New Ministry Project

We have worked in a couple of communities outside of Tegucigalpa for several years. The area is called Nueva Oriental / Miradol Oriente. The area is home to more than 1000 of some of the poorest people that I have ever met. When I first went into this area - maybe 3 years ago there were only a few houses - all of them really bad. Since then, we (TORCH) have probably built close to 100 or more houses in the community and there is a need for probably 200 more. For every house we have built, there are 3 or 4 more families moving into the community and most of them into inadequate houses. The story here today isn't the need for houses. It is a story of the birth of a ministry project that has the potential to change the lives of many of the families in these communities.
All of this story starts with the beginning of our work in these communities. As we have worked, we have always talked to people about the need to have Jesus in their lives. In the past 3 years, we have witnessed a church plant in the area and there are over 100 that have dedicated their lives and ahve been baptized. There are way over 100 kids in sunday school every week. There is a nice little church building and the Mississippi church built classes last summer. The church and the classes are full every week. There is a full time minister that lives in the community too. As the community has grown, others have taken notice and there is a feeding center run by another group of Christians and we have been blessed to be able to build schools and most recently a kindergarten that will open next week.
Now- we are moving into a ministry that will touch the lives of many many people. Here is where it stands as of today -
In December Terri and I were in Atlanta to meet with several friends to discuss our work and to make plans for a group coming down in April. While we were there we also were able to have lunch with a friend that I had met on a TORCH trip last July. My friend teaches a Sunday School Class at Campus Church of Christ and he had a plan to inspire his class into taking action on a project in Honduras. We decided then that we would begin the development of a "shower center" in the Oriente communities. There are no sanitary facilities for families to clean up so it seemed natural that we would try to do something about this condition. Since our initial meeting we have expanded the idea to include several pila's so that the ladies would have a place to wash the family clothes. We have also added the idea of giving the ladies of the community a place to have bible study and fellowship. Now we have added the concept of a sweing center so that we can contract with the ladies of the community to make the school uniforms for the 100's of the kids that live there. We are planning to work with the local church so that they can help manage the center and plan studies with the ladies and families that utilize the facility. We will work with some of the local businesses to help supply a steady source of water. We will hire some of the Christian women in the community to manage the facility and keep it clean.
More planning will be happening in the coming days but - this is exciting and once again I am amazed at what our God has planned for our work in Honduras. If this center works as planned - and I don't see why it won't. We will add similar facilities in other places.
Today please lift a prayer of thanksgiving for the Sunday School class in Atlanta and -
Be a blessing to somebody today!
Marc