Ministry Montage

The "working" part of "living, working, and raising a family" sometimes gets short shrift on my blog. That's partially because Trish writes, but Allen oversees ministry. It's also because I run out of things to say, when we do the same things over again. But, since much of ministry does tend to repeat, and because I don't want you to think that we're just hanging about up here, enjoying the view and watching the birds, I thought I'd write a short ministry update.

Yesterday, for instance, Allen and Russell traveled to the city of San Pedro Sula (about a 3.5 hour drive) to pick up a batch of motorcycles. Paid for by funds raised by the Christian Motorcyclists Association, these motorcycles will be used by pastors in their work throughout western Honduras.





This past week, the monthly session of the pastor training school was held. Many of the details regarding the school are now handled by Hondurans. We, of course, still fund the school, we oversee things, and I bake the cakes for the dinners (I have the most important job, as you can tell), but things are running pretty smoothly.

We continue to supply many feeding centers with food. In fact, this particular part of the ministry has expanded significantly in the past year. I presume this is related to the downturn in the economy. I'm not sure exactly how many feeding centers we currently supply, but I believe it's approximately fifty. We also provide food to fourteen orphanages and several schools which provide lunches to their students, and to a group of families with special needs children. Allen estimates about 4500 children are being fed through the food we are helping to provide. We really should take a moment to thank Kids Against Hunger, the organization which supplies us with food. We only pay the cost to ship the food here, so we are able to feed children these vitamin enriched meals for about 1.5 cents per meal.

Also, I must mention that I am nearing the end of the process of creating and distributing "Christmas" gifts to the pastors with whom we work. Phew - just in time to start gearing up to do this again for this coming Christmas. We are determined to ship our container earlier this year, so be watching here for information soon on how you can be a part of this project in 2010!

There you go - a ministry update! Of course, I left out the bridge projects, the school and church construction projects, etc., but you get the idea.

Delivering Christmas Gifts in Quelacasque

Yesterday Allen and Alan, along with a few tag-a-long kids, delivered the gifts for the families with special needs children, in the village of Quelacasque. I wasn't along for the trip, I just received the pictures, most of which were taken by Bethany (age 12). Along with the pictures of the families and their gifts, I received a few random pictures. Just for fun, I'll share them, too.

For instance, what is this building? I'm fairly confident it isn't meant to be a house . . . but what would its purpose be, and why do we have a picture of it? (By the way, my guess is that this is a shelter for animals.)


Now, this next picture I know was taken to document the big landslide you can see in the background. You can click on the picture for a closer look. You can see how this landslide would have closed the road, although it has since been repaired. This is a very common problem in our area.


Here's a heartwarming shot of some kids and their . . . hog. Well, it warms my heart, anyway. I like pork. ;-D


Alright, I'll stop playing around now with the random photos, and show some of the ones that I expected to get - the families receiving their gifts.

It's a big present delivery day tomorrow!

Alan and Faith Hayes and I spent this afternoon making up gift boxes for the families in our Special Needs Program. Because this group visits our house every month, to pick up their food packages, we know them better than we know many of the other people we help. They are a nice group of folks, who struggle to care for the medical needs of their special children, in addition to the regular day-to-day struggle of living in the mountains of Lempira.

Tomorrow morning, Allen and Alan (and whichever family members choose to tag along) will travel to the village of Quelacasque, to deliver the gifts and the food for this month. While they are doing this, Faith and I will be back at my house, making up about a dozen gifts for pastors and their families. The men will deliver those gifts to the city of La Esperanza in the afternoon.

Recent rains up in the mountains have swollen the nearby rivers, and we feared the trip to Quelacasque would have to be postponed, as there is a largish river to be forded between there and Gracias. But Alan Hayes drove out and checked the water level today, and determined that it was passable. Hopefully it will still be so tomorrow!

I expect to have some pictures of these outings to post tomorrow evening.

You never know what the day will bring

Today, for instance, brought us a duck. This morning we didn't have a duck, or any intention of acquiring a duck. But now we have one. Here is how it happened.

This morning was the day that the Special Needs families come by the house, to pick up their monthly food package. One of the ladies, while here, told Allen that she was concerned about her house, which she said was falling down.

We don't have funds to repair people's houses, but we thought we'd check it out, and see if any of our supporters would be interested in helping with this. So, Alan Hayes and my Allen headed out to Quelacasque, to see her house. They carried a good many of the ladies home in the truck, and David went along for the ride.


At the house, they found the situation was different than they'd expected. The house sits near the top of a cliff, and apparently the cliff has been eroding away. The house is still about 25' away from the edge, but a huge chunk of hillside fell away earlier this week, shaking the house significantly and thoroughly scaring the inhabitants of the house! The need is not for a repaired house, but really for a different piece of land. I don't know that we are going to be able to be of any help with this, but I suppose we'll see what we can do.

While Allen and Alan surveyed the situation regarding the sliding land, David played near the house, with the animals in the yard. Upon their return, they found that David had been given a duckling. So, they brought it home with them, and we have a duck.

At this moment, the duck is residing in a bathtub. We're going to have to figure out how to house the duck. You may recall we don't have a yard at the moment - the chickens live on the roof, and I suppose the duck will join them. We don't know if it is a boy duck or a girl duck, but its name is Squeaker.

We also acquired a snake today, but that's a different story. Tune in tomorrow!

Sometimes we do get to see that we are making a difference

Working with the desperately poor can be a daunting job. There are always (ALWAYS) more needs than resources. Sometimes we wonder if we are even making a small dent in the situation.

One of the programs we run involves helping families in which there is a child with special medical needs. Many families in the department of Lempira are barely surviving, and the extra stress and workload caused by the addition of a child with medical problems can easily be the factor which takes the family into disaster. In the families we work with, many of the children have problems involving mental and physical handicaps that will never be resolved. Although we help them get needed medical care, sometimes the main impact we have is in helping the family get enough to eat.

This morning, the mom from one of our Special Needs families came for a visit. Her daughter, Kenia, is severely handicapped, both mentally and physically. This is an older picture, showing the mom and Kenia.


The reason for her visit today, was to show off her new baby, Maria Carmen - affectionately called Carmencita.


Would you just look at that chubby, healthy baby? She's breast fed, but the food we provide is making it's way to her, you can certainly see that!

This family is no longer suffering from malnutrition, and this baby is looking . . . just so delightfully normal! We encounter many children who have suffered permanent damage from malnutrition. It's great to see a child who has been helped to avoid the damage!

I so enjoyed this opportunity to confirm that the work we are doing is making a difference in the lives of these families, and I hope that you can share with me in this joy. We couldn't do this work without a LOT of support from our friends - and you know who you are! Thank you so much for your willingness to be a part of showing Christ's love to the people of Lempira.

Should I Watch What I Ask For?

Two days ago, we received our first egg from our lovely chicken, Gorgeous. We did not get an egg yesterday, and that one lone egg is still sitting in the kitchen, waiting for someone audacious enough to use such a special egg.

Yesterday, I mentioned to the kids that one chicken, producing less than one egg per day, was not really enough for our family. It was a JOKE. Our chickens live in a coop, and I'm not sure it is big enough for any more than the two chickens we already had living in it (did you notice the use of the past tense in that sentence: had, not have?).

This morning, I received a visitor - Maria Vicenta, one of the ladies who receives food through the Special Needs Program. She was so grateful for all we have done for her family, and especially for the wonderful food from Kids Against Hunger . . . that she brought us a chicken.
No, I'm not kidding, we have received another chicken as a gift. And I'm pretty sure she is going to bring us yet one more chicken tomorrow.

Of course, it is a beautiful little chicken, and has received the lovely name of Angela. I doubt that Angela is ever destined for the cooking pot.

Maria Vicenta's family is in the Special Needs Program because she has a son, Jose, who is mentally impaired, and cannot walk or talk. Her husband is a farmer, and they have five other children. According to our records, their home does not have electricity or indoor plumbing, and they have a dirt floor. I am pretty sure the reason she wants to give me a second chicken is that I gave her one of our empty five gallon laundry soap buckets today, as a gift. She will use that to carry water to her house, from the river. She had offered to buy it from me, and I felt that, since she had just brought me a gift of a chicken, I should give it to her. I guess now she feels indebted to me?

So, now we have three chickens, and soon we may have another. We are enjoying them a lot, they aren't much work, and they reward us with eggs. Plus, I know it is nice for the people we help, to be able to give us something in return.

Look at Handsome, standing so tall and proud. Doesn't he look like he knows he has a harem now, instead of just one bossy wife?

Special Needs Kids - Link

One of the programs we run is directed toward families with "Special Needs Kids" - children with medical needs requiring long term medical help. Many of these children's problems actually stem from severe, ongoing malnutrition. Some suffer from birth defects, others from ongoing medical conditions. The most recent quarterly magazine put out by Missionary Ventures ran this article, about the program (when you open the link, scroll down to the article entitled "What Else Could We Do?")

Below are pictures of Denexi Marbeli, before and after the initial surgery to repair her cleft palate. We currently have three more people in the program, waiting for cleft palate repair surgery. Two of these are young adults from very remote areas of the mountains, who have not yet received the needed repairs, in spite of being nearly 20 years old! We are working on scheduling surgeries for them in the near future. Our part is simply doing the leg work; connecting the patient with a visiting surgical team which is offering these repairs fairly close to our area, and paying for the transportation and housing as needed.