Nelson began putting together his next class today, and so far he has 45 new students including one of the local pastors. They now have access to the Internet and that helps to get new students. I also signed a stack of diplomas today for his graduating class as well as Norma's. They will have their ceremony near Christmas time. Alfredo called again last night from North Carolina and he has moved his arrival date to November 24. He will be arriving at 1 AM; Nicholas will take Flor and the kids to meet him. Amado Perez, the man who has been recommended to be our welding teacher, came today. He's 45 years old, has several certificates, and a good deal of experience. He lives about five hours away, which poses something of a problem. If he were to work for us he would likely move his family close by. We gave him the talk, the tour, and lunch, and afterword he seemed pretty excited about the thought of teaching here. I think we will probably offer him a job. He's a Christian and active in his church. I saw Gladys, one of our best sewing students, at City Hall today. I'm not sure why she was there, but her topic of conversation was the fact that there are no jobs here and she has to support her family. I explained our plan to teach the sewing students to produce items for sale and she became very excited. Today is payday. Nicholas went to the bank to get the money and on the way back the truck broke down. He doesn't dare get on the bus with that much money so Beto took the van to pick it up. Joel stayed to guard the place. It's 8:45. Beto brought the money back but I still haven't heard from Nicholas so I'm not sure what's happening with regard to the pickup. Guess that's about it. Cheryl and I will be leaving in the morning to return to Tulsa.
On Tuesday when we went on our walk through the village some people came out and asked me to go into one of the houses and talk to Raul Ford. He's a young man we have known and who has been very helpful to us over the years. He was laying in bed and I was shocked when I saw how thin he was. I found out that about a month and a half ago he had an accident while working at the cement plant about halfway between here and San Pedro Sula. He was helping with construction of the metal building when a wall with steel beams fell on him. According to his account it's a miracle he's still alive. His back was opened up by the surgeon and six staples were put in. Obviously he will be unable to do heavy construction again. With that in mind I took Nelson over to see him and we arranged for him to begin computer and English classes in November. Russell has still not made contact with us about teaching the welding and carpentry classes. So, yesterday I went to talk with Alfredo's brother. Alfredo is Flor's husband, is an exceptional worker, and helped us a great deal in the beginning when we were back in the jungle. He's the one who made kneeling benches out of mahogany for Jenny's wedding. He's in the States now and I get the feeling from his brother he might come back if he had some assurance of a job. We will be getting his telephone number tomorrow and I plan to call him and see what his plans are.
Sixty new students began this session of computer classes. We are blessed to have received new computers on this last container that enable us to not only equip our classes but have some on hold for graduating students who have earned their own computer. Our computer teacher, Nelson, said in his broken English,"God is perfect in his numbers, we have twenty-one students in our shifts and God sent exactly twenty-one computers for our class."
In addition to their computer studies, we started a new Bible Curriculum that Eleazar Bermudez brought to us. This curriculum will help in not only leading students to Christ but also in discipling them. Eleazar has had a lasting contribution to the ministry.
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