Sunday, April 20, 2008

Lot's Happening

The past week has been filled with great stuff.
I started the week in Catacomas - in the Eastern part of the country. I was blessed to be able to take my friend that works with Por los Ninos - another children's home. PLN is a very well run facility that we can learn a great deal from. One of the different ways of operation that is in place there is the use of Honduran Christian couples as house parents. After discussing this with everyone here, we have decided to begin the search for our first houseparent couple. Please pray for God to send us the right folks.
Returning to Santa Ana meant that it was time to start to work on the women's center in Oriente. This is going to be an amazing blessing to the community and you can read a lot about this project at www.hondohope.blogspot.com or on Terri's blog. The work is very intense but, we are already a week ahead of the original plan.
Yesterday, I was able to work with Karen and Dorian in a youth group trip to "the waterfall". I had only been to the place one time - only I didn't drive on the first trip. I just knew that the waterfall was near Lake Yojoa (a big lake that is about 20 miles long). We kept asking people where the waterfall was and we kept getting different answers. We finally found the park and it was an amazing adventure for the 10 kids that were able to make the trip. I am looking forward to having the AIM Team join the work here as they will be doing much more with the church and the youth group here in Santa Ana and in other communities.
This week we were also asked by the child welfare floks if we would be willing to take on a couple more little girls. We all discussed the potential and agreed that we would love to have the blessing of two more children. Especially since we will be able to take them in before they are taken to the "children's warehouse". It looks like this will all happen next Thursday. Please pray that the older brother will be accepted into Jovenes en Camino - a home for boys.
This new week will continue to be very busy. We are blessed to be able to be a little part of answered prayers.
Be a blessing to somebody today!
Marc

Thursday, April 17, 2008

The Dump In Pictures







Last week I was able to go back to the dump with a few of my friends from Atlanta. As I have said earlier, there are not words that can describe life in the dump. Pictures are only a little better insight of a hopeless way of life. Our work is to try and bring a little hope to this place. The only hope - Jesus.



Friday, April 04, 2008

March Report

March 2008
We started March in San Pedro Sula. Our daughter Nicole and husband Matt started spring break with a late night flight from Atlanta to SPS and we were there at 1 AM on the 1st of March to pick them up. We returned to Santa Ana early the next morning only stopping to survey a community at KM 85. The community we surveyed is the poorest place that I have ever visited. We did not see one livable house and we are in the process of planning several TORCH visits to the community for house construction, food distribution, and planting the seeds of the gospel.
The first week of the month we surveyed many areas for future work plans. We were also able to do a trial feeding at the Tegucigalpa dump. We wanted to make sure that we can safely implement some feeding programs so that we can begin to have a dialogue with the people that live there. We believe that there is a hugh opportunity to touch lives, plant seeds, and talk to desperate people about the hope and promise of Jesus. The dump itself is a place that cannot be described. Literally, men, women, & children are diving in the trash piles side by side with buzzards. The smells & the filth are overshadowed by the fact that real flesh and blood people are so desperate that they will dive into unimaninabel places to try to get something to eat or something with a small value that they can sell. Stay tuned for more on the dump.
We made a quick trip to the states during the second weekend of the month - personal stuff and taxes. We returned early the following week to begin working with some of the spring break TORCH groups. The first of those was led by Mark Connell of Alabama - the group was from the University Church at the the University of Alabama. That group was followed by one from Belpre, Ohio. TORCH Teams are always well recieved by the communities where they work and these groups were no exception. Houses were built, food was distributed (about 750 families were fed), and people saw Jesus in action as their prayers were answered. During March, final plans were developed for the Oriente Project (read about it at www.hondohope.blogspot.com ). We will begin moving dirt about April 15 and hope to finisg the project by around the first of June. This project will employ about 10 people for 6 weeks - all of them from the community that the project will serve. What a blessing!
The churches of the area are continuing to do well. Santa Ana has had 3 Sundays where attendence outnumbered the available chairs. All of these were record (non-gringo) Sundays. Of course - last week was a full house as there were 30 folks from the states visiting.
Los Pinos is also continuing to grow in both numbers and in Spirit. The church has completed it's kitchen project and is dedicated to feeding children every Sunday. They are doing this from their contributions and the weekly feeding averages about 130 to 150 children. The adult attendence is usually over 100. Los Pinos is clear evidence of how Christians plant seeds and God growing them.
Terri and I are doing well and love our work. We are blessed to be here and we truly appreciate all of the prayers, emails, and encouragement.
Be a blessing to somebody today!
Marc