Living in a Third World Country

Many times it seems that it is all I can do to get one thing done. This past week was full of fun, unexpected events, and brakes in our plans.

It all started when we were coming home from church on Sunday. The brakes in our truck were making a funny sound. Normally brakes start squeaking to let you know you are going to have to change them soon, but ours sounded like metal on metal and didn't seem to be responding all that well. Since we were coming home to have lunch, Jason decided to leave the truck parked and take our small car instead. You do not want to drive down the winding Honduran roads when you are not 100% sure of your brakes. Normally taking the car is not a problem, but we were also taking some of our church people to the service in Los Jutes. So we (the kids and I) had to stay at home from this service. I was excited that maybe I could watch the service from our home church, but unfortunately, the power went out for several hours so that didn't materialize.

First thing Monday morning, Jason took the brakes off of the truck and found out that we had no brake pad left. So he took the parts and went into Tegucigalpa to get the new brakes. He got to the store, having called ahead to make sure they had the parts, and was told that the brakes wouldn't be in until the next day. So home he came with no brake pads. 

Tuesday I had a visit scheduled with some of our ladies, so Jason once again went to Tegucigalpa early to get the parts. This time, thankfully, he was successful. He got home only to realize that someone had "borrowed" his c-clamps when we were in the states. This meant  a trip back to Tegucigalpa. Unfortunately, at this time I was already in Ojojona making my visit. Here in Honduras if you make a visit for less than an hour you will be considered to be too busy to really care. So once I was done with my visit I went to Tegucigalpa with the kids to do some birthday shopping for Jordan and pick up some c-clamps.

Since Jason was not able to finish the brake job on Tuesday, he had to cancel the service with the soldiers on Wednesday morning. Wednesday dawned overcast and very muggy, so with c-clamps in hand he went out to finish the job. He didn't get very far and he realized that one roter was chipped and had to be replaced, so back to Tegucigalpa he went. By this time he was getting very sick of driving to Tegucigalpa. Thankfully he was able to get the part after only visiting a few shops. He came back home and was able to finish the job with no more problems. 

As he went out for his test drive, he received a phone call from a national who works with us in the church in  Ojojona. His name is Gustavo and he was having severe pain in the lower left side of his abdomen. He thought he was having an appendicitis attack. So, Jason went to pick him up. This was now just a few hours from the time church was supposed to start and it was POURING outside. Jason called me on his way to the hospital to tell me that I wouldn't be going to church that night. It was raining so hard that our street and driveway were raging rivers. Jason drove Bro. Gustavo to the hospital and stayed with him until he was seen by a doctor (who though he had appendicitis and ordered tests) and then left to go back to Ojojona to pick up a family member of Bro. Gustavo in case he had to have surgery (another day I will have to tell you all about the ordeal it is going to a government hospital). After going back to Tegucigalpa to drop off Domingo, the family member, he drove home. When he got home just after midnight, the specialist still had not seen Bro. Gustavo. At 12:30, we got a phone call telling us that the specialist didn't think it was appendicitis and discharged them to come home. Thankfully we were able to find a place for them to stay in Tegucigalpa that night so we didn't have to go back.

Thursday and Friday were much calmer with only a mountain load of English homework to help one of our church kids through and Jordan's birthday celebration on Friday.

After such a stressful week it was great to take a little down time and take Jordan to Denny's for his birthday. He received a tool box with tools, a water gun and a Nintendo DS for his birthday. He was very excited and had a great time. 

Sunday was scheduled to be our baptism Sunday and since it is the first since we have been back, we had a lot to baptize.When we woke up on Sunday morning we were very worried. It was overcast and cold. Baptism services here are held at the river. The people don't want to be baptized in a pool or a baptistery. They want to be baptized how Jesus was. We were unsure if anyone would still want to be baptized with it being so cold. We were so blessed to be able to see 17 people come for baptism. One was a 87 year old man that walked down to the river 1 1/2 hours ahead of schedule to make sure he could get there in time. It was a blessed day. God really blessed. We had to take four truck loads of people home. Many of these people haven't been to church in a long time. We are praying that God dealt with their hearts and they will once again become faithful to the things of the Lord.

Change can be good

For those of you who don't know me really well, I am not a big fan of change. I prefer to continue walking the same paths and very little variation is good for me. I have learned these past few weeks of being back in Honduras that change can be a very good thing.

It all started about a month ago when I was mentioning to Jason how if we didn't do something we were going to lose some of the kids that had been with us for several years. I had noticed that most of the older kids (now between the ages of 12 and 14) were still coming but seemed to be bored every week. Most of these kids have been in Sunday school since they were five and six years old. Unfortunately, there was little I could do. To make the class more geared to their age level, I would have to teach a more advanced lesson which would quickly lose the attention of the younger kids who would then start acting up and distract the older kids. But at the same time I didn't want to lose the older kids. We have seen far too many kids reach 12 years of age and stop coming to church. We didn't want this trend to continue.

Jason had been working with a young man named Gustavo. He strongly feels that God would have this young man take an active part in pastoring the church in Ojojona. Gustavo, one of our Bible Institute students, is from an area called Aragua, but lives in Ojojona. He is a leader in the church in Aragua as the church hasn't had a pastor for several years. Three times a week he makes the hour and a half walk to Aragua to help lead the services. This young man has a burden for the town of Ojojona and has been attending services in both churches for a while now. Jason has started putting him in the pulpit more often and the people love him. He is a great soulwinner and a great asset to our ministry.

Since our goal in Honduras is NOT to pastor one church, but to start and turn churches over to nationals, we feel that this time of unrest in the young people was the perfect catalyst to start the responsibility shift more to the nationals. Jason asked Bro. Gustavo to make a commitment to preach every Sunday morning. This allowed Jason to be free to take a class of young people.

Three weeks ago we split the Sunday school classes. We now have a class from birth to 8 years old and one from 9 to 15 years old. We have seen both classes just about double in this time. The younger kids are learning a lot and even answering questions when asked (a huge step as they acted very shy when with the older kids).

We have a lady in our church who didn't want to help out in Sunday school during our last term but agreed to step in if it was needed during our absence. While we were in the states, the lady in charge of the Sunday school became very sick and Xiomara had to step in and help out. I was very pleased when we came back to Honduras and I was able to hear her teach for the first time. She did such a wonderful job. She came with me to the younger kids class and will eventually take over that class, but as she has never taught little children, she was just going to observe a few weeks before taking on small responsibilities for the class.

Last week, God once again changed her mind. I was all prepared to teach on Sunday, but Audrey got sick. I called her and asked her to teach for me and she was happy to do it. Our first Sunday our attendance was eight children. Our third Sunday we had an attendance of 16. Xiomara is getting more comfortable with the kids and they love her.

I am a slow mover at times. I fear running people off so I err on the side of caution. It is great to see the Lord use circumstances to help "push" people into the place he wants them to be.

Mini Vacation

While I was able to visit my family last December when I came to help out with my mom's surgery, It was hard to be in the states so long and not get to see them. Thankfully we arrived to our US home on Monday of last week. It was so great to get to see family and have a little time to relax.

The Lord really blessed us and provided our needs wonderfully since we have been here. One of these blessings was in the providing beds for the kids. We had a bunk bed donated, but it didn't have mattresses. I started looking on Craigslist and found two mattresses for $15.00 each. They were actually in good shape. YEAH!!! I had to buy some sheets for the beds so I went to Target (I had a gift card) and found them on sale for $5.00 a set. I needed to buy sheets to take back to Honduras anyway so we were excited to find such a good deal on them. The kids are loving having beds to sleep on.

This week my mom and dad gave Jason and I a mini vacation. They took the three oldest kids to the beach in their motor home. It has been just Jason, Matthew, and me at home. We have had a wonderful time. Matthew has thoroughly enjoyed his time alone with Mom and Dad. We have gone to the library twice and even got to go out and buy a pumpkin. We have had a great time and are very thankful for our mini vacation.

Stubbornness Can Be A Blessing

I tend to be stubborn at times, but today, my persistence was a hero for one little boy.

We were given a gift basket last night from the church. Inside was a lot of wonderful things for us. One of the things that was given was a small green train for Matthew. He wanted to sleep with it, but we wouldn't let him. This morning, when he woke up we couldn't find it. He slept in late this morning as he fell off the bed in the middle of the night and took a little while to calm down. When he finally got up, the maid was already here. The maid and I looked everywhere, but to no avail. After she left I continued to look and still couldn't find it. I finally went down the hall and asked the maid if I could look in our trash. I found the train under several layers of trash. It was covered with leftover cereal and milk. I was so excited that I had finally found it. I made me remember the story of the woman in the New Testament who hunted for a lost coin and finally found it.

Matthew's reaction when I came back in the room with the train was priceless. He was so excited. In case you were wondering; yes, I cleaned it before I gave it back to him. :-) Today I am thankful for my "persistent" tendencies.

Many miles travelled

The last few weeks have been anything but boring. We are thankful for the good times that God has given us in many new churches. It has been great to meet and get to know many more precious Christians. We are praising the Lord for the one new church's support that has come in since my last post. We enjoyed spending time in a few supporting churches. We were able to report back to them what God has done with their investment into His work.

While we are travelling we have many hours in the van, but when we stop at some place for a few days we try to get out and do fun things with the kids. We were able to spend almost two weeks at a supporting church in the Baltimore area. We got to spend three days doing the tourist stuff. We spent two days in Washington DC. One of those days we had a shaking experience. We were in the Museum of American History when the 5.9 earthquake hit. Being the observant person that I am I didn't notice the swaying of the items on display until the big jolt came. At the beginning we weren't sure if the jolt was an earthquake or a bomb. It was so short. Thankfully there were no problems. We spent the rest of the day outside and walked to see the White House, Lincoln Memorial, Vietnam War Memorial, Korean War Memorial, and WWII Memorial. The White House and Lincoln Memorial were closed, but we got to see them from a distance. It just made me more eager to go back to DC someday and see things again.

Last Monday we left Ohio to head west again. At the time of this posting we are in Utah. It is a blessing to see how God is moving in this town. God is moving. We were able to talk to a hispanic man in Del Taco. We spoke in Spanish and felt great freedom to say what we wanted. When we left we gave him a tract and pray that he will read it and will accept Christ as his personal saviour.

We will be in Utah until Tuesday and then we start a road trip for Billings, Montana. We will then be coming back to Utah and then on to Arizona. In the many miles travelled, God has been so good to us. Please pray with us that our support level will continue to increase.

Travelling

The motels have been many and the months few, yet we have been blessed beyond measure. As I think about the time that we have traveled and the things that God has done, my mind constantly goes back to the song "He Giveth More Grace". Jason and I sang that song on Sunday morning as we were in Iglesia Bautista South Haven. It is a Spanish ministry and it was a huge blessing to be with them.

We haven't been around many Spanish speaking people since we left Honduras. I was not nervous though. We try to speak in Spanish as much as possible when out and about and we speak frequently with the kids. I thought I was prepared so I wouldn't have much of a problem. I was not prepared, however, for Mrs. Gonzales. The Gonzales family was so kind to put us up in their home. Mrs. Gonzales talked a little bit when we got there, but I couldn't understand much of what she was saying. It may be because of my tiredness as we have been travelling all day, or it may have been the rate at which she rattled off Spanish. I am not sure what the problem was, but my first though was how was I going to live in this family's house for the weekend. The feelings of despair I had upon moving to Costa Rica for language school all came rushing back to me. I took some time that night to pray and ask the Lord to help me. Thankfully all went well the next day and we had some great time talking and rejoicing in the Lord. I was able to learn much about her and her family. I pray that I was as much an encouragement to her as she was to me.

God always knows what we will need even before we need it and provides help for any situation. There are so many things that have gone "wrong" past few weeks of travelling, but each time we were able to see God step in and give us an even better outcome than what we could have hoped for. Now as I sit here in a hotel room, I am overwhelmed at all of the blessings God has bestowed upon us. While I know that as I use this verse here, it is taken out of context, but II Corinthians 9:15 keeps running through my mind. "Thanks be to God for his unspeakable gift" We have the greatest gift of all, salvation. With that it should be enough, but God keep on blessing us with gifts of his goodness and grace along the way.

Please continue to pray for us. We are travelling many miles and presenting our work in many new churches. Our desire is to return to the field in February, but to do so means getting new supporters. Please pray for the hearts of those who hear of our burden to unite with us in reaching Honduras. We have every faith that God will provide for our need of more support, but we don't want to neglect to pray for it every day.

New Blog

My blog has been updated with a new design and new pictures. I will be striving to update my blogs more frequently while in the states and then, hopefully with our new android phones, I can keep up while in Honduras.