Pictures from Honduras

Here is my favorite picture, a real sample of life here in Honduras. This is Marbella, being carried by her mother, Sandra, who laughingly refers to herself as the ¨burrita¨, or little burro. She IS little, all of 4´8¨, but she is a tough little thing. We are enjoying the relationship formed with her. We are hoping that Sandra will trade sutures in the heel for Tortilla making lessons.
Here are a couple of shots of Los Pinos, walking down the pathe to a little cluster of houses. I think that they are getting used to the gringos walking through their courtyards.
This is a PTA meeting (if they still call them that) called by the staff at Santa Elena to go over some of the program issues. It was a gripe session, but turned out very well with a lot of good exchanges of information. Look at the attendance! I know teachers in America that would give their right arm to have that many parents attend such a meeting.
Here is Steve with William from the Santa Elena program.

Yes, we had a major storm that took down part of a tree in Santa Elena, and yes, I took the opportunity to show off my finely honed chainsaw skills, Katrina style.
I would like to introduce you to the children of Los Pinos, a closed community on the mountain above Santa Elena, where Mission on the Move has had a feeding program for the last 4 years with variable results, recently we have made some real inroads into their lives, and I wanted you to have their pictures so that you could better pray for our efforts here. I asked them to hold up their names so that you could better know them.
The last picture is of Carlos. He had no name tag. I hope that you can see the incredible potential with these youngsters that we see.

Finally, here are some of the parents of the Los Pinos program. They cook meals in rotation using food provided by MOM. They are a major thrust of the Los Pinos effort. Getting the parents on board is essential to any program in Honduras, but particularly the Los Pinos program, where, due to inappropriate use of resources by the previous provider of services at Los Pinos, the provider had to be removed from her position, a move made much more difficult by virtue of the fact that she is the grandmother of 31 children, most of which live right there in Los Pinos, and many of which are a part of the program... a very touchy situation. But God has provided us withe a number of opportunities to talk with Ernestine, the previous provider and Los Pinos matriarch, and she may be coming around a bit. The last 2 ladies are Cecilia and Elizabeth, and Sandra is the one carrying Marbella in the first picture. Some of these parents are directly related to Ernestina, and had to buck her authority in continuing with the program there. The Gospel is presented daily to these kids.


Finally, some prayer requests and issues that are coming up. Our time here has been difficult. Wanda and I are used to ¨rolling with the punches¨ in odd situations, but this has really strained many of those abilities. We are amazed at the way that the Lord is using this program to reach out to the children here, but we feel that there is a HUGE need for a missionary couple here, without which the program may encounter some serious problems. We are here on a temporary basis, and can see these potential problems, but, of course, can do nothing about them. Our emphasis on Los Pinos, and a narrow focus on the medical care needed day by day and on the construction efforts, has been born out of a sense that we cannot do a lot to help the Santa Elena program itself, until a missionary couple can come long term to address the issues from a Board empowered and Board supported viewpoint. More on that in future blogs.

We appreciate your prayers and the emails that keep us up to date.

Rick / Wanda