Beautiful Feet, Dusty Roads, and Faithful Yeses

Sowers4Pastors has completed three beautiful—but undeniably exhausting—weeks of ministry. The kind of tired that settles into your bones, yes, but also the kind that comes from knowing you’ve been part of something far bigger than yourself. As the dust (and mud… and cold air) begins to settle, Brandy found himself reflecting on this passage from Romans:

        How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And         how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And         how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how            can anyone preach unless they are sent? As it is written: “How                beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!”

                                                                Romans 10:14–15 (NIV)

Over the past few weeks, Sowers4Pastors has hosted three back-to-back teams for backpack distributions and other projects. It’s been tiring. Plans haven’t always gone perfectly. There have been detours and delays, most often courtesy of weather or vehicles that decided now was the perfect time to act up. Still, the work continued.

When a team from Lighthouse Church was on the ground, the defining feature of the week was dust. Long days were spent traveling to different communities, distributing backpacks, playing games with kids, and visiting the homes of sponsored children. During that week, Brandy’s pickup truck — loaded to the brim with backpacks — developed mechanical issues. The truck limped its way to the school, was repaired just enough, and made it home at the end of the day. Not ideal, but good enough to keep going.

The following week brought a team from Life Community Church — and with them, the rain. Lots of rain. Dust gave way to mud, and plenty of it. One of the S4P trucks spun out and now wears a few large dents as souvenirs. Thankfully, no one was injured, and the work didn’t slow down.

That team distributed backpacks and tackled a major electrical project at one of the schools. Two electricians on the team were stunned by what they found: much of the school had been without lights for years. When the lights were finally turned on throughout the building, kids gathered to watch. Neighbors looked on from their windows. People cheered. What felt ordinary to some was nothing short of extraordinary for that community.

Last week, Sowers4Pastors was hosting a team from Edgewater, FL, and just to keep things interesting, the weather turned cold — by Honduran standards, anyway. Brandy estimates temperatures hovering around 40 degrees Fahrenheit, which makes for a very chilly backpack distribution. The team also made home visits, where children and their families eagerly welcome sponsors into their homes. Even with nearly 2,000 children in the program, Brandy shared that he’s beginning to recognize familiar faces.

The roads may be dusty or muddy. Trucks may break down or spin out. Temperatures may drop unexpectedly. But the feet that carry the good news — those are always beautiful.

- posted by Christi.

Coffee, Trucks, and Mud: A Week in the Life of Sowers4Pastors

“I don’t know where to start,” Brandy admitted.

Yes, those were his first words after the greetings were out of the way during our call to discuss this week’s blog post. As every good cop show has taught us, the best place to start is the beginning. But in this case, the beginning is a bit muddy. And while we will get around to talking about actual mud, let’s start with something more universally appealing: coffee.

Coffee

At the end of 2024, Brandy was already thinking ahead, wondering how he would juggle coffee harvest season while hosting mission teams. The harvest has been good this year, which is obviously a major praise, but it still comes with its own set of challenges. In particular, the Lighthouse team—whose sponsorship program is the largest—was set to arrive, and there was some concern about whether the coffee would demand attention at the same time. Coffee is harvested in batches, collecting what is ripe and leaving what is not ready yet. The final harvest was likely to happen the same time as the team.

As it turns out, coffee operates on its own schedule.

“It wasn’t in our hands because it all depends on the coffee,” Brandy explained. “But the coffee allowed us to wait a week. It was ripe that week, but not so ripe that we couldn’t delay the harvest.”

That delay was a blessing, not just because of staffing logistics but because of one crucial resource: trucks.

Trucks

Speaking of which… not everything the last couple of weeks has run as smoothly as a well-brewed cup of Honduran coffee. A couple of trucks are currently out of commission, and on the Thursday of Lighthouse’s visit, one of the largest trucks decided to take an unscheduled break. It ran fine all day, was parked for the nightly devotional, and then promptly refused to start afterward.

Thankfully, the Lighthouse team was able to finish their work without any transportation hiccups. A mechanic has already revived one of the trucks, but the other two are still awaiting repairs.

Mud

And now, we’ve arrived at the mud.

The weather in and around Gracias has been unpredictable the last couple of weeks. The mornings have been drizzly, but by 10:00 AM, the sun is back in full force. As you might guess, drizzle plus dirt roads equals mud. And muddy roads mean slippery, slow travel.

On Sunday of the Life Community Church team's trip, it took Brandy and Rachel an extra 45 minutes to get to church due to the road conditions. Thankfully, the afternoon sun has helped dry things out—at least until the next round of rain.

When asked if the mud made it easier to install a playground during LCC's visit, Brandy just laughed.

“No,” he said. “But we’re went to play in the mud anyway!”

Prayer Requests

As always, we appreciate your prayers. Please pray for:

• Continued safety for the teams and staff.
• Quick repairs for all vehicles.
• Safe travels despite the mud.
• A smooth coffee harvest.

Thank you for being part of this journey with us—whether through prayer, sponsorship, or simply following along. Your support means more than you know!

- posted by Christi.

How to Pray for Sowers4Pastors during the "Off Season"

Just for kicks, today seemed like a good day to see what would happen if AI was used to write a Sowers4Pastors blog post. Rachel had already shared what’s going on with the ministry during this off season, so the instructions for AI were to “write a blog post about the off season.” The results weren’t nearly as bad as this writer might have hoped! (gulp… gasp… sputter...)  The first suggested sentence was:

“The off season is a great time to relax and recharge, but it can also be a great time to get ahead on your work.” (emphasis, mine)

So, yeah. That pretty much brings us to the point of this post, which is to talk about how the people with S4P are using this off season to get ahead on the work for seasons to come. Well played, AI. Well played. 

What AI doesn’t seem to understand is that the off season for Sowers4Ministry isn’t the same as a vacation where one might choose to do something productive or not. It pretty much just means that there aren’t teams on the ground and that the containers filled with backpacks haven’t arrived yet. But that will all change soon enough. 

The containers are on their way! One of the two containers is already at the port in Honduras and heading toward customs. If all goes well, it should arrive on the property in about a week. That means that the bodega needs to be ready to receive the shipment. Over the last two years, the bodega that stores all of the backpacks and other supplies has received a lot of deep cleaning and organizing. Rachel explained that the scene is similar to what it looks like when a church in the States hosts a major backpack filling event. There are a lot of extra boxes of supplies (crayons, pencils, pencil sharpeners, etc.) to complete any backpacks that aren’t totally filled with the needed items. The office workers have been getting a jump on things. There were some extra generic backpacks in the bodega that have already been filled and are ready to hand out to children that don't receive a designated backpack from a sponsor.

Christmas letters from the children to their sponsors are also being completed. The ministry is checking to make sure that each of the kids in the program is still attending school, by checking whether or not they receive a letter from each child. They are getting the letters translated and packed, as well as working out how these boxes of letters will be shipped to the States. 

There are some meetings coming up, too. One will be a teacher training with a small, Christmas-themed dinner to thank the Sunday school teachers involved in the program. A separate meeting will be for the directors of the schools–addressing how the ministry is making sure that the children in the program are attending school.

Team visits for the coming year are being coordinated. As the teams begin prepping on their end, S4P begins prepping, too. There are dates to figure out, hotels to book, and scheduling of any extra activities that teams want to do. 

The first team will arrive in January to register children and hand out backpacks, so S4P is already thinking about registration forms for the children and making child profiles. Secia will be getting the registration forms printed soon. They are also preparing the forms for letters that will be handed out in March. It takes a long time to print that many forms, but Secia is on it!

The first coffee harvest is happening now. Even a smaller coffee harvest requires people to pick the coffee. That means that the guys on the staff are driving back and forth an hour each way to pick up the coffee pickers in their pickup trucks. 

Speaking of trucks… The vehicles are receiving extra maintenance to be sure they are ready for team visits. It’s important to have each vehicle operational so that there’s always a backup plan for transporting teams hither and yon.

Oh, and plans are in the works for the end-of-year staff Christmas dinner, too. 

If you’re thinking that the off season sounds just as active as every other season, you are not alone. Rachel put it in perspective by saying, “When you have a team visiting, that takes precedence over other work. Everything else gives way to that. Some of the work that can't bet done during team season can be done now.”

- posted by Christi

Prayer Requests to Kick Off 2023!

Sowers4Pastors is serious about “making the main thing, the main thing" . . . which is to say, they don't want the spiritual aspects of the ministry to be overlooked in the midst of school supply distributions and feeding malnourished children. They can’t do it without the prayers and donations of supporters. As they are moving into 2023, they want to offer a huge “Thank you” to each and every person who helps them do what they do. 

Here’s your first official S4P prayer request list of the new year:

• Please pray for harvesters! There is an ongoing shortage of coffee harvesters and the Sowers4Pastors coffee farm is in competition with every other coffee farm in the region. Just a month ago, there were 120 pickers helping out on the farm. They were harvesting faster than the equipment and farm crew could process it all! Fast forward a month. This coffee harvest started out with 8 pickers. A day later, that number had increased to 25 outside pickers plus the farm crew.

• Pray for the ministry vehicles. There’s going to be an overlap between the coffee harvest and the arrival of teams. The first team to arrive will be from Lighthouse Church. Their Lighthouse for Lempira sister church program is a hard 1 hour and 20 minute drive each way. The vehicles are also needed to drive coffee harvesters to and fro each day, as well as for moving the actual coffee around on the farm. Obviously, working vehicles are not really optional in this scenario - every vehicle needs to keep going during this busy time!

• From the ongoing prep work and organization to the upcoming distribution, backpack work and backpack recipients are always good additions to a prayer list.

• Please pray for the building of the new house on the property–specifically that there will be gaps in the day-to-day responsibilities to work on it and that Allen and Trish’s personal funds will stretch to meet the rising costs. With Allen’s travels back to the States for backpack trips, everyone will feel better with increased security. It is likely that Kirstin will join Allen on future trips. For Trish’s safety and the safety of the property, everyone wants to have Brandy and Rachel close at hand. The sooner the new house is built, the sooner Brandy and Rachel will be able to move in. 

 

• Pray for the progress Alejandro and Cesia are making, as they work on the partnerships with the sister church locations. This Saturday, they will be meeting with the supervisors who oversee the pastors. Alejandro and Cesia are relying on the supervisors for their recommendations to maintain accountability and good stewardship in everything. 

• Please pray for the next container of food to arrive with no issues. Container issues seem to be more frequent than in the past, and the food supply on the ground right now is starting to run low.

• Pray for continued safe travels for Trish. She’s having a great time snuggling baby Steven. Pray for a safe trip home.

• Please pray for Rachel’s 3rd trimester of pregnancy. Since this coincides with team season, pray that she will not feel overloaded with stress and that she will find plenty of time to rest and nest! Prayers for a healthy third child for Rachel and Brandy and seventh grandchild for Trish and Allen.

• 
  Pray for the matching funds drive. Allen never wants to miss out on a single penny that could be used to feed a hungry child. With a matching funds drive in play, there are a lot of potential pennies! This comes at a time when a supply of food is especially needed. Also pray for the children who will receive the food. 

• Prayers for this time of transition, as people are learning new jobs and positions within S4P, are appreciated. As the Gospel is being spread throughout each of the ministry’s programs, pray that the pastors and staff will all be focused on making eternal things the priority. Pray that each person involved will deny themself, pick up their cross, and follow Jesus.

 - posted by Christi

A Season of Productivity

How many seasons can you name? The list is really quite extensive if you are working for Sowers4Pastors. There’s winter, spring, summer, fall, backpack collection, backpack distribution, teams, profile updating, coffee, odd jobs, etc. Sometimes multiple seasons occur simultaneously, just to keep things really interesting. As things stand now, backpack distribution season is coming to an end and it’s time to jump into multiple other seasons.

There is currently one team on the ground and another one is coming next week. That will complete the backpack distribution teams for the year. Overall, things have gone well but, even with additional help, it has been an extra grueling season. As was somewhat expected, Mike and Marlena had to go back early for the birth of their twin granddaughters. Congratulations to them! Caity also had to go back to the states a little earlier than scheduled. As you’ll recall, Brandy worked very hard to obtain his early release from the military. He worked with Sowers4Pastors for one day before receiving word that he had to go back to Tegucigalpa to handle a few more things. Hopefully, he will return in time to work with the final backpack team.

So far, COVID has not been an issue with any of the departing teams. There were some team members who were unable to come or whose trips were delayed because of COVID.

The most unexpected and emotional challenge of the season was the passing of Ray Negron, a visiting team member from Edgewater Alliance Church. He left this earth doing what he loved, and his grieving team members continued the tasks set before them. Even among believers, goodbyes are hard. This goodbye was compounded by the logistics involved in transporting a body out of a foreign country.

Now it’s time to enter the seasons of cleaning up following backpack distributions, profile updating, vehicle maintenance, and the missionary equivalent of a Honey-do list. Trish and Kirstin are already hard at work taking all of the latest information on the children in the sponsorship program and entering it into the computer. The work is tedious and the stack of information can seem never-ending. But they are tackling everything with the help of Connor, William and Rey.

Rey was a classmate of Ben’s at the local bilingual school, back in the day, and is currently working as a translator at S4P. He is leaving for the States in the fall with plans to become a doctor. Trish and Kirstin are thrilled to have his help with paperwork and translation as long as he is still in Honduras.

Conner and William hard at work
(Rey was out translating that day)

Connor is here for two weeks, and brings with him the skills of computer literacy and car mechanics, and he has already gone around and fixed several of the minor (but annoying) and less than minor vehicle issues some of the ministry's trucks and SUVs were experiencing. William, as you probably recall, is the current intern from Texas, and while he seems to prefer field work, a recent leg injury has him recovering back on the coffee farm. He was feeling the need to get some work done and make himself useful (and to not go insane laid up in bed), so he's helping out with the profiles as well during his convalesce. For both Conner and William, helping with profiles has been a crash course in Spanish! 

Since some of the backpack distribution team members from Life Community Church in Columbus, OH are medical people, Rey went out to translate for them on Wednesday. Gracias is fortunate to have a husband and wife team of doctors. The wife was instrumental in helping Trish through her bout with COVID. The husband handles all of the lab work and does the COVID tests for departing teams. The duo of doctors has been asking Sowers4Pastors to join them in some of their medical work. Sowers4Pastors is deee-lighted to facilitate Hondurans reaching out to help other Hondurans.

Just before backpack distribution season started, the Sowers4Pastors folks in Honduras had a short conference/retreat. They were beginning to have conversations with a missionary organization that has made the move from being a family organization to a larger organization. Although they gleaned a lot of information, backpack distribution made it difficult to implement it so far. Sowers4Pastors has mandated a scheduled day off each week for every worker. They’ve also started making a weekly schedule for things like who will have dinner with the teams each night, etc. Now they’re able to begin focusing on organizing everything that needs to be done into a set schedule. There’s so much to do that even making a list of tasks and responsibilities is a big job. But the goal is to spread the work out more evenly to prevent burnout and work more effectively.

Regardless of the label used, this is a productive season.

-Posted by Christi.

A Very Informative Phone Call - Part 2

This post picks up where the last one left off. To recap Part 1, like an announcer trained in speed talking: Containers are in. Boxes were a mess. Backpacks, shoes, and tax paperwork are sorted. They’re getting ready to distribute backpacks and do some sponsorship program “housekeeping." There. Consider yourself up to speed. Better yet, read the previous post! Now, on to Part 2.

Before the teams start arriving at the end of January, the vehicles have also been getting some attention. The trucks that will transport teams are getting new tires and brake work. Nothing goes to waste, so the older tires are being put on the farm vehicles. It’s much easier to deal with a flat tire on the farm than on the roads to and from the airport or feeding centers. They do what they can to avoid having flat tires when transporting teams. Besides the tires and brakes, the vehicles are getting any other needed repairs. You’re welcome, teams!

The solar panels are also getting an update. With the additional people living and working on the property, the old system wasn’t able to keep up. The old system is still in working order, so it will now be used to power Allen and Trish’s new-to-them home, the bodega, and the multi-purpose building. The new system will be used for Russell and Iris’s home.

Click HERE to see a video of work on the solar power system!

While Russell and eight crew members worked to sort through backpacks and shoes for the children who will be receiving them, additional temporary workers were brought on to help maintain the farm. Since the second harvest was completed, there’s a lot to be done. The men worked to hoe between the trees and remove the weeds. Currently, they are fertilizing the coffee. There’s a big rush to get the fertilizer in before the last rains of the season. The rain activates the fertilizer so it will still be doing its fertilizer thing during the dry season.

Because there just wasn’t enough going on in this plot, Allen has also rented twenty-nine bee hives for the next month. The farm already had two hives of their own. The bees will, well, be as busy as bees while the coffee is flowering. Hopefully, this additional pollination will increase productivity and improve the coffee for next season’s harvest.

Click HERE to see a video about renting bees!

In case you’re wondering where one goes to rent bee hives, that’s a pretty cool story, too. One of the local pastors is known as the area bee master. The bees give him a source of income and helps out the farmers. He rents the bees to people who grow melons and other crops. This man really is an expert in the field. He is known as a queen maker because he has learned how to manipulate the colonies of bees so they produce a second queen - then he harvests the new queens and sells them to those wishing to start colonies. The bee pastor is currently spending about two hours each day on the Sowers' coffee farm.

Allen has also been working to get a number of school projects underway, thanks to a donor who wants his donations to be used for this purpose. Allen was able to find three schools that meet the donor’s criteria and he’s working on getting the paperwork together. These projects will involve building 6-8 classrooms. Eventually, there could be as many as 14 new classrooms built, in multiple schools. The projects will also include construction of multi-purpose buildings and a school cafeteria.

Russell recently made a day trip to Tegucigalpa. The generous group that helped Sowers4Pastors purchase food to provide children with two nutritious meals for a penny had one request. They asked that some of the food go to a location in Tegucigalpa. While there, Russell was able to see Rachel, since that is where she lives, and he dropped off the boxes which came in the shipping container for her family and ministry.

Speaking of the food to feed children two meals for a penny . . . Allen’s birthday fundraiser was a smashing success. Through donations on Facebook and the Sowers4Pastors website, enough money was raised to purchase three containers of food. That equates to 1.5 million meals! Thank you all so much!

 - posted by Christi

Downtime, Sowers Style

For those of you who worry that the Sowers family never gets any downtime, you’ll be delighted to know that this past week they were lounging around sipping pineapple juice from glasses with little paper umbrellas in them. Hahaha! I crack myself up.

Really, they’re doing things like buying new tires and having their vehicles serviced while they have a momentary lull between teams. I’m pretty sure they don’t even own any little paper umbrellas. Seriously though, Russell and Iris did head to the beach in Tela Honduras for two days while the Hall family and Kelsea headed back to the States to renew their visas.

It is nice they have time to be sure the vehicles are in good working order. Trish and Allen joked that the mechanics love them. The official Sowers4Pastors vehicles are expected to go on roads few vehicles dare to travel. It is their goal to keep the vehicles dependable enough to drive gringos around when teams are in town.

While Russell and his family were traveling back and forth to the beach, they also made good use of the trip by stopping off to purchase the next batch of Sunday school curriculum for use in the sponsorship centers. Trish brought up an interesting point that it is difficult for those of us who have not visited those centers to understand what it’s really like.

Sunday school class in a village in the mountains

Up until very recently, the Sunday schools in most Honduran churches had no materials at all. Sunday school consisted of an untrained person with minimal education standing in front of kids with a Bible and possibly a storybook. There were no separate classrooms. Sunday school meant everyone from newborns to 18-yr-olds were hearing the exact same Bible lesson. That makes the flannelgraph lessons of my childhood look positively cutting edge!

The curriculum for sponsorship centers is revolutionizing Sunday school for many of the churches in the area. Pastors are starting to separate the children into different levels for classes. They can only do that when there are enough separate spaces and enough teachers to make that possible. That’s something the sponsorship centers have helped make possible.

RJ posing in front of the display of Honduras-specific Sunday School curriculum
at the store in San Pedro Sula

They are using a curriculum created by a Honduran for use in Honduras, which is way more revolutionary than it might sound. When North American curriculum is used, lessons invariably make cultural references the children do not understand. Something as simple as an object lesson involving playing baseball or missing the school bus must be explained to the children. This curriculum offers relatable object lessons for Honduran children--such as having a chicken walk through the house, or grinding the corn you grew, to make tortillas.

Each child receives his or her own consumable curriculum, specific to their age/grade level, which is a very big deal. Even at school, these children often do not have workbooks of their own. Now, they are able to study their lessons and color the pictures in their own books. And that is why Sowers4Pastors has already put in an order for a bunch more curriculum. Who needs little paper umbrellas when you have the satisfaction of changing lives?




 - posted by Christi

A Big Ol' Ford Van

North Americans tend to take a lot of things for granted. If we’re in the market for a new or used vehicle, we have no shortage of options. We can head off to a dealership and take something for a test drive. Or we can stay at home in our jammies and shop for a vehicle over the internet. And, when we find a car, we don’t really give much thought as to how long it will take for new license plates to arrive. As usual, Russell was able to give me a healthy dose of perspective when he described his adventure of buying a new vehicle for the ministry.

On Monday, Russell headed off to the big city of San Pedro to pick up a used van. He gave me the specifics, but I don’t type very fast while cradling a phone to my ear, so we’ll just call it a big ol’ Ford van because I’m pretty sure that’s what all of the specifics boiled down to.

The thing is, they don’t sell big ol’ Ford vans in Honduras. No dealership carries them. There is no CarMax or online option. If you need a big ol’ van in Central America, that big ol’ van needs to come from the U.S. When vans get in fender benders, they are sometimes bought at auction and shipped to Central America for repairs.

In August, Russell purchased  the big ol’ Ford van from an auction in Louisiana, with the help of a friend. The friend helped with the process of getting the van exported from the States and imported to Honduras. It was imported with all of its bumps and bruises because it is cheaper to repair a vehicle in Honduras, where the labor costs are less. Plus, if you bring in a vehicle that doesn’t look nice, authorities won’t try to gouge you for import taxes.

The slightly battered, big ol’ Ford van arrived in its new country during the last week of September. It has since been repaired and painted. And, wonder of wonders… It has license plates! According to Russell, it can take up to three years to get license plates after purchasing a vehicle in Honduras. You might remember that Russell owned a motorcycle for five years that did not have plates! Each month, Russell had to make an hour long drive to get written permission from the government to drive his motorcycle. This time, he got the plates in two weeks! To quote Russell, “Plates are a blessing from God, in this country! People sometimes buy vehicles in Guatemala because it’s easier to go to another country once a year to have plates renewed than to try to get plates in Honduras.”

Now, you might be asking yourself why Sowers4Pastors purchased a big ol’ Ford van. That’s simple. The van will be used to transport visiting teams. Up until now, they have been forced to rent small, uncomfortable Japanese vans when teams arrived. These vans also had undersized suspensions and tires, which don't stand up well to the rough mountain roads.The van purchase will be financially beneficial to the ministry, in the long term. It’s almost time for a new “team season” and now, the money teams spend on transportation will be used to pay off the van rather than pad the pockets of Hertz.

The next team will arrive on December 26. In fact, that will be the first of ten teams to arrive in a fourteen week period! There will be at least five weeks of back to back teams! Sorry, Hertz, but Sowers4Pastors will not be needing to reserve any little Japanese vans!  

- posted by Christi

February at a Glance

If this blog post were a classic movie, this is where the camera would zoom in on a page-a-day calendar showing February 1st. Then the pages would begin flying off and landing on the floor--zipping through the month of February in record time. Russell and Allen gave me a rundown of Sowers4Pastors’ February schedule, and, for the shortest month of the year, it is full of activity. Of course, that news surprises no one who knows them. Keep in mind, the information contained in this post isn’t even touching on their normal day-to-day activities--things like maintenance on the farm, food distribution, and making sure they still have incoming water. It’s also not touching on things like Russell having to hand the phone off to Allen because he had to go change a flat tire on a Land Cruiser.

Many Dirt Roads Diverged

It’s a good thing Russell is changing that flat tire, because he’s going to be running hither and yon. (And, I must say, it sounds like Honduras has a lot more hithers and yons than my suburban life!) He’ll be traveling about an hour and a half into the mountains to deliver around 110 filled backpacks to children at the feeding center in Arenales.

Then, he’ll travel on a dirt road about an hour and a half in a different direction to Las Crucitas. There, he’ll hand out 113 backpacks.

In Guacutao, which is about 45 minutes in yet another direction, he’ll be registering about 50 kindergarteners into the sponsorship program. He’ll also be handing out backpacks to the children who missed getting theirs earlier, when the recent team was visiting the area, because they were out in the fields harvesting coffee.

Wait a minute! There’s still another direction to cover! The other directions mentioned were for the Sister Church Program. The one about to be mentioned will be for a Manna 4 Lempira program. Russell will travel 20 minutes on a paved road and then 20 minutes on a rugged dirt road to register about 25 children on a waiting list in Asomada.

Preparations to Be Made

A Bridge in a Week team will be building a bridge on February 18-25th. You’ve probably been around long enough to know that means the Sowers will be gathering supplies and preparing for the team.

They’re also in the process of preparing for the Pastors’ Training School classes, which are set to begin the first week of March. That means multiple meetings in February. First year pastors must be interviewed before their enrollment is complete. Sowers4Pastors is also doing prep work for the first month of classes.

The final process for the recent coffee harvest is going on, but it’s already time to prepare for the next coffee season. A sandbank will be put up to construct a nursery. 60,000 seeds will be planted in hopes of getting 30,000 viable trees. The plan is to plant 10 new acres of coffee in the coming year. Workers will be getting ready for the dry season by  putting rust protection and anti-fungal protection on the coffee plants, and spraying fertilizer on the trees that will blossom in March.

By Land, By Sea and By Really Steep Hill

The Sowers are about to head off to the big city to procure a new (to them) pickup truck and sell their old truck (the one purchased in Dec of 2015). The newer vehicle is only newer by one year, but it has half the mileage of the old truck. Plus, it has only had one owner, versus being owned by a rental company, and has the upgraded engine that Allen wanted, but couldn't find available, when the previous truck was purchased. While a newer truck will be a welcome addition to the household, no one is looking forward to the extra paperwork that comes along with a vehicle purchase in Honduras.

Allen and Russell are still pushing for the customs paperwork to go through so the shipping container can start its journey to Honduras. He’s working on adding a set of forklift batteries to the container, because, with Russell and Iris now living on the property, they are using a lot more power.

Recently, Allen and Russell went out to look at a bridge and water project. He got a call from a location about bringing water from the source, 7 kilometers from the village, down a mountain, including jumping across a deep gully. When Allen went out to survey the site, he walked more than a mile downhill to a river, where the water pipe will need to cross. As he described the Honduran roads, “Many of them are paths where the road might have been bulldozed once and that might have been decades ago. There’s not a lot of road maintenance.” Allen shared what he was thinking as he struggled down the steep path: “To get back, I’m going to have to get out of here by going uphill!”

For the Sowers’ sake, aren’t you glad February is a short month?

Wheels of Fortune

This is a post Christi wrote for us a couple of months ago, but it kept getting bumped as other topics became priorities. I'm posting it now, as background material, because we're making some progress on our transportation situation! ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In the short time I’ve been writing for Sowers4Pastors, several themes keep popping up in conversations with Allen, Trish, and Russell. One of those themes is: Honduras is NOT an easy place to navigate. We talk about it when we discuss the thousands of unreached villages and the challenges of getting to them. We talk about it when we discuss the need for indigenous pastors to have bikes or motorcycles. And virtually every team member I’ve ever interviewed has spoken about the treacherous terrain. Today, we’re going to talk about the Sowers’ need for solid, dependable transportation, or as I like to think of them, Wheels of Fortune!

No Little Old Ladies from Pasadena

The Sowers’ “fleet” of vehicles is not of the luxury variety. Nope. These are hardworking automobiles--not mamby-pamby sets of wheels with a new car smell. They don’t laze around in a garage all day. And they’ve never once been driven by a little old lady from Pasadena! You’ve probably heard people comment about driving a car until its doors fall off. Well, that day is not too far off for a couple of the “Sowersmobiles”.

But, How Old Is That In Honduran Years?

There has been an ongoing fundraising effort to purchase newer, more reliable vehicles for the Sowers. To date, a little over half of a $30,000 goal has been raised. One “new” vehicle was purchased in December of 2015. The 4-yr-old Toyota pickup truck replaced one of the Land Cruisers. And, in May, Trish’s 17-yr-old Land Cruiser, which apparently answers to the name “Scottie,” received a major overhaul. Scottie spent weeks in the shop getting work done on brakes, suspension, the 4-wheel drive mechanisms, repairs to the driver’s seat, new windows, and other mechanical repairs.

But, any way you slice it, Scottie is still a 17-yr-old Land Cruiser. Age, for vehicles that travel the rough roads of Honduras, can practically be calculated in dog years! Scottie continues to be Trish’s primary vehicle because her regular routine doesn’t have her traveling as far as Allen and Russell. If you’re going to be stranded on the side of the road, it’s better to be stranded closer to home. Scottie isn’t even the oldest vehicle in the fleet. That honor goes to the 20-yr-old Land Cruiser normally driven by Russell.

My Selfish Plea for a Selfless Family

You should know that none of the Sowers are complaining about their vehicles. They have been solid transportation for a very long time. But they aren’t going to last indefinitely. And, from a very selfish standpoint… Trish is my friend. She’s the only friend I have who has ever been kidnapped and I really want to feel she can make a fast getaway if she ever needs to do so!

Ultimately, they would like to purchase another newer vehicle to allow them to have two truly reliable sets of wheels. This would allow them to continue to feed children, train pastors, transport visiting team members, build churches, purchase supplies, build bridges, and so much more! - posted by Christi Watch for an update on our vehicle situation, coming VERY SOON!