily, Mackenzie, Isaac, Max, Tara, and David for our week in Honduras. You are all blessings.

Reviving Baseball's All-Star Game

As I watched the Home Run Derby last night, I went through my normal routine: I enjoy the pre-game show with Barry Larkin and Bobby Valentine being ridiculous, I wonder why they need a band to play to open what should be one of the most entertaining events of the season, I yell a lot when they show Chris Berman for the first time, I yell some more when he does a terrible job introducing the contestants, and then I grin and giggle for the next 90 minutes.

Seeing men hit baseballs out of a park will forever make me smile, unless it’s against my beloved Cubbies of course. This thrill of the long ball is part of the reason steroids tarnished the game over the span of the last 20 years, but it’s also what makes the game fun, especially on the night where home runs are the only things that matter.

There are vivid images in my mind from Derby’s past: Junior Griffey, with his hat turned backwards, hitting a ball off the warehouse in Baltimore, Barry Bonds bat flip as he won in 1996, Mark McGwire’s moon shots over the Green Monster in Fenway, Sammy Sosa putting on a show in Atlanta, Bobby Abreu, coming from nowhere, to hit 24 first-round bombs in Detroit, Ryan Howard hitting balls into the river in Pittsburgh, Josh Hamilton’s fireworks show in Yankee Stadium, and, after last night, Robi Cano and his father sharing an embrace after winning.

Last night’s Derby did not disappoint. I was intrigued, as I always am, for the first 90 minutes; Adrian Gonzalez, Prince Fielder, Robinson Cano, and David Ortiz were putting on a show. And then you reach the point where things get boring. By the second round, you’re tired of Berman exclaiming about the balls that go 12 rows deep and seemingly ignoring the balls that are hit to dead center, you’re tired of the players taking five pitchers between swings, and you’re tired of constant Gatorade breaks and pep talks from whoever seems to be closest.

The Major League All-Star game and festivities are two of my favorite days of the year. There are no other sporting events going on to compete with them, so all eyes are on baseball. But over the last eight or ten years, things have changed. The Home Run Derby gets boring and/or obnoxious, the All-Star game started counting for something more than a night of fun, and don’t get me started on what ESPN and MLB did with the Legends and Celebrity Softball game this year. Taking a few queues from what the NBA has done with their All-Star festivities, here a few suggestions to help MLB follow suite:

1. The game cannot count for anything.

This could take a while…

After an 11-inning tie in the 2002 Midsummer Classic, Bud Selig and his crack team decided that the All-Star game should decide home-field advantage in the World Series. I hated the idea at the time and I still hate the idea today.

An All-Star game, in any sport, should not have any affect on the regular season and especially not on the postseason. This should be an evening of baseball’s best and most popular players having fun with one another. We should be able to see things that make the game fun, like Randy Johnson whizzing a fastball over John Kruk, that might not happen anymore with the game having an impact on the World Series.

If fans are going to have the ability to vote in whomever they choose, the game can’t matter. Derek Jeter probably didn’t deserve an All-Star start this year, but the fans voted to see him play so he had the opportunity to represent his league. Does this give the American League the best chance to win? No, but this game is for the fans.

And if the “best” players are going to play only the first two or three innings, the game isn’t played the way it would be otherwise. In a game that matters, I would want Albert Pujols and Adrian Gonzalez at the plate for my team in the 7th, 8th, and 9th innings, not the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd.

It’s also fairly obvious that many of the players don’t seem to care that the game counts. The list of players not on the DL who declined to play in this year’s game proves that point. I’m fine with them wanting to rest in the middle of a grueling season, but a game this easy to sit out of shouldn’t have any importance behind it.

Aside from these changes, the game itself is fine. It’s hard to mess up a baseball game once the players take the field.

2. Players voted in by the fans are required to be in attendance.

It’s as simple as it sounds: if you’re voted in by the fans, you’re at the ballpark in uniform for the announcement of the starting lineups before Tuesday’s game. Obvious exceptions would be taken into account here such as family emergencies and injuries that don’t allow comfortable travel, but outside of those circumstances the players that are voted in by the fans will be in attendance to represent their league and their fans.

I’m talking to you, Mr. 3000.

3. All-Star Monday can not grow stale.

As mentioned above, the Home Run Derby is one of my favorite events, but it could be better. Here’s how you fix it:

1) A hometown player must be featured. Nothing keeps the crowd excited like watching one of their own at the plate. No matter if he hits zero or 13 homers, the crowd would be buzzing for at least 15 minutes straight. (Justin Upton was made for a home run contest; Prince dropped the ball on this one)

2) Contestants only get one quick break after their fifth out. I understand letting bad pitches go and how tiring this event can be, but these guys do not need to step out six times over the course of 15-20 swings. This event needs to keep moving in order to keep its energy.

3) ESPN is only allowed a commercial break halfway through the first round, after the first round, and before the finals. Again, we have to keep the event moving. Don’t give me a chance to see that Braveheart is playing on HBO.

4) Remember several years back when MasterCard (I think) had targets up around the park and if they were hit, a fan had a chance to win $1 million? (I think that was the promotion, I could be wrong about the details, but it was very similar.) This needs to come back. There should be no less than 15 targets spread throughout the outfield at both attainable distances and locations, and a few just out of reach of even baseball’s strongest men, but with large enough rewards to keep the fans excited. If one of Price Fielder’s bombs had hit the Ballpark Franks logo and given every fan in Section K a free hot dog, the place would have exploded. If Adrian Gonzalez had missed the Red Bull sign in deep center by 10 ft that would have given one lucky fan a new car, the roof might have caved in from the noise. Even if it was a free foam finger for one kid, the fans would love it. There are sponsors willing to play this game and Major League Baseball has to take advantage of this.

Along with the Derby, there needs to be other exciting events for both the fans and the players:

Throwing accuracy relay: Set up a series of targets at home plate for pitchers to throw at. Once two different pitchers from each league have exploded their plates, we move to two of their teammates trying to hit larger targets on longer throws into the outfield. The first team of four men to destroy all of their targets wins. This would create excitement for all of the players and the fans, and would also involve at least four players from each league that would not be involved in the festivities otherwise. Can you imagine Justin Verlander, Felix Hernadex, Rick Ankiel (I know, it’s a stretch to have him anywhere near the All-Star game, but his arm is phenomenal), and Ichiro hurling balls against Jair Jurrjens, Roy Halladay, Jason Heyward, and Jay Bruce?

First to second contest: Speed is a huge part of the game and one of the most fun skills that a player can possess. Let’s put Michael Bourn, Jose Reyes, Carlos Gomez, and Tony Campana (a biased Cubs pick) from the NL against Jacoby Ellsbury, Brett Gardner, Austin Jackson, and Peter Bourjas from the AL in a race from the batters box to second base. In a bracket tournament, we’d put two men in each batters box and have them race from home to somewhere around second base (we obviously couldn’t have two men colliding at second). Players would drool at the chance to be named the game’s fastest man.

These two events peppered between rounds of the Home Run Derby would make the Monday before the All-Star game phenomenal and also help from keeping the Derby grow boring and drawn-out. Between the three contests, the league would have at least 24 players on display (unless we find ourselves in a situation where Ichiro is in all three contests), which is something Major League Baseball needs. With only three of four true recognizable superstars in the game currently, putting 24 fresh faces in front of a huge audience would be a great marketing tool.

4. Don’t mess with the Legends and Celebrities Softball Game!

Over the past four or five years, this has become one of my favorite events. It’s always shown at least an hour later than it’s supposed to because the Derby takes so long, but it is also always a fun event. Seeing Freddy Lynn and Rollie Fingers play on the same field with Meatloaf and Nick Jonas is fun, there’s no way around it. But this year, they changed things.

The Legends were still Legends, but the celebrities missed the mark. In the past, there were players like the previously mentioned Meatloaf and ESPN’s Kenny Mayne; guys who came out to have fun and knew they were there for that reason. This year, it was an ABC cavalcade of “stars.” I didn’t know who 75% of the “celebrities” were because I don’t watch ABC’s lineup of romantic dramas.

And the worst part? Gary Thorne was no longer calling the game, so no one was there to even tell me who the unknown man at bat was. If this game is going to be shown on air, there needs to be someone calling the game, to some small degree, and letting us know who the players are. Ernie Banks was the third base coach for the National League team last night and he was never recognized on the broadcast. All we got was Erin Andrews and James Denton, who I wouldn’t know if not for his reoccurring appearances at this game, random comments as they played in the game.

There you have it: four things (three of which are serious and the last being a personal request) that could easily transform the All-Star break into two days of baseball perfection.

Go Cubs! Go National League! Go baseball!

A time for God? Always.

Moments before I fell asleep last night, I checked Twitter one last time to find a breaking news report of a major earthquake in Japan. There were no details yet, but it was still a frightening report.

And moments after I woke up this morning, I checked Twitter to see what the world had to say last night. The majority of the messages were kind words and prayers for the people of Japan and all those affected by the earthquake and subsequent tsunamis. But there were a few messages that provided a different response to this great natural disaster.

Several people were saying that now is the time to find God because with all of the death and destruction in recent years, the end times are surely near.

As I read these messages, I couldn't help but wonder the same thing myself, but I was also filled with sadness. Does Christianity teach us to find God in the possible waning minutes of our lives? Shouldn't we strive for a Christian life because we are alive and not because we might die soon?

We are all going to die at some point; that is a fact. To place an emphasis on finding Jesus after an earthquake or a flood is a viewpoint that has strayed from the path that I think we are supposed to follow.

Yes, I would love for everyone to believe in the God that I believe in. I would love for the entire world to believe that Jesus loves everyone. I would love for the world to believe...

But we live in a world that believes many different things.

If you aren't drawn to Christianity, be Jewish or Muslim or Buddhist. If organized religion isn't your cup of tea, believe in something, something good hopefully; believe in the possibility of a peaceful world with opportunities for all.

Life is a journey up an enormous mountain. Amongst the countless paths up the mountain, we might stumble, but there is always an outstretched arm waiting to pick us back up so that we may keep climbing.

We're in this together. I'll see you at the top, if not somewhere along the way...