Another of the patients today was a young man who seemed very cold and hard. Every chance I got I spoke with him and eventually asked him if he had a church. He said he goes to church in Campana and his pastor's name is Samuel. Well, that is the church where the 21 young men came forward in 2006 when the Baptist Chapel youth group was here. As some of you know, we have had a hard time following up on those guys because, being gang related, they are hard to find. I called him into my office where I have a large picture of them on my bulletin board. I asked him, "Do you know any of these guys?" He broke out in a broad smile and said "I know every one of them." I think he will be our contact to follow up on these guys.
The medical clinic continues; there have been several people who have accepted Christ. We have had people in medical clinics over the years who are seriously ill or how are dying, but this case breaks your heart. These twin girls, Alison Mariela and Yenesis Michel are twin born to a 17 year old mother, Ivis Osaris, One of the twins is starving to death. The other one has a large growth on her forehead. We are providing formula for the mother to give to the baby, but will need to closely monitor both the babies and the mother so she does not mix the formula with the contaminated water. Do pray this baby will make it.
Helen Mories shares Christ with all of her patients.
MARK BULLARD, TULSA BIBLE CHURCH, HELPS WITH MEDICAL CLINIC REGISTRATION
Five members came on the Continental 11 o'clock flight and another couple on the American Airlines one o'clock flight. I brought them back to the mission center for dinner and then we went and checked in at the hotel in Port Cortes. This morning we all went to church in San Pedro and then out to Pizza Hut for lunch. This evening everyone was back here for dinner and set up for the clinic which will begin tomorrow morning at nine and runs through Friday. The first four days we'll be here at the mission center and the last day out in the jungle. The members of the team are Dr. and Mrs. James Green, Dr. Paul Krauter, Nikki Collins, Helen Morie, and Mark and Linda Bullard. This is the Bullard's first time; the rest have been here before.
She knew the number was exactly 36 because that's how many Bingo cards she has and she had just exactly enough! She also handed out lots of prizes to those who recited their memory verse.I taught the English class today but Nelson will have to come back from vacation a day early to teach Saturday as I will be going to the airport to pick up the team.
Junior didn't show up to translate today so Sonia took the English class and I went into the preschool with Helen while she told the story. I think she had 17 kids today. In any event she gave them a memory verse at the end of class, Luke 10:27, and as soon as she did they started reciting it from memory. As it turns out, that is a verse Myrna had given them some time back and every one of them knew it from memory. Interesting.It occurred to me last week to try to speak to Alfredo Orillana about our woodworking classes. We began working with Alfredo back in the year 2000. He is a good friend, a Christian, and an excellent woodworker. He is the one who made kneeling benches out of mahogany for Jennifer's wedding. Several years ago Alfredo went to the United States to try to earn a living for his family and has been there ever since. Tonight I spoke with him in North Carolina with regard to his future plans. He says he's planning to return early next year, as soon as he comes up with enough money for a plane ticket. However, the longer we talked, the more interested he got in possibly returning to work with us. He said he will call me back next Tuesday to discuss it further. With our plan to produce goods to be sold in the US market, he would be my first choice as one to help with that program. This might be something to put on your prayer list.I've spent a fair amount of time the last couple of days working through the issue of insurance for our building here. We have had coverage against earthquake, fire, and hurricane, which on the surface sounds pretty important. However, I did some research and found that as far as earthquake is concerned there have been no serious earthquakes in Honduras since they started keeping records back in the year 1530. There have been earthquakes in Central America, but they have been confined to Guatemala, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica. Of course we do have hurricanes, but in checking with some pretty well-informed local people, there is hardly ever much wind damage to buildings as a result. The damage is through heavy rains and flooding; but we are on high ground here so that doesn't seem to be a problem either. As for the thought of this building burning to the ground, it is made of concrete and rebar, that is not likely either. I had a conversation with Bill Hoff who has Bible Institute south of San Pedro and he is pretty much in agreement with what I am thinking. His thoughts were that our greatest exposure is with the contents of our building. We do have contents coverage through Clements International in Washington DC and my thinking right now is to use our money to increase that coverage and cancel the other.Over the weekend we received enough money to get the red van fixed. Therefore, we had a wrecker come out and pick it up today and take it to San Pedro. No word yet on what problems might be.When we were with Frank and Phoebe Harrison over the weekend, they offered to let certain of our employees attend their discipleship training seminar presenting a technique called"storying." I talked to Beto about it and he seems quite enthused. He and Joel would be the ones to participate . I also spoke with him and Nicholas about offering the diploma discipleship class first to our employees, just to get started. They both seemed quite enthused about that. They asked that we announce it at our next luncheon/staff meeting so it is clear that it is our idea and not theirs.We had further evidence today that Cheryl's foot is doing better. Joel walked into the office upstairs with a live, 6 foot long snake. When she saw it she did a dance that would challenge most anyone.Dr. Green and his team arrive on Saturday. Cheryl has spent a good bit of her time lately getting things ready for that.
Cheryl, Helen, and I all spent the night in San Pedro last night in order to give Nicholas a Sunday off. Helen stayed with Mark and Joy Hoff and participated in the youth group; Cheryl and I stayed at one of the local hotels. We didn't get a whole lot of sleep as there were several functions going on including a wedding. The wedding party and guests were just arriving at the hotel when we got there, at 10 PM. I have no idea what time the party ended. We spent the earlier part of our evening with Phoebe and Frank Harrison; it was great to get caught up with them.Today at church Helen was part of the music worship team, and then play a keyboard solo during the offertory. She did a good job. After church we were invited to the Gilen's house for a Russian dinner. Alec is from Siberia and Helen from Kazakhstan; she is a terrific cook and I ate so much that I am still full and it's 8:30 in the evening.Nelson is on vacation next week so tomorrow Helen and I will be teaching the English class and then the computer class. I'm sure I'll have more to say about that tomorrow.
Dr. Jose Rios held a dental clinic today and saw ten patients. We are privileged to have a local dentist drive all the way out here to donate his time.
Helen Ruth Snipes, guest from the Claremore, OK, continues to work to upgrade the Children's Program. There are no classes today, so today she cleaned out a cupboard and organized supplies. Yesterday Helen had twenty-five students.
I wrote earlier this week that we had decided after last Friday that Beto would not be able to chauffer us around San Pedro. It was obvious that he does not have the driving experience necessary. Since then he has been pretty much down and dumps. Today I had a talk with him. He said he has been driving around the San Pedro Sula area since he was 17 and has never had a car accident. However, he acquiesced to the fact that he will no longer be driving. I mentioned to him that even though he won't be driving he is a gifted Bible teacher, and we can emphasize that area. Afterward he seemed to feel better.I met with Nelson today to arrange for his week of vacation next week. He gave me some topics that he would have been covering in the computer class and will give me the books he uses to teach English. The plan is that Helen Snipes and I will cover his classes.I forgot to mention yesterday that since we did not have a translator Helen handled the children's class all by herself. There were 22 kids plus moms and other teachers, none of whom speak any English at all, and she did a very fine job.
This summer, Alyssa and I had an amazing opportunity to visit “Gathering Hearts for Honduras,” a misson in a village between San Pedro Sula and Puerto Cortes, Honduras. Our friends, Gary and Cheryl Kuney moved to Honduras with their children in 1999 after Hurricane Mitch devastated the country. The Kuneys long to help young Hunduran men and women learn a trade so that they can earn a living. In addition, they have a vision to help disciple new converts, and train pastors that they might be empowered by the Word of God to win their villages for Christ. Gary hopes that the Hondurans can find “God’s Dream” for their lives instead of risking their lives and abandoning their families in search of the illusive “American Dream.”
Ministry opportunities abound at the Gathering Hearts mission center including sewing classes for women, Bible classes for preschoolers, Computer and English classes for teens and young adults, Vo-Tech classes for men as well as medical missions, agricultural projects and church planting opportunities. Although we did not know what we were getting into when we planned our trip, the Lord helped us to pack leftover VBS crafts and Avon products, as well as soap samples which were donated by a local doctor. We worked out a “tag team” ministry schedule in which Alyssa and I would visit different classes throughout each day. Alyssa led the women in a Bible study on the strength of Esther and taught the ladies how to make bracelets.
The ladies are in the process of making purses so we were able to show them a website put together by the Women of the Heartline Ministries Sewing Program by which Haitian women sell purses online and through purse parties. (www.haitiancreations.com). Alyssa is pictured here next to the sewing instructor, Norma, and ladies of one of the sewing classes.
She also practiced her Spanish by reading “La Historia de Jesus” to the preschoolers and helped them with crafts. Those kids really know how to sing; and their teacher, Mirna, trains them to memorize scripture. We were armed with our bilingual Bibles, but couldn’t begin to keep up with those kids!
Alyssa and I both enjoyed working with the Computer and English classes and were warmly welcomed by their Honduran teacher, Nelson, who is very fluent in English but concerned about his accent and pronunciation. I was sure to teach the students the proper pronunciation for the words “red” (ray-ed) and “ten” (ti-un) which my Ohio students don’t seem to understand either. We had many opportunities to share testimonies and scriptures.
In addition to working with the ministries at Gathering Hearts, we traveled to Los Palmos School, a nearby public school, and presented a Science/Bible lesson and craft activity for the children. This experience was the most heart breaking of our encounters. We learned that all Honduran children must wear school uniforms and furnish school supplies for their teachers. If the children cannot afford the uniforms or supplies, they simply cannot attend school. At the school we visited, there were children hanging around looking in the windows, hoping to be a part of the school activities. Alyssa passed the crafts through the windows to them to let them feel included.
Another opportunity we had was to help Gary distribute Tylenol to the people of the jungle in response to the current endemic of Dengue Fever. Dengue infection is transmitted by mosquitoes and is the leading cause of illness and death in the tropics and subtropics. While we were protected by various brands of bug spray, the Honduran mothers were armed only with branches or rags to fan the mosquitoes away from their children. In the jungle we met two men who were former gang members but had given their lives to the Lord. Please pray for their continued protection and discipleship.
Gary has many connections with the village pastors and hopes to set up a satellite system at the Gathering Hearts mission center to bring in training videos for the local pastors. Gary and Cheryl also welcome various medical mission teams from the United States and work to find charitable hospitals and/or doctors who would provide medical care for seriously ill patients. They are also planning to build a dormitory on their property to house mission teams to keep expenses down for those volunteers. For more information about helping and prayer opportunities visit www.gatheringhearts.org.
Though San Pedro Sula is one of the most dangerous cities in Central America, we were safe in God’s hands during our trip. With wisdom, Gary employs Honduran guards for the mission center. You may have heard of the “Three Amigos”, but pictured left is the “Three Amarillos”-- Guard Nikolas, Gary and Jeanette on an outing to visit Mayan ruins in Copan. (Amarillo is the Spanish word for yellow and “Amarillo is mi color favorito!”)
Jeanette and Alyssa [volunteers from Oklahoma at the Mission Center] are doing a great job! They have some very creative methods, such as yesterday after I taught the ladies' meeting, did Bible verses and sang with them, Jeanette had them look up a Bible verse to go with each of the items in a gift sack she gave them, such as a verse about how to use our lips to go with lip gloss and a verse about being cleansed from sin as with soap to go with the soap in the sack. She had each reference written on the white board and a picture to go with it. The gift sacks were donated both from her mother who sales Avon and from the doctor's office ...
I have so enjoyed teaching Bible studies with Norma again and meeting many new ladies. I have taught 3 days so far and plan to meet with both classes again tomorrow and Tuesday. They have been very well attended. Saturday I felt the Lord was leading me to share about heaven, reading Revelation 21 with the beautiful description about heaven and verses which specify who shall not enter heaven. I shared a shortened version of my testimony Saturday, as well as some present day testimony each day. Several women shared prayer requests and we prayed for each one. Several were about the marriages, especially that the husbands would attend church. Norma shared that her father is saved and has returned to church (apparently he was active years ago). When I asked for testimonies, a young married woman named Sandra shared a precious testimony of her life and salvation Friday which was very inspiring! Norma shared about 20 minutes about her beginnings here in your ministry and all about her surgery, of which she also showed us her scrapbook with many pictures and written explanation. The women are so precious!
We visited several homes Saturday afternoon and passed out some medicine. Lourdes here was sick with dengue and most of her children. We also prayed with her.
Keila is so pleasant to have around, so joyful and thoughtful. Her cooking is simpler than Lourdes's, but she does a good job. Her fried chicken last night was excellent. She sounds eager to learn and asked me if I could send her some recipes.
Bill and I visited Iris, Enrique and Marisol this afternoon. They were very excited to see us. She insisted on making some baleadas for us and Nicolas which were delicious. She makes baleadas, tajadas and pastelitas at the school where she works 6 days a week: for 500 kids in the morning and 500 in the afternoon with only 1 helper. Marisol walks over from her school and helps from 1 to 3 pm. They get up at 4:30am to get her to work at 6am and Marisol to school by 7am. Iris works until 6pm and they get home about 7pm (I'm sure riding the bus). Enrique starts a job at the port authority sometime this month. I got to share my testimony with Iris for the 1st time and gave her 2 Spanish tracts. She did grow up in a church which separated women and men into 2 different buildings and she said the teaching was "bonita." She says she has accepted Christ, but is not sure about Enrique. She likes to watch Christian programming. Marisol visited El Chile with us and found the church very friendly and loving. I will add that the music was especially LOUD tonight! Yet we so enjoyed visiting with the people afterwards--though it was hard to understand much of what Silvario preached.