Fired up, powered down

On and off last evening I was hearing noise from surrounding neighbors and neighborhoods. I didn't think a great deal of it until about 9pm when it rather abruptly got crazy. Fireworks were going off incessantly and people were shouting and screaming. At first I figured that there was some festival or other; I have yet to have a real handle on Honduran holidays--when they are or how they are celebrated. Then it occurred to me that there may be a more simple explanation. A brief search online revealed that Club Deportivo Olimpia had just defeated Real Club Deportivo Espana 2-0 in the League championship (3-0 on home-away aggregate). This was somewhat unexpected I believe, because Real España had dominated in the regular season. Olimpia is based here in Tegus while Real España is from San Pedro Sula, the second largest city in Honduras. Needless to say, fútbol  being the official national religion sport and Olimpia being one of the home town favorites, there were some fired up people in town. 

Though I doubt that there was any relation, last night's excess of energy was followed by a shortage today. For the first time since our arrival, the electricity was intermittent this morning at church. The church has a generator for such circumstances but the noise of the generator and the instability of the electricity it provides made for a different sort of service. Fortunately the congregation did not seem too bothered by it and, as most of my friends know, I have a big enough mouth to make up for the lack of amplification.

As I explained in a previous post, today we also said "Goodbye" to a good friend and fellow minister Jesse. It was good to hear him present his decision to the church and to pray with him and for him. He will be sorely missed but we rejoice with the direction that he is moving for the good of the kingdom.