Special News Report: Hurricane Ian

 Everyone with Sowers4Pastors was watching the path of Ian even before it was posing an imminent threat to Florida. At that time, it was a tropical storm heading west, right on the latitude of Honduras. That is a common hurricane pathway when they’re first beginning. The storm was predicted to turn north, and it did.

The concern for the people in Western Honduras was that the area is already waterlogged. Or, as Trish so aptly put it, “We’re completely flooded and up to our gills right now!” 

Trish explained the situation further by saying, “Any interaction with the hurricane would have dumped more water on us. Fortunately, we were spared. It turned north, as it was projected to do. We caught tiny pieces of the edges of the hurricane. Essentially, we’re in the same, somewhat dangerous position as before - but at least we're no worse off.”

As you undoubtedly know, the northern turn means that Hurricane Ian is headed toward Florida. Trish’s father is in Sarasota where Ian has approached with sustained winds of 155mph. As of this morning, Trish believes her father’s home has lost power. Christopher and Audrey also live in Sarasota, but they left town to attend a wedding. Then they weren’t able to return home due to airport closures. That means they aren’t there to check on Trish’s dad. Ian is nearing Category 5. The official word is that it is time to “hunker down.” Trish’s sister and niece live on the east side of Florida. That area is facing tornadoes and heavy rain. 

Many people have asked how this is affecting backpack collections. The backpacks that have been mailed are on the east coast of Florida. They are vulnerable due to an elevated risk of tornadoes and flooding. There are still a few individuals on the west side of Florida who are in possession of backpacks to donate. Some boxes of backpacks are in a truck moving from Maryland to Florida. The truck is currently in Virginia. There is the possibility that Allen will be driving south as the storm moves north. The Maryland backpacks (including those collected on the first leg of the trip) are safely stored ther.

This is around the fourth time a hurricane has affected a backpack collection trip. 

Because flooding and Ian weren’t enough to deal with, two earthquakes occurred in Western Honduras on Sunday. The epicenter was near San Pedro Sula, a three-hour drive from Gracias. Each quake was about a 5 on the Richter scale. Trish felt them in Gracias. However, her children who were in a warehouse store in San Pedro Sula didn’t feel a thing! The earthquakes are being blamed for three houses collapsing in Lempira. The collapses were likely the result of the combined effects of earthquakes and saturated soil. 

Please continue to pray for the safety of everyone affected by Hurricane Ian. Add to that, prayers for the backpacks. And, while Honduras was spared the brunt of the storm, please pray that rains will subside and the ground will have a chance to dry out. It is interesting to note that tropical storms are a greater threat than hurricanes in Honduras since most damage from the area occurs from rain, not wind. 

 - posted by Christi

A Third World To-do List

As far as To-Do lists go, Trish’s is just like most people’s, with the notable addition of some 3rd world issues. It is rare, after all, for us First Worlders to have something as exotic as evacuating a possum from our house. But other stuff is pretty mundane. Just like any mom, Trish needs to schedule occasional medical appointments for a family member. Of course, even her mundane tasks tend to have a 3rd world spin.

For the past year, Ben has been experiencing problems with his right knee. He thought it was due to a bad fall on concrete. While he was having some pain, it did not interfere with his regular activities, so he dealt with it. For a year. When a funny lump formed on the side of the knee, Trish and Allen said, “Enough is enough,” and made the decision to seek medical advice. Since that’s not as simple as finding a specialist on Yelp, Trish headed to a Facebook group for Americans living in Honduras and said she was looking for a good orthopedist. She received a response that a medical team from North America is currently in her neck of the woods for a month. The doctors are there on a rotating basis, but an orthopedic surgeon is there now!
Trish was able to schedule an appointment to have Ben seen. The orthopedist did the stuff orthopedists do (which I imagine involved some poking and prodding, in addition to X-rays). He diagnosed the lump as a benign tumor, having nothing to do with last year’s fall. It seems this type of benign tumor is something that can grow while a child is growing. If you’ve been paying attention to pictures, Ben has definitely been growing!
While it isn’t a major medical concern, it is best to have it removed. In Ben’s case, it has been catching a tendon or ligament (or whatever else makes a knee do the stuff knees are supposed to do) and causing the aforementioned pain. So, it’s time to wave bye-bye to Ben’s benign tumor! Surgery is expected to be today, but that is subject to change. Remember, there’s still third world stuff at play.
The prognosis is good. Ben should be on crutches for a couple of days and take it easy for a couple of weeks. He should be able to resume full activity in a month or two. The timing is also good because Ben is out of school right now.
Naturally, everyone is grateful this was not something more serious. This is something that can affect other body parts. As far as anyone knows, however, Ben doesn’t have any other weird lumps. Everyone is also grateful for a skilled surgeon who speaks English!
In other news…
It is Trish’s understanding that this morning’s earthquake did not cause any major damage. The earthquake was far offshore and that side of Honduras is sparsely inhabited swampland. The primary concern was of tsunamis, particularly since it is low lying land. Now, Trish is no seismologist (nor does she play one on TV), but to the best of her knowledge, the tsunami danger appears to have passed.
And, if you’ve been following the political climate in Honduras, the demonstrations seem to have petered out. The protesters appear to have lost their desire to cause a stir. What few protests there been recently have been small and peaceful. The Presidential inauguration is scheduled for January 27.

- posted by Christi

Remember those earthquakes?

Early in August I wrote about experiencing a couple of minor earthquakes here. I didn't mention, at the time, that I checked one of the major Honduras newspapers for news of the second quake (to see if there had been any damage), and discovered that there had also been a small amount of volcanic activity in Guatemala the same day, and at nearly the same time. It did occur to me that the two events might be related . . .

You may have seen in the news that the "Volcan del Fuego" (Volcano of Fire) in Guatemala erupted today, with tens of thousands of people frantically evacuating from the area. Here's a link to a story about this eruption, in case you haven't heard about it.

The volcano is due west from us, about 350 miles away or so. We don't anticipate experiencing any difficulties here, although volcanoes are pretty hard to predict, I guess.

Another day, another new experience, right?

Didja feel that?

We just had an earthquake (well, about half an hour ago) - our second in a week!

It was pretty minor, but unmistakable from where I sat. I'm thinking the men who are working outside probably didn't feel it. We've found in the past that it's much easier to notice an earthquake when indoors.

I've been watching the earthquake notification sites, and our quake hasn't shown up yet. I wonder if it was really, really small, but located quite close.

The earthquake earlier in the week was centered in an area about 30 miles from here. It had two distinct "thumps," plus I heard the rumble before feeling the movement. Today's event was much smaller, just one "thump" and no rumble.

Odd, though, that this earthquake isn't showing up at all on the maps that report these events. I watch the US government map, as well as the Global Incident Map.

I'd never felt an earthquake before living in Honduras. Now I feel that my life is complete . . . I don't necessarily have to keep on experiencing them . . . LOL


UPDATE: The info on the quake just showed up on the maps. It was a 4.6, located in a similar location as the one earlier in the week.

A really great ministry slide show!

Last summer, a group from our home church, Fredericktowne Baptist Church in Walkersville Maryland, spent a week with us. Although we've now lived in Honduras for nine years, all of these guests were people we knew before we left, and most had been friends with our kids when we lived there. It was wonderful for our children to reconnect with their old friends. We had such a blast!

Our main goal for their visit was that they would see as many of all the different ministries as possible, so that they could report back to our faithful supporters at home. They created this slideshow with music, from pictures taken during their trip, and Allen received a copy of it on his recent visit to Maryland.

I think it's really great. You can see what an exciting and busy week we had, and what a sense of fun this group brought with them - plus you can see lots of pictures from various ministries.

Thanks Melissa (and anyone else who might have helped) for putting this slide show together!

Earthquake Damage Reconstruction Update 8/13/09

Earlier this week, Allen visited the villages where the earthquake caused so much damage. He was delivering materials, and checking up on the progress of the reconstruction. Here are some pictures.








The final picture shows a family applying a coating to the interior walls, to smooth them out.

In many of these pictures, you can see clay roofing tiles (and metal roofing, in one instance) protecting the tops of the uncompleted walls. This is because unprotected adobe bricks will melt in the rain, so partially completed walls always have to be covered like this, when no one is working on them. I think it's kind of amazing, the obscure stuff I know. ;-D

Country Kitchen

One of the homes damaged by the earthquake back in May

(click on the photo for a close-up look)

In the Midst of Chaos, Life Goes On - Part 1

I haven't posted on the blog much during the political crisis in Honduras. This is partially because I don't blog anonymously, and with such extreme uncertainty in the country right now it doesn't seem to make sense to announce my personal political views. Also, we have a limit on our daily internet usage, and I've gone over my limit several times in the past two weeks. Going over the limit means that I lose my internet access, almost entirely, for 24 hours. Because the internet is my main source of news during the crisis, just about anything not related to gathering news has been deemed "non-essential."

Things are quieting down here, for the moment. Now that a mediator has been brought in to try to resolve the situation diplomatically, I expect -at the very least- that things will be less exciting in Honduras for a few days. I certainly hope so! Because of this, I'm taking this opportunity to use some of my valued internet time to post here on what we're personally doing these days.

Although our thoughts have never been far from the political situation, the work we do has continued, with very little interruption. A major ongoing project is helping with the reconstruction of the houses in El Tablon which were destroyed by the earthquake (remember the earthquake? - seems like a lifetime ago).

The earthquake reconstruction is complicated by the fact that the damage was related to the poor construction practices in the affected area. These villages, until recently, had no usable road to the outside world, so their houses are constructed of earth and wood, and not much else. It turns out that the dirt in that area doesn't consist of the right proportions of sand and clay to make good strong adobe bricks, which was part of the reason the damage in this one area was so severe.

In addition to distributing cement and rebar for the house reconstruction, we have had to instruct the homeowners in new (to them) construction methods, to help ensure that their houses will not fall down again soon! Alan Hayes handled the creation of instruction sheets which were handed out along with the materials, and he and Allen spent time explaining the needed construction methods in detail to the community there.

Now, the first houses have begun pouring their concrete footers, on which they will be building their walls. Here are some pictures:







Oh, and one more neat picture coming up. Remember the pregnant lady who lost her house in the earthquake? Well . . .

Feeling a bit rattled . . .

We felt another earthquake tonight here in Gracias (I guess I should say "last night" since it's after midnight now - but it seems weird to say "last night" about something that happened just an hour ago).

This was a much smaller earthquake than the previous one we felt here (5.7 vs 7.3 on May 28th). It was also of very short duration. I waited it out, and decided it was not necessary to rouse the kids for this one. That was a good call, as I couldn't have gotten everyone awake before it was over. It gave us a nice rattling, though, and got my heartrate up a bit.

There have actually been quite a few small quakes since the Big One on May 28th. According to the blogger La Gringa in La Ceiba there have been a total of ten, before the one tonight. These have been of various strengths, but most all have been on the north coast or just a few miles offshore. We haven't felt any of the quakes between the first one and the one we just experienced.

Honduras isn't generally as seismically active as these recent days have been - so this surge in earthquake activity is leaving us all feeling a bit shook up!

Earthquake Damage Report, part 4

The family in this house, which I believe is a grandmother, her two daughters, and their children, are still living in the house, in the part where the roof is still up, because they have no where else to go. This is one of the few houses where the roof structure actually fell down. It's amazing no one was hurt or killed!

This family, with four children, has to completely rebuild their house. The left side (in the picture) fell completely, and the right side, although still standing, is too dangerous to live in.

The family has removed the rubble from the left side of the house, and they are in the process of erecting a tent over what is left of the walls (the partial walls will keep out animals). Then, they will live in the tent while they tear down and reconstruct the other part of the house. Once they can move into that part, they will be able to rebuild the part they camped out in.

This house used to have a wall here. The family is still living in the other part of this damaged house.

More Earthquake info and pictures

I forgot to mention this in any of my previous posts, but Alan Hayes has also posted information and pictures on his blog, which is here.

Earthquake Damage Report, part 3

A mother, with six children (and no father in the home) lived in this tiny house, which was totally destroyed in the earthquake, and is currently being torn down. This woman has no resources with which to rebuild, and she and her children are currently squeezed in with relatives in their home.



This house, oddly enough, lost both of its short end walls, while the longer walls remained standing. This is one of the structures which will have to be torn down and rebuilt from the ground up - hopefully with a cement foundation this time!

Earthquake Damage Overview

Here in the department of Lempira, most of the damage from the recent earthquake is in an area known as La Iguala. If Lempira is like a state, then La Iguala is like a county. Within La Iguala, most damage occured in the village of Tablones.


According to our investigation yesterday, in the area of La Iguala there are approximately 49 houses which are so damaged that they will have to be completely torn down (these numbers can only go up, but that is why I am saying they are approximate). An additional 200 houses are seriously damaged, but we believe they can be repaired.

Our hope is that we can be involved in the reconstruction process, and help the homeowners improve the quality of the new construction, so that the houses will be stronger, and more likely to stand up in future earthquakes.


Allen's goal is to raise the money to purchase cement and rebar, to distribute to those who are completely rebuilding. Building an adobe brick building directly on the ground is not a strong solution, and building an all-cement or cinderblock house is prohibitively expensive (wood houses don't work here because of the existence of a very hungry termite population). By starting out a new house with a concrete and rebar foundation, the house will have a much better chance of "holding together" when shaken. In addition, Allen is recommending that the houses have another band of concrete, at the tops of the exterior walls, for the same reason.

Here's an example from our personal construction site - even with a building made of cinderblock, the strength is much greater with the cement band atop the walls.

The people in the affected communities have already started the process of clearing the rubble, removing the clay roof tiles (as these can be reused in the new house), and knocking down the buildings which cannot be salvaged. If we are to get stronger foundations under the new houses, we must become involved without delay. Allen is talking with several organizations and private donors, and hopes to have some funds to help with this quickly.

While gathering info yesterday, Allen and Alan also distributed blankets to most of the children, and passed out food to the families affected by the earthquake. We have already distributed a quantity of food that would cook up into 26,000 children's size meals.

Earthquake Damage Report, part 2

This young mother of 3 (soon to be four) is one of the people who lost their homes in the earthquake last week. In some ways, she's one of the luckier ones, as her husband is still with her family, and will be able to oversee things for them. He was, in fact, in the process of building an addition onto their home before the earthquake.


In the foreground of the picture above, you can see the older part of the house, which is completely destroyed. In the background is the newer, still-under-construction part of the house.


Sadly, the damage to the new section is extensive, and all of the new construction will have to be torn down.


For now, this family will be living in this structure. They have attached tarps where there should be walls, for privacy and protection from the weather. The box the father is holding in the picture contains blankets for the children, and food. These items were available to us to donate through the generosity of Kids Against Hunger.

Earthquake Damage Report, part 1

Allen, Alan, and Pastor Hugo made the trip to La Iguala today, and they brought back hundreds of photos and many stories. I only have time to write a short post tonight, but I hope to add more photos tomorrow.

This is the home of an elderly couple. The walls of their home are severely damaged. The roof didn't fall in, as you might think from this photo - the first thing people do with the damaged buildings is to remove the salvageable clay tiles off the roof, in order to reuse them.


Here is a close-up of the house, so that you can see some of the damage to the walls.

The couple in this house might actually have enough money to rebuild (unlike most of the homeowners affected in this area), but it would mean spending all of their savings - basically their retirement funds would be gone.

We identified approximately 49 houses which are so badly damaged that they need to be torn down and rebuilt, and approximately 200 other houses which sustained serious damage, but which can probably be repaired. According to our research, about 250 people in the area of La Iguala are now homeless as a result of the earthquake, and a total of about 1250 people were affected by this disaster.

A Typical Day in Honduras

In my previous post, I mentioned that Allen and Alan were heading out to investigate the earthquake damage in the city of La Iguala. Well, they headed out, alright, but they didn't get as far as La Iguala - in fact, they barely got outside of the city of Gracias.

They wanted Pastor Hugo to travel out with them, as he had information about where the damaged houses were located. Pastor Hugo wanted to help, but he had a problem. Last night, his truck had gotten stuck in the mud at the edge of a narrow road, and it was impeding traffic - he really needed to get it unstuck. So, Allen and Alan agreed to help get the truck out of the mud first, and then the three would head on to La Iguala.

Getting the truck out of the mud was a bit trickier than it might have been, but it still only took 15 or 20 minutes. Unfortunately, though, in pulling out the truck, a barely-buried water pipe got broken. Now the repair of the pipe was the responsibility of Allen, Alan, and Hugo.

They headed back into town for plumbing supplies, and had to arrange to have the water turned off at the water tank. Eventually, the truck was out of the mud, the water pipe was repaired, the water supply was restored, and the men decided that it was too late in the day to start off on their expedition to La Iguala. So, the trip has been rescheduled for Monday.

I'm sorry to have to put off our report and pictures of earthquake damage in La Iguala, however this days happenings are quite typical of the sort of 'snowball effect' we experience in our life here. One delay or problem often creates or uncovers another delay or problem. We've learned to word statements of our intentions carefully. We'll say "I'm hoping to get to the grocery store tomorrow," or "I'm planning to work on that paperwork this week" - because saying you will, for certain, do something is almost a guarantee that the power will be out, a holiday we don't know about will close all the stores and banks, the road will be closed, the truck will break down, the water will be turned off, . . . well, you get the idea.

I remember once, back when we lived on Guanaja, when on the spur of the moment we offered to make breakfast for a team of gringos which was visiting our town (not a team we were hosting). While arranging their trip, they hadn't realized that a certain holiday which fell during their week would mean that the restaurant (only one in town) wouldn't be able to feed them on that day. I wanted to make French Toast, but found that all the stores were out of bread. I switched to scrambled eggs, only to find that there weren't enough eggs in town for that meal. Then I decided on pancakes, and the power went out, so I couldn't use my large electric griddle (which makes about 8 pancakes at a time), and I ended up making a gazillion pancakes, one at a time, on a skillet on top of my gas stove. HA! Since I actually did find a way to feed the group, I guess I won that time!

More Earthquake News

You may have heard on the news (or maybe not) that there have been several additional, much smaller earthquakes in Honduras, following the original large one on Thursday morning. We haven't felt any of these quakes, as they are happening up in the area of the north coast (near the epicenter of the original quake) but are so much smaller (mostly between 4 and 5 on the Richter Scale). If you're interested in learning more about that activity, La Gringa's blog is the place for north coast info.

Up here in the mountains things are calm, but yesterday we were informed about a city about an hour from Gracias, where there are reported to be many damaged and destroyed homes and churches. Allen and Alan are headed there right now, to find out first hand how much damage there has been. In the poorer parts of the mountains, the buildings are generally built from mud bricks, without the use of cement or any other materials which would help to strengthen them. The city of La Iguala is an area that, until very recently, had no road coming into it - so it would have been especially unlikely that people would have been bringing construction materials in from the outside - which means that the pretty much the entire town is probably constructed of fragile mud bricks.

I'll report back later, when Allen returns with details and pictures. We're hopeful that we can arrange to get some help for those who have lost their homes and churches in that area.

Yeah, we're a bit shook up!

This morning, at a time that might have been around 2:30, our family was awakened by people screaming, and our beds rolling about beneath us. It's hard for me to explain exactly how everything felt, as I was awakened from a sound sleep, and I don't think I was really all the way awake until we were all out of the house.

I know that, right after I left my bed and headed for the kids' rooms, the earthquake paused for a moment. Allen and I froze, but right away things started to shake again, and we jumped right back into action. I didn't hear any noise from the quake, and the motion had a sort of rolling feel to it the whole time. I grabbed David and yelled at Gus, then started toward the front door. Our house has several different types of roofs in different places - there isn't a really good place to stand in a doorway and feel safe - so we were all headed out of the house.

When I had just entered the living room of the house (the room with the front door), the power went out. I stumbled the rest of the way out in the pitch dark, wheezing and realizing that I hadn't grabbed my asthma inhaler, but no way was I going back inside for it!

Out in front of the house, our neighbors were yelling over to us, to find out if everyone in our family was all right. Apparently there had been a big crash at the beginning of the tremor (while I was still asleep - I still don't know what crashed) and the neighbors thought it came from inside our house. With much of our roof being cement slab, it clearly isn't a great house to be in during an earthquake!

The motion lasted just about a minute - scarcely long enough for us to get out of the house. We hung around outside with the neighbors for a bit, and when it was clear that there was no major damage near us, Allen and some of the kids headed back to bed. Others of us, who couldn't imagine sleeping just yet, stayed outside longer. With the power out, there was no way to find out, at first, how extensive the earthquake was. We didn't know how much area was affected, whether we were at the edge of a large quake, or at the center of a smaller one. Phone lines were already jammed, and as people were able to contact friends and relatives in other parts of the country, we were gradually able to piece together the details of the event.

Russell had been sleeping in one of the Land Cruisers, out on our property. Eventually we were able to reach him by phone. His story was pretty humorous: he'd been awakened by the vehicle rocking back and forth, and assumed that one of the cows on the property was rubbing up against the vehicle. He started yelling at the cow to get away, then got the car lights on, and couldn't find the cow! It wasn't until we finally got through to him on the phone (maybe an hour after the quake) that he knew it had been an earthquake.

Less amusing was the fact that, when we returned to the house we realized that Bethany had never awakened, and none of us had realized that she was still in the house. It was, of course, crazy/scary/pitch black - but still - you feel bad knowing that you left a child behind when you evacuated! Several of us agreed that we thought we'd talked to her when we first got outside - but I guess we were wrong, huh?

Later in the morning, Russell got the news (from his girlfriend, who talked by phone with relatives in the capital city of Tegucigalpa, where the electricity was on and people could watch the news) that the center of the earthquake was right near the island of Guanaja, where we used to live. There hasn't been much news from Guanaja that I've seen, but what little I have found hasn't indicated any deaths or damage on the island.

The power stayed out until about 10 in the morning. I just had time to reassure a few people by email that we were fine, when the power went out again, for the rest of the day, until dark.

I've been reading the Honduran newspapers online, and some reports indicate that there was a death here in Gracias Lempira. I don't have any details on that though. There was also a death reported in the department of Lempira, over near the border with El Salvador. It is possible, in the confusion that always follows events like this, that this will turn out to be the same person. In both cases, the reported death was that of a child.

There has been some damage on the north coast, including one major bridge which has fallen into a river, but things seem pretty much back to normal up here in the mountaions. We're praying for those who experienced loss in this event.