Down the home stretch

Wow, what a week! The Garden City/Ellabell team has come and gone, and we are now alone here in Honduras. We hadthe experience of being missionary team hosts, and it has been a real challenge... a good challenge, but really kept us hopping. Lots of energy and talent, lots of desire to impact Honduras in special ways, and a number of projects that needed specific kinds of work done - working to find a way to match skills to needs while keeping the normal ministries running for the week took a lot of energy! We are tired. However, we still have lots of loose ends to tie up, prior to our Thursday departure.

One of many hilarious comments came from team members this week. I (Rick) have been learning a tiny bit of Spanish, just enough to make the locals laugh or cringe, but I can actually communicate pretty well. The joke is that, despite my statements that I don`t know the language, team members have seen me communicate and they speak confidently, *ask Rick to tell the boys this or that*. I look around to see who else is here to be the translator, then realize that they are talking about me, so I charge right in! For the first 2 weeks, I would hold back until I was pretty sure that I could get out the whole sentence, but that was TIRING. So now I just start speaking Spano-swahilian, as long as I know the first word to say, (usually yo) then just let it fly from there. One of the team members speaks fluent Spanish, in fact teaches Spanish, and she thought it was really hilarious - but I generally got the point across, somehow.

There were so many things that happened this last week, I`ll just list a few. The VBS went well, the frog t-shirts were very well-received. A one-day VBS was held at Los Pinos on Thursday, and this went well with the team visiting the Resort and waterfall after the VBS. Some of the group came back to help feed the kids at noon, which was really appreciated. On Friday, the Los Pinos children were invited to the Santa Elena property for a field day, where all of the children from both programs had a day filled with fun and frolic, then food and more frolic. A really good day, and a good chance to get the Los Pinos children locked better into the Mission on the Move program.

I spoke with the manager up at Los Pinos resort, a very pleasant gal named Alba, about the possibility of getting electricity to the schoolhouse so that the food could be kept more fresh, and she was agreeable, and gave me the name of the boss there. I sent him an e-mail requesting permission to place a transformer there in Los Pinos, offering to buy and install the transformer, and he (Chet Thomas - no relation) immediately responded positively. Some team members were carrying money that they wanted used for a special project, and gave $1000 of the approximately $1500 needed for the transformer on the spot, then found a way to gather the additional money needed. We will check into getting and installing the transformer this week, prior to my leaving. This has been a real answer to prayer, and will greatly bless this little community, as they will be able to use the transformer to bring power into their homes as well.

As far as work projects are concerned, the roof for the director house was completed in 1.5 days, as I had expected, and is really nice. There were a few leaks, but the leaks have been repaired, thanks to Bobby from the team. This left a lot of time for other projects. The Biedelina house, I am proud to say, has been completed - due to a late flurry of activity, and we had the dedication service at the house Saturday. What a great time we had. Biedalina is a widow with 5 children, and I had the opportunity to share James 1:27 with the people there, about pure religion being proper care of widows and fatherless. We sang songs with the guitar, some in English and a couple in Spanish. Biedelina had spent the day cleaning, had a cake and soft drink for all, we laid hands on the family and on the house, and prayed for blessing, for extraordinary wisdom for this neat lady, and then celebrated. Many people who never expected to learn stucco work learned at least a little about stuccoing this week.

Fence work continues, the metal protectors are installed on the long right side of the wall, and the metal is completed for the left side, leaving us with just the cement work - but Omar has been busy trying to finish the Biedelina house, so was unable to get his part done. This week will see the fence completed.

The little house behind the clinic proved to be a real stinker. The roof was leaky from many branch falls, and required much work. The doors were ordered, but ended up costing an arm and 2 legs to manufacture, and are not yet installed. This money for the doors ended up consuming the entire budget for the house, so the ceilings are not yet installed - and they could not be safely installed until the doors are in place anyway - or the celing pieces and track would end up being taken. I am not totally happy with the progress on the house, but the door costs were my own fault - I had not set up parameters for the door costs, as I though that it was a fixed price - but the doors were custom made of a very solid wood that sounds like Laurel and smells like mahogony and looks like the best doors I have ever seen - and good thing, because the cost was about $700 U.S. for the 4 doors.

We will be buying the rebar for the feet of the water tower, and the men will be working on this, as it is about the only project for which we have any residual funds. The holes were dug courtesy of the Sprigfield team 4 weeks ago, with special mention to Dennis for giving his blood for the project. These holes are 1 meter cubed and there are 6 of them waiting to be filled with concrete and rebar to start the work.

As far as the talk with Los Pinos is concerned, after praying about it, we felt led to put this off until Tuesday of this week, and to invite Pablo to translate. We have arranged for a meeting on Tuesday at 1 PM (3 PM your time), and would ask you to be in prayer for this meeting. Some of the reason for this change involves timing, and some involves wanting Pablo to hear and perhaps internalize much of the spoken material himself.

Our schedule this week, then, involves an ultrasound in Santa Cruz tomorrow AM for one of the mothers of the program, then work on the projects listed. Tuesday we will be speaking with Los Pinos, hopefully getting the transformer as well. Wednesday we will leave Santa Elena to spend the night in San Pedro Sula to catch an early morning flight home on Thursday.

Thanks for your prayers in this matter. We have important conversations to catch up on, with Pablo, with the Los Pinos ladies, with one of the workers, and with a girl from the program in Santa Elena.