We arrived in Tegucigalpa Wednesday and met John Mattica, president of the Honduran Fellowship, which is the sponsoring organization for helping missionaries process their residency. At the center for Honduran Immigration, we ran into some obstacles, so we waited over three hours. The good news is that this second part of the process finally went through and we should receive residency in one month.
After spending the night with the Mattica family in Teguc., we are headed to the week-end missionary conference in Sequetepeque, Honduras up in the mountains. Much cooler than San Pedro
Gary, Cheryl and Nicolas will leave early tomorrow morning for the capital ( Tegucigalpa) to continue the process for residency. Would appreciate your prayers. IF all goes well, we heard that our residency may go through in December. We will meet with the director of Honduras Fellowship of Missionaries, John Mattica, who helps missionaries process residencies. John will accompany us to the Center for Immigration. We will spend the night there and then come back North to Sequetepegue for the Honduran wide missionary conference Thursday thought Saturday.
Please pray that Nicolas can attach our new license plates. Yes, Gary did get them, but it takes special hardware. We so pray that we can get those attached in time for the trip tomorrow.
Well we made it but not without a glitch. We arrived at the airport this morning around 4:40 A.M. and the flights through Houston went fine. We arrived in San Pedro Sula at 10:20 ( gained an hour). There must have been mixed messages, because Nicolas was not there yet. I think he thought we were coming in stand-by.
The government did not or could not issue the license plates for the Nissan van, so we are not permitted to use it. There are police checks all around and they could take it and/or issue a ticket. They had us coming or going. So Nicolas picked us up in the 20 year old Ford Van. We had a lot of work done on it the last time we were here, so Nicolas thought it would make it . Fortunately we made it to SAP before the brakes went out, but it also sounded like there was a lot more wrong with it. So Gary and I walked to a nearby restaurant with what we could carry while we got the van towed to a repair shop. Beto then drove the old pick- up in for us to drive out to the mission center. We all crowded into the un air-conditioned truck. HA! After we got about half way, we realized that we did not have all of our luggage. Fortunately we had the van towed to a Christian repair shop that knew us and they took the suitcase inside with them. Nicolas brought us to the mission center then turned right around to go back to SAP in time to get the luggage before the shop closed. That suitcase has all of Gary’s medications, our phone and computer cords, etc.
Fellow missionary and nurse, Madonna Spratt, held clinic in our mission center on Friday, August 31. She and her workers saw 77 patients. How gracious of her to hold clinic in spite of the fact that Gary and I had left for the states.
The Carpentry Class of First Methodist Church, Tulsa, invited Gary and I to speak. Sometimes we do not realize all that God has done until we tell someone else what has transpired. These past months have been a challenge, but God has been so faithful. This class and the PTL class has been so faithful to pray for and encourage us. It was rich fellowship to go out with some of them after church.