Honduras 2010

This is going to be long, but the trip was really amazing!

I’m a little embarrassed to say that when the planning for this trip began I thought about changing things up and going somewhere else this year.  God is good, however, and He quickly redirected me back to my first love, Honduras.  It was our fourth annual trip to the same area, and we found that our returning year after year has become a sign to the people that we really care for them.  And more importantly that God really cares about them.

We raised money many different ways, but the fireworks tent around July 4 and the Pink Flamingos really stand out in my mind.  I remember all too well Linda McLean and Nellie Rose trying to hold the fireworks tent down in the lightening storm that threatened to wash or blow it away, and Michelle spending hours trying to get those flamingos in people’s yards without them seeing her.  God really provided financially, just as He always does.

After last year’s difficulties in the airport I was shocked this time as we strolled through every airport we entered.  There were always enough people to help us, no ticket problems, no security check point blues, and all of our flights were on time.  It was so easy that it made me nervous, but in the end I think that God used the ease of the travel this time as a sign to me that things could go according to plan sometimes – that may sound funny, but I was growing a little cynical.

When we arrived on Saturday, October 23, we put our things away and then got to work.  The guys began to sort bags of food for the distribution on the next day (Sunday) at Pastor Carlos’ church.  Each bag had a bag with two scoops of beans, a bag with two scoops of rice, four small bags of flour and a tube of lard (they received the lard as a blessing from God, I was surprised too!).  We assembled 90 bags.

While we were assembling the bags, the ladies were tearing into the 1000lbs plus of ministry supplies that we had brought in our luggage.  Patty Glover is really amazing, and between her and Michelle, there were all kinds of things to be given away to bless people everywhere we went.

Sunday morning we attended Pastor Carlos’ church.  It was really a wonderful experience.  I met Carlos three years before, not long after he had been released from prison.  While in prison he had become the prison pastor, and now he was out and pastoring his own church with his amazing wife Naomi.  The service was wonderful!  Pastor Carlos’ daughter lead worship in Spanish (it was very very loud, I like loud, but this was loud), then our team lead a couple of songs in English (at an appropriate level), then our team did a drama set to the Spanish version of I can only imagine.  The drama concluded with two people (Angie and Caylon) who had turned their backs on God and are denied entry into heaven.  Angie screamed “no” as the gates to heaven are closed and she did so with the same loud anointing that was on Pastor Carlos’ daughter – scared everyone to death!  But it was effective, as we found out later that a woman rededicated her heart to the Lord in response to the drama!

Pastor Carlos shared a message on having spiritual eyes, and it was really good.  It was great to get to hear him preach as Jose translated for him.  Then after the message we brought in the bags of food that we had prepared and gave one bag to each of the 40 families represented.  . Pastor Carlos shared with me that 90% of the community are employed by the banana crop farms and that two weeks prior to us coming to Honduras 70% of the banana trees were destroyed by heavy rains and flooding leaving 80% unemployed. That particular Sunday many families did not have much to eat and three families in particular had absolutely nothing to eat until the members of the church came by with the baskets. We were able to buy food and bless 90 families for $700.00

Pastor Carlos had everyone take their bags home then return to the church to distribute the other 50 bags in the community and invite people to church.  He told us later that there was a great response as his people who had been timid to share the gospel were willing to do it because they had a bag of food to “break the ice,” and 3 families committed to attend church the next week.  Carlos genuinely viewed it as a great success!

We were able to leave money behind to help Pastor Carlos and his family, as well as an offering for the church.  He later told us that the amounts that we gave him were exactly double what he needed for a pressing need that he had personally and in the church.  What a testimony about the provision of God!  The need for the church was to pay for a meal for 120 ladies that were coming the next Sunday for their first ladies conference.  It was exciting to think that we could cover that expense for them and contribute to those ladies having a wonderful experience growing in the Lord.



The hospital at the beginning of the week



Sunday night we prepared for ministry on Monday by scooping out the hospital where we would be doing construction and praying over it, then we returned to the room and prepared supplies for our trip the next afternoon to the teen girl’s orphanage.

Monday morning I was sick, so after I helped acquire the wood that we would need I returned to the hotel room and slept.  It was humbling to bring the team that far and then to abandon them to work on the very first morning!







Our hugger taking a break to pose with Keith

 Monday afternoon we went to the teen girl’s orphanage and met with the approximately 140 girls there.  Many placed there because they had been abused and others with mental or physical handicaps there because they were abandoned.  One of the girls liked to give very hard bear hugs and everyone got one.  She really liked Tim Taylor though and he got several.  Tim is not a “toucher” so the faces he made while getting crushed by these hugs were too funny for words.

The girls really enjoyed the games we played with them and responded well to the message that Jose and I shared with them about the humiliation of Jesus with about 6 of them coming forward for prayer.  Then we distributed the gift bags, and they really enjoyed those as well!

In the early morning hours on Tuesday my fever broke which I apparently had been carrying for a day or so, and waking up Tuesday morning I felt a whole lot better.

Tuesday was a good day of work on the hospital in the morning, then a great lunch at Pastor Julio and Luz’s house – she cooked for us every day for lunch and it was very good!  The spaghetti on Thursday will always remain one of my all time favorite meals anywhere mission trip or not.

 

Tuesday afternoon we went to the teen boy’s juvenile detention center.  There were approximately 130 boys there between 11 and17.  Some of them were carry overs from other orphanages that don’t handle older kids, but most were gang members who were first time offenders.  Mike Gizinski and I shared the scripture with them, and 5 came forward for prayer.  It was a real victory for them to come forward because you could feel the pressure on them on to do it.  Then we played some games with them, and then watched them play soccer.  They were all amazing soccer players, kicking the ball to one another so hard and really able to play.  It was humbling to watch them play on a cement pad in bare feet, but they don’t know any different and of course they didn’t complain.

Wednesday we worked on the hospital again in the morning with our main work being to supply mud for the block layers, clean up the excess mud as the block layers work, bend and place rebar, and build scaffolding.  Don Lawrence and Henry Plumley also framed and poured the staircase for the second floor.  A huge accomplishment in four days with the materials that they had to work with.  We paid the 9 block layers for the week and left money for them to work for two more weeks after we left.

Wednesday evening we went to the San Pedro Sula prison.  Getting in was a little different this time as the frisked every member of the team, and believe me when I tell you that there is no way I could have gotten anything past the guy who frisked me…awkward.

The prison service is always amazing, and this time was no different.  They really enjoy worshipping the Lord, singing and waving flags, and generally having a great time.  Our team lead a couple of worship songs in Spanish and performed the drama again which were both received very well.  They did such a great job!

Jose translated again as I spoke sharing with them the humiliation of Jesus (Phil. 2:5-8) and His desire to heal their bodies.  Someone counted 70 people that came forward for prayer, and the Holy Spirit was certainly present as Jose and I made our way through them praying.  In every ear I said the name of Jesus Christ because I was so impressed that God was going to heal them and that I was going to be gone and I wanted them to look to Jesus alone as the One who had made them whole.  The prison was a real highlight.

Thursday we got up early and headed to the hospital with the primary goal of getting the steps poured.  It made for a long day, but it was really exciting to get the steps done.  After the legendary spaghetti lunch, we headed in the afternoon to the children’s orphanage.  There were 78 kids and 20 infants there and it is always humbling to see the way those kids live.  The facility is hard to describe because in many ways it is nice, but how the kids are forced to live is horrible.  Around 20 of them in rooms with bars on the windows and these cheap, foam mattresses.  I didn’t go back into the infant room this year because I am still haunted by images from my last trip, although several of our team did go in again.  The thought in my head was how these kids were just like my kids only they were here in this place living this horrible reality and my kids were blessed to be in the US with parents that love them.  I don’t understand all the dynamics on a macro-spiritual level, but I just know that I am thankful and that my kids should be too.  And I was glad to do the things that we were able to do to help the orphanage and to bless those kids a little bit.  Just hope something sticks in their minds and they know that someone, somewhere cares about them.

During the course of the week we felt called to minister to the guards and staff at the hotel where we were staying.  We bought them bags of food similar to what we distributed earlier in the week.  (We feed 10 families for a week for $39.)  And the guards shared with us that a lot of missionary groups have come and gone, but no one had ever taken time to speak to them or share with them.  We learned that many of them would go without eating 2 or 3 days at a time because of trying to support their families, and one female guard shared her story with us and really captured the collective heart of the team.  Her husband was killed 2 years ago and she was raising 5 children between the ages of 5 and 13 alone.  She worked double shifts many days which meant 20 hour days, and often went without eating.  She told us that she used to attend church, and even sang in church, but that she had drifted away from God.  We blessed her with food, money, and things for her children.  She told us she knew that God had sent us to her, and that this was a crossroad in her life.  It was really amazing.

We prayed for a female guard and blessed her with a $40.00 dollar offering, the following day she shared with us that her daughter had been sick with an eye infection for two weeks but she did not have the money to take her to the doctor; she told us that she was able to take her daughter to the doctor, buy the antibiotics and medications and buy food for exactly $40.00.

An elderly guard that had been working at the hotel for years told us, with tears in his eyes, that “many people come to the hotel, many groups come through (including other missionaries) but that we had been the only ones to ever notice them or bless them with food or anything at all. He also shared with us that we had blessed the hotel “with business” since our arrival.

When we arrived the hotel was pretty empty due to the economy and lack of business, the week prior to our arrival the hotel had laid off 28 employees.  The day after our arrival it was nearly full with many “surprise and last minute” reservations. Many hotel employees (waitress, mini market clerk, guards) shared with us that we had blessed the hotel with business since the moment we arrived and that they had received reservations to almost 95% capacity for the following 2 – 3 weeks.

Due to the fact that the bus broke down on the way to the beach on Friday afternoon and we had to come back to the hotel to fellowship and eat our pre-cooked meal.  We were able to share our food and feed every employee in the hotel on Friday night; many employees told us late on Friday night (with tears in their eyes) that they had been working all day and that had been the only meal they had had all day and that many of them did not have money to eat that night. All night Friday and Saturday morning many employees came to us to thank us for the blessing of “a plate of food.”

Monday through Friday we had devotions lead by team members.  Many of them stepped out of their comfort zone to stand in front of the group and share, but each morning a different person brought a good Word from the Lord for the day.  It was so clear as we were there how much we needed to hear the Word of the Lord in the morning to have spiritual strength for the day, I hope we can carry that lesson back into our busy lives at home.

Even at this length, this is a small summary of all that God did through us during our 8 days in Honduras.  As always I return humbled by the many blessings of God in my life, and awestruck by His willingness to work through someone like me.  I’m really glad to serve such a wonderful God.  He is good to us.