Lots of things happening during the past couple of months. One thing I hope to do better with is keeping more info here on my blog. Since I signed up for Facebook, it has been easier to do short daily updates and I have neglected my blogs.
In the area of groups, we have been able to start bringing folks back into the country. The political crisis has somewhat calmed down and we believe that the elections of November 29 will bring and end of the situation that began with the oust of the former president on June 28. In October we had friends from California come to work for a week. We built 2 houses and we disrtibuted tons of food in several different communities. Groups will continue with the arrival of the last week of November. We are going to do a week of building - looks like we will be completing at least 11 houses in the week - taking a break to celebrate Thanksgiving with the kids at Casa de Esperanza. In December we have plans for 2 more teams as well as other visitors. We are blessed to be able to work with so many amazing people in our teams.
Casa de Esperanza is growing and we just added two beautiful children to our home. We have a baby - little Manual is 20 months old and his sister - Noame is 5. They are a bit scared but, we believe they will be in the middle of the playing, loving, and life here very quickly.
Our work in the Tegucigalpa Dump is growing and we love being able to go every week to serve the people that live and work there. We have started providing baby formula to 4 to 5 young women every week. This was the result of a donation from several folks in Indiana and we plan to continue to make the baby food available as long as these young women do not bring their babies to the dump.
In October we recieved a container from Illinois - it was full of things to help the children of Honduras as well as the children at Casa de Esperanza. The container was assembled by our church family in Fairview Heights and many many goods were shipped from around the country to help fill the container. We were able to help out the "Happy Hands" school where our Rosy learns to communicate with other children that are deaf. Our next container will ship from Jacksonville, IL in February. We are going to pack that box from ene to end and top to bottom with things to help the poor here in Honduras.
Terri and I will be here through the holidays so that KAren and Dorian can be with Karen's family in Ohio. Karen has spent every Christmas here since her arrival 4 years ago and we are blessed that she will be able to spend this holiday with her family.
Terri and I travel to the states in Mid January where we will be speaking at about 10 different places.
We thank everybody for all of the love and support that you just continue to pour out on us. We are so blessed by our amazing God and He continues to bring so many wonderful people into our lives.
Marc
Friday, November 13, 2009
Friday, September 25, 2009
Thoughts of 2 Years in Honduras
I am in Arkansas and have been in the states for the past 4 weeks. Terri and I have had an amazing month of travel and God has opened a number of doors and opportunities for us to tell the stories of our kids and our friends in Honduras.
This week marks the 2 year mark for living in Honduras (for Terri & I together - I actually went in June 2 years ago). We had no idea that learining the language would be difficult. I am able to mostly communnicate with anyone but, it just isn't as easy as good old english! Terri is getting better at Spanish every day and I believe that in one more year, we will be a lot closer to where we want to be - speaking the language anyway.
Learning to live in Honduras really hasn't been too much of an adjustment as Terri and I had both been there a lot of times prior to the move. Some things though are still frustrating - getting anything done with the government is as slow as anything you can imagine. It took a year and a half to get our residency cards. Without finding a way to shortcut the transito department, it would take 2 days to get a drivers license. I lost a car tag and it took a week to get permission to get a new one! Driving is like a disney ride and - at first it was easy to get lost in a city with no street names.
We love what we do and we are amazed at the plans that God made for us and continues to reveal.
One thing we have both talked about is the change in the way we see things here in the USA. Living here our whole lives blinded us to the way our nation loves "stuff". Coming back to visit - especially this trip has revealed a lot about the USA's love for things.......big cars, big TVs, I-POD -I Phone, I Want's! In San Fransisco we saw some of these extremes - shoes and boots that sell for $300 to $1500, clothes that sell for $1500 to $3000 for one outfit. I went to Macey's department store with a friend and saw a bed selling for $8000 - on sale!
Coming from a place where the "I Want's" mostly consist of food, a dry house, or a pair of matching shoes to a place on the opposite extreme is pretty amazing. I just pray that we all open our eyes to the difference between need and want and learn to be happy (& thankful) when the need is met. I pray that we are able to learn to share some of what we use to satisfy the "want" side of things with those that still have some of the un-met needs of life.
Since we hadn't been in the states for an extended time - we had been reading and watching the television for news about the bad economy here in the USA. I know that the numbers have been bad but, from our perspective, it seems that there is still a pretty good amount of the "extra's" here. Seems everybody has all of their needs met - and large number of wants are being realized too.
After a couple of years, we still know that we have the best job in the world. We are blessed with an amazing number of people that love us, encourage us, and support our work. Living at Casa de Esperanza is more of a blessing than we could have ever guessed that it would be. The people that we work with are an inspiration to us.
We are blessed beyond belief.
Our God is Awesome!
Marc
This week marks the 2 year mark for living in Honduras (for Terri & I together - I actually went in June 2 years ago). We had no idea that learining the language would be difficult. I am able to mostly communnicate with anyone but, it just isn't as easy as good old english! Terri is getting better at Spanish every day and I believe that in one more year, we will be a lot closer to where we want to be - speaking the language anyway.
Learning to live in Honduras really hasn't been too much of an adjustment as Terri and I had both been there a lot of times prior to the move. Some things though are still frustrating - getting anything done with the government is as slow as anything you can imagine. It took a year and a half to get our residency cards. Without finding a way to shortcut the transito department, it would take 2 days to get a drivers license. I lost a car tag and it took a week to get permission to get a new one! Driving is like a disney ride and - at first it was easy to get lost in a city with no street names.
We love what we do and we are amazed at the plans that God made for us and continues to reveal.
One thing we have both talked about is the change in the way we see things here in the USA. Living here our whole lives blinded us to the way our nation loves "stuff". Coming back to visit - especially this trip has revealed a lot about the USA's love for things.......big cars, big TVs, I-POD -I Phone, I Want's! In San Fransisco we saw some of these extremes - shoes and boots that sell for $300 to $1500, clothes that sell for $1500 to $3000 for one outfit. I went to Macey's department store with a friend and saw a bed selling for $8000 - on sale!
Coming from a place where the "I Want's" mostly consist of food, a dry house, or a pair of matching shoes to a place on the opposite extreme is pretty amazing. I just pray that we all open our eyes to the difference between need and want and learn to be happy (& thankful) when the need is met. I pray that we are able to learn to share some of what we use to satisfy the "want" side of things with those that still have some of the un-met needs of life.
Since we hadn't been in the states for an extended time - we had been reading and watching the television for news about the bad economy here in the USA. I know that the numbers have been bad but, from our perspective, it seems that there is still a pretty good amount of the "extra's" here. Seems everybody has all of their needs met - and large number of wants are being realized too.
After a couple of years, we still know that we have the best job in the world. We are blessed with an amazing number of people that love us, encourage us, and support our work. Living at Casa de Esperanza is more of a blessing than we could have ever guessed that it would be. The people that we work with are an inspiration to us.
We are blessed beyond belief.
Our God is Awesome!
Marc
Sunday, August 09, 2009
UPDATE
June and July are typically the months that our short term mission teams are here and tons of work gets done. Our plans for 2009 were to host or lead groups from Middle Tennessee, Kansas, East Tennessee, Columbus - MS, and our large group from all over. We were also set to help out with the team from churches in Tupelo and Little Rock.
Political issues in Honduras changed all of our plans and all but 2 of our groups were cancelled for 2009. We were very sad because of the situation however, here in Honduras, the poor were devastated because of the lack of mission activity that resulted from these cancellations. With our groups alone, we lost about 50 home construcion projects, many tons of food were not purchased and were not distributed. Medical and dental teams were not able to help people, and 100's of people were denied the opportunity to hear the good news of Jesus. Very sad indeed!
We are working hard to make up for many of the lost projects however, losing 250 workers that average 10 days here means that we lost about 2500 days of work - our hands just are not that fast. We know that our amazing God is in charge and His will is in place - we just need to hand all of this over to Him.
The children's home - Casa de Esperanza is doing well and our kids are loving and gifts from God. We are in the process of adding more kids and we expect to be announcing some new additions very soon. Losing groups had a financial impact on the children's home and we are working through some of those issues. Typically we are able to bring our teams here to visit the home and share time with our kids. While here, many of the visitors are able to visit the "Casa Tienda (store) and purchase Honduran made goods, coffee, etc. The loss of income for Casa in July was something like $3,000. That is about what it takes to purchase food for 2 months.
Our feeding ministry at the Tegucigalpa Dump is growing and improving. In June we were able to begin feeding hot meals. Typically we serve about 300 meals of rice, beans, tortillas, and water. Some days if we have enough hands, we are able to add fruit to the mix. We are growing closer to many of the people that we serve and they know that we will be there every Wednesday. Building trust there has taken a long time. Now that we are in a place where we know many names and the workers there know our names, we will be working toward ways that we can introduce them to the message.
Also, for the past 8 weeks, I have been spending time with about 5 young ladies that are 13 to 17 years old. All of them have babies and our relationship began because they started asking me to bring them formula mix for the babies. I started buying about $25 a week in formula and sharing it with these young ladies. I see the potential of finding ways to help these young moms over the coming months and introducing them to some way to leave the dump and finding a better way.
Feeding other hungry people is a ministry where God's blessings are being poured out. In the past 2 months we have been offered and have recieved 3 shipping containers FULL. We have a full container of rice meals that will be utilized in a feeding center and church plant on the Nicaraguan border area. (this project has been delayed because of the potential of problems in the "Frontera" area - there are troups on both sides of the border as a part of the political mess here.) We also recieved a full container of soup mix that will produce more than 900,000 servings of a rich vegetable soup. Additionally, we helped deliver a full container of beans to the San Pedro Sula area. About 1000 pounds of the beans will be used with both Casa de Esperanza and with the Sunday feeding program in Los Pinos.
In June, I was able to meet with Ricardo Alveraz - the mayor of Tegucigalpa. We are working together on a project to help people displaced from areas condemned by unstable land. There are about 3000 homes in these areas and we agreed that - as a start, we would help 20 of the famlies that are in immediate danger. So far, we have built 11 homes and have plans to complete the balance of our comittment by the end of October. When one business heard about our plans, they donated enough tin to provide roofs for our next 90 houses.
Churches in Los Pinos and in Santa Ana continue to grow in both numbers and in discipleship. Both congregations meet at least 3 times during the week - in addition to Sunday worship. In Los Pinos, the mid week studies are seeing about the same number of adults as they see on Sunday mornings - about 100. In Santa Ana, we typically have about 45 adults on Sunday mornings and our mid week classes average 25 to 35.
Terri and I will be travelling to the states in September and plan to be in Columbus, MS; Atlanta, GA, North Carolina, and in the SF Bay area of California. We will also have the blessing of being able to spend time with our children and our grandkids. We were blessed in July with the birth of Haley Grace - the daughter of Matt and Nicole. We will be able to have Camille with us during part of our travel in Sept - Can't wait!
We are blessed with so very many that lift us up in prayer, support us with encouragement, and help us eat. We love you and we thank you for all you do.
Be a blessing to somebody today!
Marc & Terri
Political issues in Honduras changed all of our plans and all but 2 of our groups were cancelled for 2009. We were very sad because of the situation however, here in Honduras, the poor were devastated because of the lack of mission activity that resulted from these cancellations. With our groups alone, we lost about 50 home construcion projects, many tons of food were not purchased and were not distributed. Medical and dental teams were not able to help people, and 100's of people were denied the opportunity to hear the good news of Jesus. Very sad indeed!
We are working hard to make up for many of the lost projects however, losing 250 workers that average 10 days here means that we lost about 2500 days of work - our hands just are not that fast. We know that our amazing God is in charge and His will is in place - we just need to hand all of this over to Him.
The children's home - Casa de Esperanza is doing well and our kids are loving and gifts from God. We are in the process of adding more kids and we expect to be announcing some new additions very soon. Losing groups had a financial impact on the children's home and we are working through some of those issues. Typically we are able to bring our teams here to visit the home and share time with our kids. While here, many of the visitors are able to visit the "Casa Tienda (store) and purchase Honduran made goods, coffee, etc. The loss of income for Casa in July was something like $3,000. That is about what it takes to purchase food for 2 months.
Our feeding ministry at the Tegucigalpa Dump is growing and improving. In June we were able to begin feeding hot meals. Typically we serve about 300 meals of rice, beans, tortillas, and water. Some days if we have enough hands, we are able to add fruit to the mix. We are growing closer to many of the people that we serve and they know that we will be there every Wednesday. Building trust there has taken a long time. Now that we are in a place where we know many names and the workers there know our names, we will be working toward ways that we can introduce them to the message.
Also, for the past 8 weeks, I have been spending time with about 5 young ladies that are 13 to 17 years old. All of them have babies and our relationship began because they started asking me to bring them formula mix for the babies. I started buying about $25 a week in formula and sharing it with these young ladies. I see the potential of finding ways to help these young moms over the coming months and introducing them to some way to leave the dump and finding a better way.
Feeding other hungry people is a ministry where God's blessings are being poured out. In the past 2 months we have been offered and have recieved 3 shipping containers FULL. We have a full container of rice meals that will be utilized in a feeding center and church plant on the Nicaraguan border area. (this project has been delayed because of the potential of problems in the "Frontera" area - there are troups on both sides of the border as a part of the political mess here.) We also recieved a full container of soup mix that will produce more than 900,000 servings of a rich vegetable soup. Additionally, we helped deliver a full container of beans to the San Pedro Sula area. About 1000 pounds of the beans will be used with both Casa de Esperanza and with the Sunday feeding program in Los Pinos.
In June, I was able to meet with Ricardo Alveraz - the mayor of Tegucigalpa. We are working together on a project to help people displaced from areas condemned by unstable land. There are about 3000 homes in these areas and we agreed that - as a start, we would help 20 of the famlies that are in immediate danger. So far, we have built 11 homes and have plans to complete the balance of our comittment by the end of October. When one business heard about our plans, they donated enough tin to provide roofs for our next 90 houses.
Churches in Los Pinos and in Santa Ana continue to grow in both numbers and in discipleship. Both congregations meet at least 3 times during the week - in addition to Sunday worship. In Los Pinos, the mid week studies are seeing about the same number of adults as they see on Sunday mornings - about 100. In Santa Ana, we typically have about 45 adults on Sunday mornings and our mid week classes average 25 to 35.
Terri and I will be travelling to the states in September and plan to be in Columbus, MS; Atlanta, GA, North Carolina, and in the SF Bay area of California. We will also have the blessing of being able to spend time with our children and our grandkids. We were blessed in July with the birth of Haley Grace - the daughter of Matt and Nicole. We will be able to have Camille with us during part of our travel in Sept - Can't wait!
We are blessed with so very many that lift us up in prayer, support us with encouragement, and help us eat. We love you and we thank you for all you do.
Be a blessing to somebody today!
Marc & Terri
Monday, July 20, 2009
July 2009
Here in Honduras, July is typically one that it is very difficult to get a flight - in or out of the country. Most every flight in a typical July is filled with mission groups and others coming to be a part of helping this nation. The reason that the people keep coming back year after year is that most of the folks here appreciate the work and efforts of the visitors from the USA. There are amazing friendships developed between the villagers and the mission teams from the USA. Personally, July 2009 was going to be an amazing month. I had scheduled teams from the 28th of June all the way to the last of the teams departing on August 9. My teams were coming from all over the USA and all of us had planned to make July 2009 an amazing month of work for our Master. Through the month there would have been close to 250 people coming and going - every week from 50 to 85 people would have been here working, building, feeding, teaching, comforting, and serving. We planned to build something like 60 houses, one and maybe 2 school buildings, a small but much needed foot bridge, work on the Santa Katerina feeding center / church plant, feed more than 4,000 families, treat more than 1500 in med/ dental clinics, teach the gospel to many many people.
Most of this didn't happen - obviously something jumped in the way and stopped the plan in it's tracks.
Everybody following this blog knows that there is a governmental crisis here and that has sent most folks from the USA and the mission groups that come here scrambling for cover. Bringing people here right now just was not a prudent thing so - I cancelled all of the July groups and had to send the end of June group home early. Needless to say, I am not alone. I was in the airport today and there was not another "gringo" there - not one. The lines for the airlines were empty and nobody is coming or going to Honduras this July.
I gotta tell you this is a real problem for many of the mountain villages where we work. I was in Nueva Oriental on Saturday and talked to many many of the people that live there and are friends with many Americans. They are so sad that nobody is coming. The community still needs the 30 to 40 houses that the teams would have built there. They still need the food that is desperatly short in many many of the homes there. Nueva Oriental still needs the medical and dental clinics and the people that would normally come to share the gospel. They will really miss the new school building and the bridge that our teams would have built. It is truly sad that a poliitcal mess can do this to the people that the governments are set up to serve.
Makes me so sad!
Be a blessing to somebody today!
Marc
Most of this didn't happen - obviously something jumped in the way and stopped the plan in it's tracks.
Everybody following this blog knows that there is a governmental crisis here and that has sent most folks from the USA and the mission groups that come here scrambling for cover. Bringing people here right now just was not a prudent thing so - I cancelled all of the July groups and had to send the end of June group home early. Needless to say, I am not alone. I was in the airport today and there was not another "gringo" there - not one. The lines for the airlines were empty and nobody is coming or going to Honduras this July.
I gotta tell you this is a real problem for many of the mountain villages where we work. I was in Nueva Oriental on Saturday and talked to many many of the people that live there and are friends with many Americans. They are so sad that nobody is coming. The community still needs the 30 to 40 houses that the teams would have built there. They still need the food that is desperatly short in many many of the homes there. Nueva Oriental still needs the medical and dental clinics and the people that would normally come to share the gospel. They will really miss the new school building and the bridge that our teams would have built. It is truly sad that a poliitcal mess can do this to the people that the governments are set up to serve.
Makes me so sad!
Be a blessing to somebody today!
Marc
Monday, July 13, 2009
Article By Brandon Smith
In a dark and warm room, a group of men gathered in secret to discuss what they should do. In this room are people who were vehemently opposed to each other’s politics, religion, and more. However, they were drawn together for one cause, to fight for freedom and liberty in their small country. They made a decision, the leader of their country, had to go. Who were these leaders? Where they the zealots of a political party? Were they religious extremists? Was it a military force? No. The men and women who decided to oust Manuel Zelaya from his role has President of Honduras represent an overwhelming majority of the nation’s people. Imagine the American equivalent. General Colin Powell, General David Petraeus, Republican Party Chairman Michael Steele, Nancy Pelosi-the Democrat-Speaker of the House, Sara Palin, Justices Scalia, Ginsberg and Kennedy (my law school friends will appreciate this!), and Presidents Bush and Clinton: no imagine all of them coming together to condemn the actions of a leader as dangerous to the future of America’s existence as a democracy. Now imagine that all of these people worked together to kick the current president (republican or democrat) out of office. They do this openly, after months of public debate, and with the support of the public. Would this be condemned? Of course not!This is what happened in Honduras. The majority of the legislature, the High Court, the military generals, and the leaders of Zeleya’s own political party choose Roberto Michelett to replace him. Michelet is the leader of Zeleya’s political party in order to preserve democracy. This was supported by over 80% of the population. Obama says "We do so because we respect the universal principle that people should choose their own leaders, whether they are leaders we agree with or not.” If this is really true, why does Obama ignore the actions of all of the other elected officials in Honduras, acting in concert, to defend their democratic form of government? The High Court of Honduras ordered Zeleya to be arrested, and kicked out of office. There was no violence or even significant level of unrest until Zeleya tried to return, one week after he was kicked out of office. So, what did Zeleya do to warrant such a drastic response from the ENTIRE government of Honduras? He was attempting to eliminate term limits so he could remain in office. Admittedly, this does not seem very dangerous. However, if you are familiar with the rise and fall of so many other Latin American democracies, you will understand just how dangerous this action is. In 2004, for example, Venezuelan despot, Hugo Chavez, rewrote the constitution, so as to take over the judicial system, the national electoral council, militarize the government, and began his anti-American/anti-democracy rhetoric. He has since proposed to spread this “revolution” around the world. The “election” he then held was approved by Jimmy Carter and many democrats in America, but has since been widely seen as illegitimate and corrupt. He the poured his nations money into disrupting the Bolivian and Ecuadorean democracies, and helped sex-offender, Nicaraguan Daniel Ortega return to power, as he once was while a member of the military leadership in the Sandinista revolution. ENOUGH IS ENOUGH. Hondurans have seen their neighbor struggle and fall into despair as their liberty is lost and their oppressive leaders rise to power. Hondurans had the gall to push back. Rather, they had the courage and the strength of will to say NO to the end of democracy in Honduras. The Obama administration is simply pandering to undemocratic despots like Hugo Chavez. What else can explain Chavez, Castro and Obama all supporting Zeleya in his unilateral attempt to rewrite the Honduran constitution? Americans must speak out. Whether we like it, or not, our voice is strong in the Americas. We must choose to support the rule of law, and democracies. Remember what we just celebrated this past weekend. A group of rebels who had a vision of a free and democratic nation. A group of doctors, lawyers, inventors, farmers, preachers, who came together to take a stand against oppression. This is what Hondurans have done. IN the name of democracy, we must choose to support Honduras’ recent actions. Our President has made it clear that he does not support the Honduran fight for democracy, but rather, is appeasing the dictators of South America. DO NOT BE CONFUSED! This is a fight not just for Honduran freedom, but for the perception of freedom worldwide. If we don’t support those who fight against oppression, we are sending a message to all dictators that they can do what they want. This is a fight for freedom in Honduras, it is also a fight for the preservation of Democracy’s place in the Market Place of Ideas. We must choose to speak out on behalf of democracy, on the behalf of freedom and on behalf of the Honduran people who have been silenced in the international media. The number one message coming from Honduran citizens to American citizens is “pray for me.” My family recently left Honduras, and the most trouble they had was the large groups of men, women and children begging them to pray for democracy and to tell Obama to support them. We must make the choice to be voices of truth. If you think this battle is not important to you, here in America, or elsewhere, you are wrong. Democracy is on trial in the international court of public opinion, and we must weigh in. After all, God has called us to:“Speak out for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute.”
Friday, July 10, 2009
TORCH 2009 NEWS
Dear TORCH,
As you know, there is a mess here in Honduras. On June 28th, the situation became volitile as this small nation made the decision to remove their president Mel Zelaya. Mr Zelaya was doing a number of illegal things and both the Supreme Court and the National Congress approved of the ouster - 100%.
The world has not supported this change and there are factions within the country that continue to cause disturbances - some violent. The US State Department has recommended that US Citicizens not travel to Honduras during this crisis. This advisory continues through the 29th of July.
I would love to be able to tell all of you that none of this makes a difference and we need to move ahead with our July 20 mission. At this time, I just can't. We need to cancel the July 20 - August 2 mission to Honduras. The nation remains unstable, the chance of further problems here remain high, and if those happen, we could see Tegucigalpa and the airport shut down for a much longer period than we have already experienced. Additionally, I am not willing to risk your safety.
We are working with the airlines to determine how refunds, flight credits, etc will work. At this time we just don't know.
I know that some of you would love to say, I am coming any way. At this time, I would encourage you to wait and be patient.
We do have some fall and winter mission opportunities planned and we would gladly move you to some of those groups. Email Terri or me for details on those trips.
You cannot imagine my saddness in making this announcement. Our team is a big part of my life and I have waited as long as possible to make this decision. I am truly sorry that it is necessary.
Be a blessing to somebody today,
Marc Tindall
Ps: People here that depend on groups like ours are still in need of homes and food. Please consider allowing us to utilize the portion of your trip that was to be dedicated to this effort. We will build the houses and distribute the food that would have happened anyway. Thanks for considering this.
As you know, there is a mess here in Honduras. On June 28th, the situation became volitile as this small nation made the decision to remove their president Mel Zelaya. Mr Zelaya was doing a number of illegal things and both the Supreme Court and the National Congress approved of the ouster - 100%.
The world has not supported this change and there are factions within the country that continue to cause disturbances - some violent. The US State Department has recommended that US Citicizens not travel to Honduras during this crisis. This advisory continues through the 29th of July.
I would love to be able to tell all of you that none of this makes a difference and we need to move ahead with our July 20 mission. At this time, I just can't. We need to cancel the July 20 - August 2 mission to Honduras. The nation remains unstable, the chance of further problems here remain high, and if those happen, we could see Tegucigalpa and the airport shut down for a much longer period than we have already experienced. Additionally, I am not willing to risk your safety.
We are working with the airlines to determine how refunds, flight credits, etc will work. At this time we just don't know.
I know that some of you would love to say, I am coming any way. At this time, I would encourage you to wait and be patient.
We do have some fall and winter mission opportunities planned and we would gladly move you to some of those groups. Email Terri or me for details on those trips.
You cannot imagine my saddness in making this announcement. Our team is a big part of my life and I have waited as long as possible to make this decision. I am truly sorry that it is necessary.
Be a blessing to somebody today,
Marc Tindall
Ps: People here that depend on groups like ours are still in need of homes and food. Please consider allowing us to utilize the portion of your trip that was to be dedicated to this effort. We will build the houses and distribute the food that would have happened anyway. Thanks for considering this.
Tuesday, July 07, 2009
Letter To USA
Here is an open letter to the USA from the president of the Tegucigalpa Rotary Club
Everybody here knows what is going on (exceptCNN En Espaloñ,which I formally denounce on misreporting the story.Even their CNN En Español map of Honduras is offensive tous, they place Tegucigalpa in another part ofthe country, much like we placed Las Vegas,Nevada as it were in Washington,D.C.).You already know that is was not a military coup -they havebeen and are being applauded as heroes- but as was reported and also mentioned on Catracho News "El Amigo de la Patria", they had to make a delicate decision -which although not the best legal solution,was the correct one.
Does somebody monitor the MEDIA in the US? We denounce CNN En Español, misreporting on our PLIGHT by the likes of "JOURNALISTS" Krupskaia Alis and Glenda Umaña, to be intentionally misrepresenting our GOVERMENT and Constitutional authorities POSITIONS,damaging Honduran precious interests.
Are they FOR Chávez-Castro-Ortega-José Miguel Insulza-Migueld´Escoto B. from UN-Correa-Morales-C. Kirchner XXIstCentury socialism???
CNN En Español reports only show they want, taking our benefit of the doubt, much like the weak O.A.S.,which we had to denounce The Carta Democrática Interamericana on Friday July 3, before Insulza and the rest of the O.A.S. members -who did not review our side of the case-accused and suspended us for the "savagemilitary coup". It was not a coup,much less a miltiary coup, and it was not savage: Not a drop of blood was shed.
Also, the Courts reuquested the Military to assist, because Mel Zelaya had sorrounded himselhwith thugs for the CÃrculos Bolivarianos (from Venezuela) BODYGUARDS and SECURITY PERSONNEL ?? Why in the world woulda HONDURAN PRESIDENT BE SORROUNDED BY FOREIGN MILITARY OR SECURITY PERSONNEL SENT BY HUGO CHAVEZ???
So,all in all, the way things happened was for the best.
Extraordinary (Excellent) job by the brave, professional, non-deliberative honduran military... then they needed to make a decision... and they wanted to prevent bloodshed, so they -and this was also a difficult decision- selected the best option avaliable and promptly sent citizen José Manuel "Mel" Zelaya Rosales to another country (Costa Rica).
Mel had -apparently forced by his own illegal position, that he created by going against the law.. againts the CONSTITUTION he swore to uphold and respect, under God- ...even his main legal advisors, including former Supreme Court of Justice President advised nottogoon with his illegalENCUESTA orSRUVEY (which it was not!), Mel´s stupidity, since no one is above the law, forced him to present a signed Letter of Resignation (We can, for all purposes admit he signed it on his own accord, but there is room to consider, that pressured by the circumstances he had created -a trap crap- he was forced to sign it.That might be the case, or not. We have not seen or reviewed a copy of his Letter of Resignation, and I am not a government authority to confirm or deny this specific issue).
So now there is no CONSTITUTIONAL way to turn the page back to Sunday june 28, 2009, before 4:00 a.m. anymore.That is history. And Honduras has broken the paradigms in defense of democracy. WE will be an example for generations to come.This is the DAWN of the ALBA and XXIst. Centrury Socialism by force and interference and violation of the principle of selfdetermination!!!
So, yes, we are not happy this had to be done, but we are EXTREMELY proud to have saved and defended our DEMOCRACY and CONSTITUTION..
Has anybody taken a survey oh happiness levels right now in Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Bolivia, Ecuador, etc. BRAVE PEOPLE THERE have contacted us, sending messages and inviting us to go and assist them in getting their countries back!!! (We have our one little mess or "reyerta" here, and will will never surrender to the castrocommunist puppets,so that´s is why they call us "pitiyanquis", "oligarchs" and tell us -or spray paint or walls with "Death to the oligarchs".
The also in a very "organized"manner, throw, rocks, break windows, have hidden weapons -grenades included-, baseball bats, and spray paint messages where they refer to the CARDINAL Oscar Andrés RodrÃguez Maradiaga as "DOG". (God bless and protect our Cardinal and all of HONDURANS). We have plenty of pictures.
So we will not accept this -and the OAS condemned us without hearing us-, since we really, do not like that type of new Mel lies here. (Read the Catracho News)
Baron de Montesquieu lives in HONDURAS now...and would be proud, as would be our heroes Valle, Morazán, Cabañas and Lempira, whom we honored in a PEACEFUL manner, in order to promote PEACE, SOCIAL JUSTICE, RECONCILIATION and UNITY of the Honduran Family (total of 7.7 millions persons).
Has anybody mentioned to your US Authorities that U.S. businesses, like FRANCHISES such as Burger King, McDonalds, Chili´s, etc. have been damaged by the thugs infiltrated amongst the few thousand the Mel-Chávez (dictator-thug)-Castro (dictator)-CHE GUEVARA (democracy icon or legend?)- Ortega-Insulza-Morales-Correa-C. Kirchner-Fernando Lugo followers -which include the Bloque Popular and UD, and -as always- the TEACHERS (permanently on strike) and some labour organizations, and -if you know them- you know they do not need anything (or very little) to be "provoked!!!"
You can also follow me on Twitter at www.twitter.com/GValle1 .
We know that today Tuesday July7 in the US (Staples Center?) many thousands ofpersonas -millions nationwide and all over the world- will be mourning during Michael Jackson´s (RIP) burial ceremony, probably us from here as well (he was truly a genius icon singer-dancer), but we will continue our 24/7 fight for DEMOCRACY, until the last day of our lifes... even if that last day that is TODAY!
But we are always working for peace,in a non-violent, non-provoking way.
Later today TUESDAY, July 7 around 10:00 a.m. Tegucigalpa time we will HOLD -called by Unión CÃvica Democrática (UCD)- a MILLION PERSON PEACEFUL DEMONSTRATION ("Plantón") ALL OVER THE COUNTRY!!!
Please WATCH THE NEWS (BUT not the biased CNN En Español, which people here now refer to as Chávez-Castro News Network).
I enclose the final version of the CATRACHO NEWS, latest two numbers.
What can we do now? We must move forward, hold or move to a sooner date the 2009 General Elections,scheduled for Nov.29.
To now citizen Mel Zelaya we respectfully say: "Why don´t you stay there!" (in Nicaragua, Venezuela, etc.). That is the way it will most likey occur.
If he -stubborn as he is- chooses to come back, and he might (but not very likely), he will probably be apprehended by the authorities, face trial, and end in jail (99% probability).
Of course, the authorities have documented proof of the illegal acts-several of them like treason-and he has been charged. INTERPOL will now be looking for him in 187 countries or so.
We will gladly meet with your Honourable Senators or arranged the meetings with our constitutional authorites, so your Government can have information from both sides (Insulza should be fired or sanctioned, by not being reelected, for being anti-democratic. Why doesn´t Insulza or the OAS denounce or CONDEMN and suspend Venezuelas torturer-dicatator? Because of the PETRODOLLARS, which is what this is all about for Insulza and other countires).
Enclosed please find a word file with a drawing or "caricatura" of the Central American Map or new landscape being drawn up by Chávez-Castro-Insulza PERVERSE ALLIANCE. It´s not funny, because we know it´s TRUE, we received it from Nicaragua yesterday night! Scary would be a better word, but nothing scares me (us).
So everything we say and do, CNN En Español just lies about it. And, much like TeleSur, they do not give us equal or equitative coverage. How can we contribute to correct this problem with CNN en Español?
Regarding the DIALOGUE that we would like to have: To the O.A.S., our new government authorities -being totally respectful of national and international law-, mainly the Ministry of Foreign Relations (Chancellor Enrique Ortez ColÃndres and Under-Secretary Martha Lorena Alvarado de Casco) confirmed, vÃa a National Radio and TV Message, to them that we would meet with 2nd. level personnel (since we know Insulza would notand will not LISTEN toour side of the story at all, because he is going for his OAS Secretary General reelection -he needs Chávez influence (A.K..A. Petrodollars to obtain the votes needed- and you know how he -a former presidential socialist candidate from Chile- thinks, so we do not like or trusts Insulza at all or anymore). And that is the truth.
It would be nice to have CNN En Español investigated. The joke today is that CNN En Español just confirmed Bernard Madoff had not PLEAD GUILTY,but now CNN has about US$5 billion more in the bank. (Or so it goes)
We do not want interventions from José Miguel Insulza, that is why on FRIDAY JULY 3, 2009 our Government, presided by our constitutional President Roberto Micheletti Bain DENOUNCED the OAS´ Carta Democrática Interamericana. So we left before they were going to KICK US OUT (suspension). UNCHARTERED TERRITORY indeed!
We might just be a small nation in the complicated world of the big political chess game, but we are working very hard to improve our democracy.
We are also very brave and despite promoting Non-Violence, we will NEVER GIVE UP and accept Castrocommunism, H. Chávez Socialism, Daniel Ortega Inc. Communism, etc.
And we condemn the death of a young pro-Zelaya protester, apparently by a rock thrown by his fellow protesters -when they were running scrambling from the tear gas- or a bullet from the military (the first option is very possible. The doctors from the morgue will determine exact cause of death). So that´s how things were on Sunday. Everything peaceful Monday. 98% of the population just want to -and need to- go on in peace, in this democracy.
If you would have all seen some of the videos of former President Zelaya (from Thursday June 25 at night to around 2:00 a.m.on Friday June 26, 2009), where according to a professional Dr., now citizen Zelaya appeared to be on drugs (actually this doctor told us it was COCAINE, but -of course-, no one did a drug test). This would have been enough proof that he was on something.
May Gos bless Honduras!
Best regards and YIR,
GValle
Honduran Citizen, Patriot
Tegucigalpa, M.D.C., Honduras
Everybody here knows what is going on (exceptCNN En Espaloñ,which I formally denounce on misreporting the story.Even their CNN En Español map of Honduras is offensive tous, they place Tegucigalpa in another part ofthe country, much like we placed Las Vegas,Nevada as it were in Washington,D.C.).You already know that is was not a military coup -they havebeen and are being applauded as heroes- but as was reported and also mentioned on Catracho News "El Amigo de la Patria", they had to make a delicate decision -which although not the best legal solution,was the correct one.
Does somebody monitor the MEDIA in the US? We denounce CNN En Español, misreporting on our PLIGHT by the likes of "JOURNALISTS" Krupskaia Alis and Glenda Umaña, to be intentionally misrepresenting our GOVERMENT and Constitutional authorities POSITIONS,damaging Honduran precious interests.
Are they FOR Chávez-Castro-Ortega-José Miguel Insulza-Migueld´Escoto B. from UN-Correa-Morales-C. Kirchner XXIstCentury socialism???
CNN En Español reports only show they want, taking our benefit of the doubt, much like the weak O.A.S.,which we had to denounce The Carta Democrática Interamericana on Friday July 3, before Insulza and the rest of the O.A.S. members -who did not review our side of the case-accused and suspended us for the "savagemilitary coup". It was not a coup,much less a miltiary coup, and it was not savage: Not a drop of blood was shed.
Also, the Courts reuquested the Military to assist, because Mel Zelaya had sorrounded himselhwith thugs for the CÃrculos Bolivarianos (from Venezuela) BODYGUARDS and SECURITY PERSONNEL ?? Why in the world woulda HONDURAN PRESIDENT BE SORROUNDED BY FOREIGN MILITARY OR SECURITY PERSONNEL SENT BY HUGO CHAVEZ???
So,all in all, the way things happened was for the best.
Extraordinary (Excellent) job by the brave, professional, non-deliberative honduran military... then they needed to make a decision... and they wanted to prevent bloodshed, so they -and this was also a difficult decision- selected the best option avaliable and promptly sent citizen José Manuel "Mel" Zelaya Rosales to another country (Costa Rica).
Mel had -apparently forced by his own illegal position, that he created by going against the law.. againts the CONSTITUTION he swore to uphold and respect, under God- ...even his main legal advisors, including former Supreme Court of Justice President advised nottogoon with his illegalENCUESTA orSRUVEY (which it was not!), Mel´s stupidity, since no one is above the law, forced him to present a signed Letter of Resignation (We can, for all purposes admit he signed it on his own accord, but there is room to consider, that pressured by the circumstances he had created -a trap crap- he was forced to sign it.That might be the case, or not. We have not seen or reviewed a copy of his Letter of Resignation, and I am not a government authority to confirm or deny this specific issue).
So now there is no CONSTITUTIONAL way to turn the page back to Sunday june 28, 2009, before 4:00 a.m. anymore.That is history. And Honduras has broken the paradigms in defense of democracy. WE will be an example for generations to come.This is the DAWN of the ALBA and XXIst. Centrury Socialism by force and interference and violation of the principle of selfdetermination!!!
So, yes, we are not happy this had to be done, but we are EXTREMELY proud to have saved and defended our DEMOCRACY and CONSTITUTION..
Has anybody taken a survey oh happiness levels right now in Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Bolivia, Ecuador, etc. BRAVE PEOPLE THERE have contacted us, sending messages and inviting us to go and assist them in getting their countries back!!! (We have our one little mess or "reyerta" here, and will will never surrender to the castrocommunist puppets,so that´s is why they call us "pitiyanquis", "oligarchs" and tell us -or spray paint or walls with "Death to the oligarchs".
The also in a very "organized"manner, throw, rocks, break windows, have hidden weapons -grenades included-, baseball bats, and spray paint messages where they refer to the CARDINAL Oscar Andrés RodrÃguez Maradiaga as "DOG". (God bless and protect our Cardinal and all of HONDURANS). We have plenty of pictures.
So we will not accept this -and the OAS condemned us without hearing us-, since we really, do not like that type of new Mel lies here. (Read the Catracho News)
Baron de Montesquieu lives in HONDURAS now...and would be proud, as would be our heroes Valle, Morazán, Cabañas and Lempira, whom we honored in a PEACEFUL manner, in order to promote PEACE, SOCIAL JUSTICE, RECONCILIATION and UNITY of the Honduran Family (total of 7.7 millions persons).
Has anybody mentioned to your US Authorities that U.S. businesses, like FRANCHISES such as Burger King, McDonalds, Chili´s, etc. have been damaged by the thugs infiltrated amongst the few thousand the Mel-Chávez (dictator-thug)-Castro (dictator)-CHE GUEVARA (democracy icon or legend?)- Ortega-Insulza-Morales-Correa-C. Kirchner-Fernando Lugo followers -which include the Bloque Popular and UD, and -as always- the TEACHERS (permanently on strike) and some labour organizations, and -if you know them- you know they do not need anything (or very little) to be "provoked!!!"
You can also follow me on Twitter at www.twitter.com/GValle1 .
We know that today Tuesday July7 in the US (Staples Center?) many thousands ofpersonas -millions nationwide and all over the world- will be mourning during Michael Jackson´s (RIP) burial ceremony, probably us from here as well (he was truly a genius icon singer-dancer), but we will continue our 24/7 fight for DEMOCRACY, until the last day of our lifes... even if that last day that is TODAY!
But we are always working for peace,in a non-violent, non-provoking way.
Later today TUESDAY, July 7 around 10:00 a.m. Tegucigalpa time we will HOLD -called by Unión CÃvica Democrática (UCD)- a MILLION PERSON PEACEFUL DEMONSTRATION ("Plantón") ALL OVER THE COUNTRY!!!
Please WATCH THE NEWS (BUT not the biased CNN En Español, which people here now refer to as Chávez-Castro News Network).
I enclose the final version of the CATRACHO NEWS, latest two numbers.
What can we do now? We must move forward, hold or move to a sooner date the 2009 General Elections,scheduled for Nov.29.
To now citizen Mel Zelaya we respectfully say: "Why don´t you stay there!" (in Nicaragua, Venezuela, etc.). That is the way it will most likey occur.
If he -stubborn as he is- chooses to come back, and he might (but not very likely), he will probably be apprehended by the authorities, face trial, and end in jail (99% probability).
Of course, the authorities have documented proof of the illegal acts-several of them like treason-and he has been charged. INTERPOL will now be looking for him in 187 countries or so.
We will gladly meet with your Honourable Senators or arranged the meetings with our constitutional authorites, so your Government can have information from both sides (Insulza should be fired or sanctioned, by not being reelected, for being anti-democratic. Why doesn´t Insulza or the OAS denounce or CONDEMN and suspend Venezuelas torturer-dicatator? Because of the PETRODOLLARS, which is what this is all about for Insulza and other countires).
Enclosed please find a word file with a drawing or "caricatura" of the Central American Map or new landscape being drawn up by Chávez-Castro-Insulza PERVERSE ALLIANCE. It´s not funny, because we know it´s TRUE, we received it from Nicaragua yesterday night! Scary would be a better word, but nothing scares me (us).
So everything we say and do, CNN En Español just lies about it. And, much like TeleSur, they do not give us equal or equitative coverage. How can we contribute to correct this problem with CNN en Español?
Regarding the DIALOGUE that we would like to have: To the O.A.S., our new government authorities -being totally respectful of national and international law-, mainly the Ministry of Foreign Relations (Chancellor Enrique Ortez ColÃndres and Under-Secretary Martha Lorena Alvarado de Casco) confirmed, vÃa a National Radio and TV Message, to them that we would meet with 2nd. level personnel (since we know Insulza would notand will not LISTEN toour side of the story at all, because he is going for his OAS Secretary General reelection -he needs Chávez influence (A.K..A. Petrodollars to obtain the votes needed- and you know how he -a former presidential socialist candidate from Chile- thinks, so we do not like or trusts Insulza at all or anymore). And that is the truth.
It would be nice to have CNN En Español investigated. The joke today is that CNN En Español just confirmed Bernard Madoff had not PLEAD GUILTY,but now CNN has about US$5 billion more in the bank. (Or so it goes)
We do not want interventions from José Miguel Insulza, that is why on FRIDAY JULY 3, 2009 our Government, presided by our constitutional President Roberto Micheletti Bain DENOUNCED the OAS´ Carta Democrática Interamericana. So we left before they were going to KICK US OUT (suspension). UNCHARTERED TERRITORY indeed!
We might just be a small nation in the complicated world of the big political chess game, but we are working very hard to improve our democracy.
We are also very brave and despite promoting Non-Violence, we will NEVER GIVE UP and accept Castrocommunism, H. Chávez Socialism, Daniel Ortega Inc. Communism, etc.
And we condemn the death of a young pro-Zelaya protester, apparently by a rock thrown by his fellow protesters -when they were running scrambling from the tear gas- or a bullet from the military (the first option is very possible. The doctors from the morgue will determine exact cause of death). So that´s how things were on Sunday. Everything peaceful Monday. 98% of the population just want to -and need to- go on in peace, in this democracy.
If you would have all seen some of the videos of former President Zelaya (from Thursday June 25 at night to around 2:00 a.m.on Friday June 26, 2009), where according to a professional Dr., now citizen Zelaya appeared to be on drugs (actually this doctor told us it was COCAINE, but -of course-, no one did a drug test). This would have been enough proof that he was on something.
May Gos bless Honduras!
Best regards and YIR,
GValle
Honduran Citizen, Patriot
Tegucigalpa, M.D.C., Honduras
Monday, July 06, 2009
WSJ Today July 6,2009
Hundreds of emails from Hondurans flooded my in-box last week after I reported on the military's arrest of President Manuel Zelaya, as ordered by the Supreme Court, and his subsequent banishment from the country.
Mr. Zelaya's violations of the rule of law in recent months were numerous. But the tipping point came 10 days ago, when he led a violent mob that stormed a military base to seize and distribute Venezuelan-printed ballots for an illegal referendum.
All but a handful of my letters pleaded for international understanding of the threat to the constitutional democracy that Mr. Zelaya presented. One phrase occurred again and again: "Please pray for us."
Associated Press
Raul Castro, left, Manuel Zelaya, center, and Hugo Chavez in Managua, Nicaragua, June 29.
Hondurans have good cause for calling on divine intervention: Reason has gone AWOL in places like Turtle Bay and Foggy Bottom. Ruling the debate on Mr. Zelaya's behavior is Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chávez, who is now the reigning international authority on "democracy."
Mr. Chávez is demanding that Mr. Zelaya be reinstated and is even threatening to overthrow the new Honduran president, Roberto Micheletti. He's leading the charge from the Organization of American States (OAS). The United Nations and the Obama administration are falling in line.
Is this insane? You bet. We have fallen through the looking glass and it's time to review how hemispheric relations came to such a sad state.
The story begins in 2004, when Mr. Chávez was still an aspiring despot and the U.S. pursued a policy of appeasement toward him. Not surprisingly, that only heightened his appetite for power.
Mr. Chávez had already rewritten the Venezuelan Constitution, taken over the judiciary and the national electoral council (CNE), militarized the government, and staked out an aggressive, anti-American foreign policy promising to spread his revolution around the hemisphere.
The Americas in the News
Get the latest information in Spanish from The Wall Street Journal's Americas page.
Many Venezuelans were alarmed, and the opposition had labored to collect signatures for a presidential recall referendum permitted under the constitution. As voting day drew near, Mr. Chávez behaved as if he knew his days were numbered. The European Union refused to send an observer team, citing lack of transparency. The OAS did send observers, and in the months and weeks ahead of the vote mission chief Fernando Jaramillo complained bitterly about the state's intimidation tactics against the population. Mr. Chávez gave OAS Secretary General César Gaviria an ultimatum: Either get Mr. Jaramillo out of the country or the referendum would be quashed. Mr. Chávez was appeased. Mr. Jaramillo was withdrawn.
The Carter Center was also invited to "observe," and former President Jimmy Carter was welcomed warmly by Mr. Chávez upon his arrival in Venezuela.
A key problem, beyond the corrupted voter rolls and government intimidation, was that Mr. Chávez did not allow an audit of his electronic voting machines. Exit polls showed him losing the vote decisively. But in the middle of the night, the minority members of the CNE were kicked out of the election command center. Shortly thereafter, Mr. Chávez claimed victory. There was never a credible audit of the paper ballots against the tallies in the voting machines.
Mr. Carter's approval notwithstanding, the proper U.S. and OAS response was obvious: The process had been shrouded in state secrets and therefore it was impossible to endorse or reject the results. Venezuelan patriots begged for help from the outside world. Instead, the U.S. assistant secretary of state for the Western Hemisphere, Roger Noriega, and the OAS blessed the charade.
There was never any explanation for the blind endorsement, but behind the scenes there were claims that Mr. Chávez threatened to call his militia to the streets and spill blood. The oil fields were to be burned. To this day, the opposition contends that the U.S. and Mr. Gaviria made a cold calculation that caving in to Mr. Chávez would avoid violence.
Predictably, Washington's endorsement of the flawed electoral process was a green light. Mr. Chávez grew more aggressive, emboldened by his "legitimate" status. He set about using his oil money to destabilize the Bolivian and Ecuadorean democracies and to help Nicaragua's Daniel Ortega and Argentina's Cristina Kirchner get elected. Soviet-backed Fidel Castro was able to intimidate his neighbors in the 1960s and '70s, and Mr. Chávez has done the same thing in the new millennium. This has given him vast power at the OAS.
Hondurans had the courage to push back. Now Chávez-supported agitators are trying to stir up violence. Yesterday afternoon airline service was suspended in Tegucigalpa when Mr. Zelaya tried to return to the country and his plane was not permitted to land. There were reports of violence between his backers and troops.
This is a moment when the U.S. ought to be on the side of the rule of law, which the Honduran court and Congress upheld. If Washington does not reverse course, it will be one more act of appeasement toward an ambitious and increasingly dangerous dictator.
Write to O'Grady@wsj.com
Mr. Zelaya's violations of the rule of law in recent months were numerous. But the tipping point came 10 days ago, when he led a violent mob that stormed a military base to seize and distribute Venezuelan-printed ballots for an illegal referendum.
All but a handful of my letters pleaded for international understanding of the threat to the constitutional democracy that Mr. Zelaya presented. One phrase occurred again and again: "Please pray for us."
Associated Press
Raul Castro, left, Manuel Zelaya, center, and Hugo Chavez in Managua, Nicaragua, June 29.
Hondurans have good cause for calling on divine intervention: Reason has gone AWOL in places like Turtle Bay and Foggy Bottom. Ruling the debate on Mr. Zelaya's behavior is Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chávez, who is now the reigning international authority on "democracy."
Mr. Chávez is demanding that Mr. Zelaya be reinstated and is even threatening to overthrow the new Honduran president, Roberto Micheletti. He's leading the charge from the Organization of American States (OAS). The United Nations and the Obama administration are falling in line.
Is this insane? You bet. We have fallen through the looking glass and it's time to review how hemispheric relations came to such a sad state.
The story begins in 2004, when Mr. Chávez was still an aspiring despot and the U.S. pursued a policy of appeasement toward him. Not surprisingly, that only heightened his appetite for power.
Mr. Chávez had already rewritten the Venezuelan Constitution, taken over the judiciary and the national electoral council (CNE), militarized the government, and staked out an aggressive, anti-American foreign policy promising to spread his revolution around the hemisphere.
The Americas in the News
Get the latest information in Spanish from The Wall Street Journal's Americas page.
Many Venezuelans were alarmed, and the opposition had labored to collect signatures for a presidential recall referendum permitted under the constitution. As voting day drew near, Mr. Chávez behaved as if he knew his days were numbered. The European Union refused to send an observer team, citing lack of transparency. The OAS did send observers, and in the months and weeks ahead of the vote mission chief Fernando Jaramillo complained bitterly about the state's intimidation tactics against the population. Mr. Chávez gave OAS Secretary General César Gaviria an ultimatum: Either get Mr. Jaramillo out of the country or the referendum would be quashed. Mr. Chávez was appeased. Mr. Jaramillo was withdrawn.
The Carter Center was also invited to "observe," and former President Jimmy Carter was welcomed warmly by Mr. Chávez upon his arrival in Venezuela.
A key problem, beyond the corrupted voter rolls and government intimidation, was that Mr. Chávez did not allow an audit of his electronic voting machines. Exit polls showed him losing the vote decisively. But in the middle of the night, the minority members of the CNE were kicked out of the election command center. Shortly thereafter, Mr. Chávez claimed victory. There was never a credible audit of the paper ballots against the tallies in the voting machines.
Mr. Carter's approval notwithstanding, the proper U.S. and OAS response was obvious: The process had been shrouded in state secrets and therefore it was impossible to endorse or reject the results. Venezuelan patriots begged for help from the outside world. Instead, the U.S. assistant secretary of state for the Western Hemisphere, Roger Noriega, and the OAS blessed the charade.
There was never any explanation for the blind endorsement, but behind the scenes there were claims that Mr. Chávez threatened to call his militia to the streets and spill blood. The oil fields were to be burned. To this day, the opposition contends that the U.S. and Mr. Gaviria made a cold calculation that caving in to Mr. Chávez would avoid violence.
Predictably, Washington's endorsement of the flawed electoral process was a green light. Mr. Chávez grew more aggressive, emboldened by his "legitimate" status. He set about using his oil money to destabilize the Bolivian and Ecuadorean democracies and to help Nicaragua's Daniel Ortega and Argentina's Cristina Kirchner get elected. Soviet-backed Fidel Castro was able to intimidate his neighbors in the 1960s and '70s, and Mr. Chávez has done the same thing in the new millennium. This has given him vast power at the OAS.
Hondurans had the courage to push back. Now Chávez-supported agitators are trying to stir up violence. Yesterday afternoon airline service was suspended in Tegucigalpa when Mr. Zelaya tried to return to the country and his plane was not permitted to land. There were reports of violence between his backers and troops.
This is a moment when the U.S. ought to be on the side of the rule of law, which the Honduran court and Congress upheld. If Washington does not reverse course, it will be one more act of appeasement toward an ambitious and increasingly dangerous dictator.
Write to O'Grady@wsj.com
Monday, June 22, 2009
2009 Adventures
Thanksgiving week we will be hosting an amazing building project.
The Plan - let's build 30 houses in 5 or 6 days, spend Thanksgiving day in a feast, and show our thanks by giving! It's simple, make your flight reservations, start asking everyone you know to help us build houses, and come on down.
December 9th will be the Jesus Banquet at the dump. We are going to have a sit down meal for everybody that spends their days in the dump. We will follow lunch with a Christmas party for the people there too.
Any and everyone is invited to come and be a part of either or both of these events.
Be a blessing to somebody today.
Marc
The Plan - let's build 30 houses in 5 or 6 days, spend Thanksgiving day in a feast, and show our thanks by giving! It's simple, make your flight reservations, start asking everyone you know to help us build houses, and come on down.
December 9th will be the Jesus Banquet at the dump. We are going to have a sit down meal for everybody that spends their days in the dump. We will follow lunch with a Christmas party for the people there too.
Any and everyone is invited to come and be a part of either or both of these events.
Be a blessing to somebody today.
Marc
Saturday, June 20, 2009
Finally
When we ship a container from the USA to here - it usually takes about 10 to 14 days from shipment to our warehouse here in Tegucigalpa. On May 9th we shipped a container of rice meals from Minneapolis to here - expecting that the time would be a bit more. The load went through the Great Lakes and Erie Canal - to NYC and then to Puerto Cortez. It arrived in the country on June 3 and we did everything to make sure that the inspections and paperwork would allow the shipment to be released quickly. Bad paper work means that your shipment doesn't get released and demurage charges then add up. Well, our good intentions didn't make the system work very fast and instead of 3 or 4 days in port, it took 17 days. Finally the container shipped out of Puerto Cortez yesterday and was to arrive at my warehouse on Monday or Tuesday. Got a call at 11:45 this morning and surprise, the truck was rolling and would be at the bodega at 1:00. Quickly changed plans and FINALLY, soemthing like 300,000 servings of a wonderful rice and vegetable meal have been unloaded in the warehouse. I can't wait to see the kids that will benefit from this food.
Be a blessing to somebody today!
Marc
Be a blessing to somebody today!
Marc
Monday, June 01, 2009
May 2009
May began in Texas for me. I was able to spend about a week in the Texas Panhandle visiting with my parents and speaking in 3 different locations.
On May the 5th, an amazing event took place. Trey Morgan, the minister of the Childress, TX Church of Christ had heard about our work in the Tegucigalpa city dump. Trey writes a very popular blog and for several weeks he had been announcing that May 5 was going to be "dump day". The goal was to raise funds to help us with food purchases for the weekly feeding program. Nobody really knew just how much would be raised and we were all amazed that the end of the day total was almost $11,500. Most of the pledges have been sent and the total is very close to the amount that was pledged.
I returned on the 8th of May and quickly began to prepare for the coming TORCH Mission season. My first group of the year arrived on May the 20th. It was a small first time group from Middle Tennessee State University. There is a CoC student center there and in late 2008 they decided that they wanted to come to Honduras. We were blessed to have this team and they worked very hard while they were here (20th to the 31st). We built 3 houses, distributed food to 150 families, helped complete a block house and added walls to another house, we fed the people at the dump - the first home cooked hot meal -, we visited the Santa Katerina mission area, Hospital Escuela, the special needs home, and Casa de Esperanza.
The dump fund raiser was instrumental in allowing us to change the menu and the first home prepared hot meal was a rousing success.
While in the Santa Katerina area, I was able to interview a young family man that has experience in preaching and has a desire to work in the church plant project. I secured a list of references from him and will be making contact with them to help make a decision. The ground in Santa Katerina is prepared for construction and the community is more than ready to begin. I plan to begin making block and supply purchases within 2 weeks. We hope to begin feeding and teaching in July. There is a container on the water with food for the center. It should arrive in Tegucigalpa within days and there are more than 271,000 rice/vegetable meals that are dedicated to feeding the children of Santa Katerina.
Casa de Esperanza is doing very well and we are preparing to add children to our new house. This will happen in the month of June. Cash flow here is a bit slow so please pray that people that have made pledges to take care of our kids are able to continue to do so.
June and July are very very busy months. I will be helping with several mission teams in June and from June 28 to August 9 will be leading more than 250 people as they come here to work and minister. Please pray for the work this summer.
Be a blessing to somebody today!
Marc L Tindall
On May the 5th, an amazing event took place. Trey Morgan, the minister of the Childress, TX Church of Christ had heard about our work in the Tegucigalpa city dump. Trey writes a very popular blog and for several weeks he had been announcing that May 5 was going to be "dump day". The goal was to raise funds to help us with food purchases for the weekly feeding program. Nobody really knew just how much would be raised and we were all amazed that the end of the day total was almost $11,500. Most of the pledges have been sent and the total is very close to the amount that was pledged.
I returned on the 8th of May and quickly began to prepare for the coming TORCH Mission season. My first group of the year arrived on May the 20th. It was a small first time group from Middle Tennessee State University. There is a CoC student center there and in late 2008 they decided that they wanted to come to Honduras. We were blessed to have this team and they worked very hard while they were here (20th to the 31st). We built 3 houses, distributed food to 150 families, helped complete a block house and added walls to another house, we fed the people at the dump - the first home cooked hot meal -, we visited the Santa Katerina mission area, Hospital Escuela, the special needs home, and Casa de Esperanza.
The dump fund raiser was instrumental in allowing us to change the menu and the first home prepared hot meal was a rousing success.
While in the Santa Katerina area, I was able to interview a young family man that has experience in preaching and has a desire to work in the church plant project. I secured a list of references from him and will be making contact with them to help make a decision. The ground in Santa Katerina is prepared for construction and the community is more than ready to begin. I plan to begin making block and supply purchases within 2 weeks. We hope to begin feeding and teaching in July. There is a container on the water with food for the center. It should arrive in Tegucigalpa within days and there are more than 271,000 rice/vegetable meals that are dedicated to feeding the children of Santa Katerina.
Casa de Esperanza is doing very well and we are preparing to add children to our new house. This will happen in the month of June. Cash flow here is a bit slow so please pray that people that have made pledges to take care of our kids are able to continue to do so.
June and July are very very busy months. I will be helping with several mission teams in June and from June 28 to August 9 will be leading more than 250 people as they come here to work and minister. Please pray for the work this summer.
Be a blessing to somebody today!
Marc L Tindall
Sunday, May 31, 2009
From the Garden to the Dump!
Last month we had friends here from Atlanta. We spent one day at the dump in Tegucigalpa. The dump has a big effect on almost everybody that we take with us and the Atlanta group was no exception. One of the group - Sherri Hubright was so touched that she wanted to write about the experience. She submitted her writtings to New Wineskins Magazine and it was accepted for the May/June 2009 edition. You can read it online at this link. http://wineskins.org/filter.asp?SID=2&fi_key=219&co_key=1820
Please take the time to share this with others.
Be a blessing to somebody today!
Marc L Tindall
Please take the time to share this with others.
Be a blessing to somebody today!
Marc L Tindall
Thursday, May 14, 2009
Lots of confusion!
I think that there is a lot of confusion about a lot of things - especially in things that people have never personally experienced and have only heard about. I may actually be confusing you right now. Here are some of the things that I'm talking about -
I think there is a lot of confusion about the poor - for example, I grew up thinking - and for a long time as an adult, had the thought that people that were poor were mostly poor by their own choice. I thought that anybody with a little initiative and work ethic could change their situation and could "choose to no longer be poor". Well, I was completly wrong (see Terri, I can say I was wrong). Here in Honduras - where the poor are also the hungry, the children are set up for a lifetime of being poor because the families aren't able to provide proper nutrition and without proper nutrition, the kids brains are permanently damaged. There are many many folks that grow up without the capacity to learn. Without the capacity to learn, there is little hope to break the cycle of poverty. That doesn't mean that they are unable to work, it just means that the work won't be the sort that will ever move them to the next level. Food and nutrition is one of the keys to breaking the cycle. We pray that the feeding center in Santa Katerina will play a role in helping to break this cycle.
Another confusing thing is the thought that you cannot be happy unless you have lots of stuff. That is a lie and I am pretty sure that Jesus tried to drive this point home with the "rich young ruler". Some of the most happy, kind, and generous people I have ever met are those with nothing. There are many folks that have nothing that would gladly give up their last bit of food to help a neighbor. I have seen that happen with my own eyes. I have experienced this in a very personal way - when a man offered me his only food - just because he though I was hungry.
Many people are confused about some of the business that use workers that are from poor nations. Here most of these businesses are in the clothing and textile business. The media in the states call them "sweat shops". Here - they are considered great jobs. I have a friend that owns several of the companies that provide jobs to the women that grew up with poor nutrition and would have a difficult time finding work - other than that of a domestic worker. My friend provides transportation, medical care, help with school for the children of the workers, and many other benefits. The work isn't easy but, it feeds families and helps the workers that are 90% single moms. Remember, in Honduras, the average age that young women begin to have babies is 15. Don't believe everything you hear about "sweat shops".
Sometimes there is confusion about the reasons we want to help people. It is really a simple proposition - we just want to show people a little bit of the unconditional love that Jesus showed us.
Be a blessing to somebody today!
Marc
I think there is a lot of confusion about the poor - for example, I grew up thinking - and for a long time as an adult, had the thought that people that were poor were mostly poor by their own choice. I thought that anybody with a little initiative and work ethic could change their situation and could "choose to no longer be poor". Well, I was completly wrong (see Terri, I can say I was wrong). Here in Honduras - where the poor are also the hungry, the children are set up for a lifetime of being poor because the families aren't able to provide proper nutrition and without proper nutrition, the kids brains are permanently damaged. There are many many folks that grow up without the capacity to learn. Without the capacity to learn, there is little hope to break the cycle of poverty. That doesn't mean that they are unable to work, it just means that the work won't be the sort that will ever move them to the next level. Food and nutrition is one of the keys to breaking the cycle. We pray that the feeding center in Santa Katerina will play a role in helping to break this cycle.
Another confusing thing is the thought that you cannot be happy unless you have lots of stuff. That is a lie and I am pretty sure that Jesus tried to drive this point home with the "rich young ruler". Some of the most happy, kind, and generous people I have ever met are those with nothing. There are many folks that have nothing that would gladly give up their last bit of food to help a neighbor. I have seen that happen with my own eyes. I have experienced this in a very personal way - when a man offered me his only food - just because he though I was hungry.
Many people are confused about some of the business that use workers that are from poor nations. Here most of these businesses are in the clothing and textile business. The media in the states call them "sweat shops". Here - they are considered great jobs. I have a friend that owns several of the companies that provide jobs to the women that grew up with poor nutrition and would have a difficult time finding work - other than that of a domestic worker. My friend provides transportation, medical care, help with school for the children of the workers, and many other benefits. The work isn't easy but, it feeds families and helps the workers that are 90% single moms. Remember, in Honduras, the average age that young women begin to have babies is 15. Don't believe everything you hear about "sweat shops".
Sometimes there is confusion about the reasons we want to help people. It is really a simple proposition - we just want to show people a little bit of the unconditional love that Jesus showed us.
Be a blessing to somebody today!
Marc
Thursday, May 07, 2009
$$$$$$$$$11,500.00$$$$$$$$$$$$$
Everybody thought that the top top top of the Trey Morgan drive for feeding people at the dump would be maybe $7500. And that was a big maybe.
WRONG
As of this morning -
$11500.00
ELEVEN THOUSAND FIVE HUNDRED DOLLARS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Be a blessing to somebody today!
Marc
WRONG
As of this morning -
$11500.00
ELEVEN THOUSAND FIVE HUNDRED DOLLARS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Be a blessing to somebody today!
Marc
Tuesday, May 05, 2009
MAY 5 For The DUMP!
I met a guy last year that travels the world doing nothing except helping people with cleft lips and pallets. In the USA my friend could make close to $500,000 a year doing the same type of medical work - instead, he chooses to go to some of the poorest places in the world to work for free. Every time he does a surgery, he asks the family this question "Why do you think I do this?". Most of the time, the people answer - because you want to do good. He tells them that that is only part of the reason. He tells them "Jesus loves me so much that there isn't anything that I can ever do to make him love me more - nothing! I help people so that I can show them just a little bit of the love that Jesus has shown me."Today, you too can show just a little bit of the love that Jesus has shown you. How? You can do this by sharing a little of what you have with people that have literally NOTHING.
Every Wednesday for more than a year we have been feeding people in the Tegucigalpa Dump. There are more than 300 people there every day and they are all hungry. All of them.
We have a friend in Texas that is leading a drive today May 5th, 2009. His name is Trey Morgan and he is working to help us fund the purchase of food for the work at the dump.
Today, there is already one person that has agreed to match up to $2500 every dollar raised over the first $2500. That means that if we are able to raise $5000, the total will actually become $7500.
You can join the fund raising drive at www.treymorgan.net
Be a blessing to somebody today!
Marc Tindall
Saturday, May 02, 2009
Planning
We are planning a couple of events for the end of 2009. The first will be during Thanksgiving week.
We want to start planning earlier in 2009 for a way for everyone that can to spend Thanksgiving in Honduras. We can easily sleep 11 or more in our house and we hope to fill it up with people that want to come and build houses during Thanksgiving week 2009. We tried this in 2008 and had a few takers but, we really didn't start the planning until October. Hopefully bu starting the planning in May, we can fill up the house and build 10 or more houses. To make this easy and to help everyone that comes to stay busy building, we are inviting everyone that comes to be our guests. All we ask is that you buy your airline ticket and your mission insurance (about $1.50 t0 2.00 per day depending on your age). We also ask that everyone that comes help us raise funds for building houses. We will take care of everything else including an amazing Thanksgiving Feast. If we fill up the house, we will add more beds. Make your plans and let us know.
In December we are planning Christmas at the Dump. There are friends at Trace Crossing Church in that are planning to return with gifts for everyone - especially the children. We want to make the day extra special so, our plan is to have some type of special meal for everyone that day. Wouldn't it be amazing to have some sort of "sit down" meal where we could serve a banquet to people that never expected to be invited to a banquet? That is the vision. I will nail down a date for this within the coming weeks but, wanted to let you know to make plans for the most amazing Christmas party that you can imagine.
Be a blessing to somebody today,
Marc
We want to start planning earlier in 2009 for a way for everyone that can to spend Thanksgiving in Honduras. We can easily sleep 11 or more in our house and we hope to fill it up with people that want to come and build houses during Thanksgiving week 2009. We tried this in 2008 and had a few takers but, we really didn't start the planning until October. Hopefully bu starting the planning in May, we can fill up the house and build 10 or more houses. To make this easy and to help everyone that comes to stay busy building, we are inviting everyone that comes to be our guests. All we ask is that you buy your airline ticket and your mission insurance (about $1.50 t0 2.00 per day depending on your age). We also ask that everyone that comes help us raise funds for building houses. We will take care of everything else including an amazing Thanksgiving Feast. If we fill up the house, we will add more beds. Make your plans and let us know.
In December we are planning Christmas at the Dump. There are friends at Trace Crossing Church in that are planning to return with gifts for everyone - especially the children. We want to make the day extra special so, our plan is to have some type of special meal for everyone that day. Wouldn't it be amazing to have some sort of "sit down" meal where we could serve a banquet to people that never expected to be invited to a banquet? That is the vision. I will nail down a date for this within the coming weeks but, wanted to let you know to make plans for the most amazing Christmas party that you can imagine.
Be a blessing to somebody today,
Marc
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Last Hope
The Last Hope project was started by the youth group at the Campus Church of Christ in Atlanta. The project was idea that was born because of last years mission to Honduras and a visit to the dump in Tegucigalpa. So far, the project has helped feed people in the dump for a sizable portion of the past year. After another trip to Honduras in early April, the Campus youth have renewed their comittment to being a part of this ministry. As part of their effort, they have designed a T-Shirt that I want to make available to anyone that would like to show others that they are supporting the feeding of more than 300 people every week.
Here is a photo of the T-Shirt - worn by Liz and Jenny - my little sisters from Atlanta.
You can get yours for $25 with 100% of the proceeds going to feed hungry people. How great is that!
If you want one send me an email and we can get the ball rolling - marclt2003@yahoo.com
Be a blessing to somebody today!
Here is a photo of the T-Shirt - worn by Liz and Jenny - my little sisters from Atlanta.
You can get yours for $25 with 100% of the proceeds going to feed hungry people. How great is that!
If you want one send me an email and we can get the ball rolling - marclt2003@yahoo.com
Be a blessing to somebody today!
Thursday, April 23, 2009
Food Update
The food will be loaded and shipped the 5th of May.
A friend from Iowa sent me an email yesterday letting me know that she and her husband will be paying the shipping invoice for the 271,000 meals that will be used to feed hungry kids in Honduras.
Awesome! That is the best word that I can think of to describe our Awesome God..... and it doesn't come close to a description of Him.
I promise to post photos of the load when it gets here.
Be a blessing to somebody today.
Marc
A friend from Iowa sent me an email yesterday letting me know that she and her husband will be paying the shipping invoice for the 271,000 meals that will be used to feed hungry kids in Honduras.
Awesome! That is the best word that I can think of to describe our Awesome God..... and it doesn't come close to a description of Him.
I promise to post photos of the load when it gets here.
Be a blessing to somebody today.
Marc
Thursday, April 16, 2009
271,000 Two hundred seventy-one thousand!
Had a call this morning.
We have been praying for a way to feed kids in the church / feeding center project in Santa Katerina. This morning I had a call from a ministry project in Indiana offering a 40 foot container of special rice meals. The meals are specially made to provide a day of vitamin needs for a child - in one serving. There are 271,000 servings on the container. This ministry helps Christian feeding projects around the world - only 2 strings attached - the first is that 75% of the meals need to go to children and the second condition is that the food be a part of an evangelistic project. Amazing because that is exactly the design of our project - feed kids and plant a church.
The amount of food in this shipment will help us feed 225 kids a day - 5 days a week for more than a year. It will also be a source of food for the feeding project at the church in Los Pinos - it will also help feed the kids at Casa de Esperanza.
I told the group that we would find the $5000 needed to ship this food to Honduras.
Imagine 271,000 meals for $5000. That is less than 2 US Cents per serving.
Why not get your children's classes in chruch to help us pay for some of these servings. Why not get some of your adult classes to do the same. With this load of food we can serve 225 to 250 kids a day for way more than a year. That is an amazing gift from our God.
Once again, our God has given us the hard proof that He listens and he answers.
If you can help with this shipment, please let me know.
Be a blessing to somebody today!
Marc
We have been praying for a way to feed kids in the church / feeding center project in Santa Katerina. This morning I had a call from a ministry project in Indiana offering a 40 foot container of special rice meals. The meals are specially made to provide a day of vitamin needs for a child - in one serving. There are 271,000 servings on the container. This ministry helps Christian feeding projects around the world - only 2 strings attached - the first is that 75% of the meals need to go to children and the second condition is that the food be a part of an evangelistic project. Amazing because that is exactly the design of our project - feed kids and plant a church.
The amount of food in this shipment will help us feed 225 kids a day - 5 days a week for more than a year. It will also be a source of food for the feeding project at the church in Los Pinos - it will also help feed the kids at Casa de Esperanza.
I told the group that we would find the $5000 needed to ship this food to Honduras.
Imagine 271,000 meals for $5000. That is less than 2 US Cents per serving.
Why not get your children's classes in chruch to help us pay for some of these servings. Why not get some of your adult classes to do the same. With this load of food we can serve 225 to 250 kids a day for way more than a year. That is an amazing gift from our God.
Once again, our God has given us the hard proof that He listens and he answers.
If you can help with this shipment, please let me know.
Be a blessing to somebody today!
Marc
Friday, April 10, 2009
Two Month Report
I apologize for failing to post a report for February. This report will serve for February and March of 2009.
During the past two months we have been involved in many adventures. Working with a not for profit from Texas called Hunger Plus, we have shipped and delivered almost a million dollars of supplies to the people of this country. The first container arrived in early February and was full of heart monitors, medicines, and other much needed supplies for clinics and other locations throughout the country. The second container arrived in early March and was filled with a bunch of food, medicines, and many other items that are needed here. We were able to supply Casa de Esperanza with several thousand pounds of mixed vegetables, green beans, and other great foods. We were also able to deliver food to many other places. The second container also had a good number of wheelchairs, crutches, and other suppplies that are needed here all of the time.
One of the items that was fun to deliver was a tricycle that has hand cranks. I delivered one of these to the special needs orphanage and where there was a little boy that cannot walk. I sat him on the bike and he took off. His smile was amazing. The second container also contained two full pallets of antibiotics that are alreay being used in 100's of places around Honduras.
During the past two months I have been working with the family of a 19 year old young lady that was involved in a horrible motercycle accident. Gabriela was on a motercycle that was hit broadside by a car and the impact pretty much destroyed her left leg. As I reported earlier, Gabriela was taken to Hospital Escuela for treatment and was told that she was going to lose her leg if the proper supplies could not be purchased. Long story made short, Gabriela layed in HE for 44 days waiting for the surgery that never happened. We were able to move her to a private hospital the end of March and she has had 5 surgeries to repair the damage. She has a long way to go but, hopefully she will be able to walk by mid-year.
In February I was asked to preach in Los Pinos. I asked - Spanish or English. The answer was speak in Spanish - you live in Honduras where that is the language! I must have had a crazy moment because I agreed to do it. I told the church that my message would only be 12 min - that is because I didn't think that I could possibly speak for much longer than that. Los Pinos is a place where the church is my family and they were very accomidating and kind. I survived and promised that I would come back in a year and give it another shot.
Learning the language is much more difficult than either Terri or I could have imagined. It seems that perhaps I am making some progress- in the past couple of weeks I have had people that I don't see very often tell me that I sound Honduran. I am not sure if that is because of my bad grammer or that I am in fact actually making progress. I practice every day with some of the people that I work with as well as with the kids here at Casa de Esperanza. For me - the best learning comes with working with people that don't speak any english - it helps.
Terri too is making a lot of progress. She works with the books here at Casa and isn't with spanish only speakers as often so she struggles a little - sometimes. I am really proud of the way she is learning and keeps on trying. It is hard.
The children's home is growing. In February we took on 2 more children. Anita and Jose came to us from another children's home that was built to house boys only. Anita was in a place with 81 boys and one little girl. The "small world" part of the story of our new children is that their dad is the guy that takes care of the mother of 4 of our other kids. Anita is 7 and Jose is 6. They are adapting to Casa very well and we have grown to love them in a very short time.
We have hired another worker to help us with child care and she will start here on April 20th. If all works out, we should be able to start bringing children into the new "Bill Brumly" house in the coming weeks. Please pray that our new worker will be the perfect Tia.
The churches in both Los Pinos and in Santa Ana are doing well and growing. Both have had new christians added in the past weeks and both continue to reach out to their communities.
It won't be long until our summer groups begin arriving - Terri and I are leading 7 teams in 2009 that will introduce more than 300 people to the work and the needs here. We are blessed with the best job in the world and we want to thank you for your constant prayer, support, and encouragement.
Be a blessing to somebody today.
Marc & Terri
During the past two months we have been involved in many adventures. Working with a not for profit from Texas called Hunger Plus, we have shipped and delivered almost a million dollars of supplies to the people of this country. The first container arrived in early February and was full of heart monitors, medicines, and other much needed supplies for clinics and other locations throughout the country. The second container arrived in early March and was filled with a bunch of food, medicines, and many other items that are needed here. We were able to supply Casa de Esperanza with several thousand pounds of mixed vegetables, green beans, and other great foods. We were also able to deliver food to many other places. The second container also had a good number of wheelchairs, crutches, and other suppplies that are needed here all of the time.
One of the items that was fun to deliver was a tricycle that has hand cranks. I delivered one of these to the special needs orphanage and where there was a little boy that cannot walk. I sat him on the bike and he took off. His smile was amazing. The second container also contained two full pallets of antibiotics that are alreay being used in 100's of places around Honduras.
During the past two months I have been working with the family of a 19 year old young lady that was involved in a horrible motercycle accident. Gabriela was on a motercycle that was hit broadside by a car and the impact pretty much destroyed her left leg. As I reported earlier, Gabriela was taken to Hospital Escuela for treatment and was told that she was going to lose her leg if the proper supplies could not be purchased. Long story made short, Gabriela layed in HE for 44 days waiting for the surgery that never happened. We were able to move her to a private hospital the end of March and she has had 5 surgeries to repair the damage. She has a long way to go but, hopefully she will be able to walk by mid-year.
In February I was asked to preach in Los Pinos. I asked - Spanish or English. The answer was speak in Spanish - you live in Honduras where that is the language! I must have had a crazy moment because I agreed to do it. I told the church that my message would only be 12 min - that is because I didn't think that I could possibly speak for much longer than that. Los Pinos is a place where the church is my family and they were very accomidating and kind. I survived and promised that I would come back in a year and give it another shot.
Learning the language is much more difficult than either Terri or I could have imagined. It seems that perhaps I am making some progress- in the past couple of weeks I have had people that I don't see very often tell me that I sound Honduran. I am not sure if that is because of my bad grammer or that I am in fact actually making progress. I practice every day with some of the people that I work with as well as with the kids here at Casa de Esperanza. For me - the best learning comes with working with people that don't speak any english - it helps.
Terri too is making a lot of progress. She works with the books here at Casa and isn't with spanish only speakers as often so she struggles a little - sometimes. I am really proud of the way she is learning and keeps on trying. It is hard.
The children's home is growing. In February we took on 2 more children. Anita and Jose came to us from another children's home that was built to house boys only. Anita was in a place with 81 boys and one little girl. The "small world" part of the story of our new children is that their dad is the guy that takes care of the mother of 4 of our other kids. Anita is 7 and Jose is 6. They are adapting to Casa very well and we have grown to love them in a very short time.
We have hired another worker to help us with child care and she will start here on April 20th. If all works out, we should be able to start bringing children into the new "Bill Brumly" house in the coming weeks. Please pray that our new worker will be the perfect Tia.
The churches in both Los Pinos and in Santa Ana are doing well and growing. Both have had new christians added in the past weeks and both continue to reach out to their communities.
It won't be long until our summer groups begin arriving - Terri and I are leading 7 teams in 2009 that will introduce more than 300 people to the work and the needs here. We are blessed with the best job in the world and we want to thank you for your constant prayer, support, and encouragement.
Be a blessing to somebody today.
Marc & Terri
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Things We See
In Honduras - our lives are quite a lot different than we ever imagined.
That is an understatement!
We often pray that God will open our eyes to the needs of the world around us and He does.
Sometimes when He opens our eyes, we sit back and ask "Lord, why do you keep showing me all of these things and what do you want us to do about it?"
Examples -
Gabriela is 19, is in the hospital waiting to have surgery that will save her leg. We keep thinking that the surgery is going to be tomorrow but, every day there is some other reason that the doc's have for another delay. We tried to move her to another hospital but, Hosp. Esc won't give us the records and the other hospital can't (or won't) taker her without them. It is agonizing to know that this young girl needs to have her leg saved and frustrating that nobody seems to care.
Last week I was in a hospital in SPS. They have 5 x-Ray rooms and only one machine that works and the day I was there, the printer was broken.
Last week I was in a place called San Francisco de Cortez and met a lot of people that are working to help this community of more than 25,000. It is really spread out through tough mountain roads. They are 40 or so miles from SPS and don't have an ambulance to transport people to the hospital. Anyone that needs emergency care goes on foot, in a bus, or if they are lucky in somebody's truck. In a bus, they are at least 4 hours from the nearest hospital.
There is a little boy named David that lives mostly on the streets of Tegucigalpa. I usually see David near one of the McDonald's and almost always buy him something to eat. There are 4 or 5 little guys that have become my friends and they like it that I know their names and they always remember mine.
Today the dump was crazy. Everybody was way hungry and thirsty.
I like the dump - even though the people sometimes push and shove, they almost always thank us and when the food is gone, they hang out to talk and laugh with us. There are several that we know by name and many that remember our names. Today, we met a lady that asked for help with a house. She lives with her mom, her 3 kids, one of her grandchildren, and one other person. They live in a "plastic" house. In the states, we might call a subdivision with a bunch of look-alike houses plastic. Here is plastic house is exactly what the name implies. It is made of plastic tarps and sticks.
Every day we drive to Tegucigalpa we see many houses on the side of the road that are some of the worst living conditions that you can imagine. Most are on 'squatter' land so it would be difficult to do anything about them.
I pray that I will never be synical about what I see.
I pray that I never close my eyes to the needs and that God will pour out resources to allow us to do something about what we see.
I am blessed that every day I am here we see the 15 kids that live here at Casa de Esperanza. I try to pray for them by name and for their specific needs. I would ask you to write their names down and pray for them by name too -
they are.
Pamela
Brayan
Jose Antonio (Fito)
Jackson
Daniela
Anita
Jose
Fernando
Maryuri
Cindy
Monica
Doris
Katy
Sisi
Rosita
Pray too that we will soon find the staff that we need to openn our new house.
Be a blessing to somebody today!
Marc
That is an understatement!
We often pray that God will open our eyes to the needs of the world around us and He does.
Sometimes when He opens our eyes, we sit back and ask "Lord, why do you keep showing me all of these things and what do you want us to do about it?"
Examples -
Gabriela is 19, is in the hospital waiting to have surgery that will save her leg. We keep thinking that the surgery is going to be tomorrow but, every day there is some other reason that the doc's have for another delay. We tried to move her to another hospital but, Hosp. Esc won't give us the records and the other hospital can't (or won't) taker her without them. It is agonizing to know that this young girl needs to have her leg saved and frustrating that nobody seems to care.
Last week I was in a hospital in SPS. They have 5 x-Ray rooms and only one machine that works and the day I was there, the printer was broken.
Last week I was in a place called San Francisco de Cortez and met a lot of people that are working to help this community of more than 25,000. It is really spread out through tough mountain roads. They are 40 or so miles from SPS and don't have an ambulance to transport people to the hospital. Anyone that needs emergency care goes on foot, in a bus, or if they are lucky in somebody's truck. In a bus, they are at least 4 hours from the nearest hospital.
There is a little boy named David that lives mostly on the streets of Tegucigalpa. I usually see David near one of the McDonald's and almost always buy him something to eat. There are 4 or 5 little guys that have become my friends and they like it that I know their names and they always remember mine.
Today the dump was crazy. Everybody was way hungry and thirsty.
I like the dump - even though the people sometimes push and shove, they almost always thank us and when the food is gone, they hang out to talk and laugh with us. There are several that we know by name and many that remember our names. Today, we met a lady that asked for help with a house. She lives with her mom, her 3 kids, one of her grandchildren, and one other person. They live in a "plastic" house. In the states, we might call a subdivision with a bunch of look-alike houses plastic. Here is plastic house is exactly what the name implies. It is made of plastic tarps and sticks.
Every day we drive to Tegucigalpa we see many houses on the side of the road that are some of the worst living conditions that you can imagine. Most are on 'squatter' land so it would be difficult to do anything about them.
I pray that I will never be synical about what I see.
I pray that I never close my eyes to the needs and that God will pour out resources to allow us to do something about what we see.
I am blessed that every day I am here we see the 15 kids that live here at Casa de Esperanza. I try to pray for them by name and for their specific needs. I would ask you to write their names down and pray for them by name too -
they are.
Pamela
Brayan
Jose Antonio (Fito)
Jackson
Daniela
Anita
Jose
Fernando
Maryuri
Cindy
Monica
Doris
Katy
Sisi
Rosita
Pray too that we will soon find the staff that we need to openn our new house.
Be a blessing to somebody today!
Marc
Saturday, February 28, 2009
The Week That Was
This week has been filled with many things that are great and some that are difficult to think about.
We started on Gonzolo's house this week. Gonzolo is a man that always smiles. He worked with me for several months last year when we were building the women's center project. Work is a pleasure for Gonzolo and he is always happy. We are building him a block house in Mirador de Oriente.
My mom and dad arrived on Wednesday. Early Wednesday we were able to feed 100's at the dump. We were joined this week by Jen, David, Sam, and several of Jen's friends visiting from Ohio. Having a lot of people to help meant that I was able to visit with a bunch of folks in the dump. Mom and dad arrived on time and we are really enjoying having them here.
Wednesday's paper announced that there was a village in the Tegucigalpa area that was "bulldozed' away. The land owner had taken the squatters to court and won. He reclaimed his land by using a bull dozer to clear out 300+ families. Somebody had duped the squatters into believing that they owned the land and had sold lots for the houses. There was nothing that anyone could do.
On Wednesday morning, I had a call from my friend that is the director of Jovenes en Camino telling me that the paper work was complete for moving a couple of their kids to our home. We were able to take in Jose and Anna on Thursday afternoon. They are 7 and 8.
Also on Thursday, we found out about Gabriela. This young lady is 18 and was in a motorcycle accident 2 weeks ago. Her upper right leg was shattered and the Dr's at hospital Escuela did the best that they could to repair the mess. After 2 weeks they realized that the leg won't heal without proper orthepedic surgery materials. The family couldn't afford the more than $1000 cost of the pins, screws, and other materials needed for the surgery. Without the surgery supplies, the Dr's had told the family that the girl would loose her leg at the hip. Thank's to our amazing God, we were able to purchase the supplies and hopefully, Gabriela will have surgery this morning. PRAY!
Yesterday (Friday) I recieved a call that I had been waiting for for a long time. I have been working with friends in Nashville to put a water well in Oriental. There is a group from Texas that has a well drilling ministry and they have been promising to get us on the schedule for a long time. Yesterday I got the call that the time is here. I am meeting the manager of the operation in Oriental this afternoon to begin the process. Once complete, this village of more than 1000 will finally have a source for their water needs. What a blessing.
Please pray for the needs that I have talked about here. Please lift up thanks for the answered prayers here too.
Be a blessing to somebody today!
Marc
We started on Gonzolo's house this week. Gonzolo is a man that always smiles. He worked with me for several months last year when we were building the women's center project. Work is a pleasure for Gonzolo and he is always happy. We are building him a block house in Mirador de Oriente.
My mom and dad arrived on Wednesday. Early Wednesday we were able to feed 100's at the dump. We were joined this week by Jen, David, Sam, and several of Jen's friends visiting from Ohio. Having a lot of people to help meant that I was able to visit with a bunch of folks in the dump. Mom and dad arrived on time and we are really enjoying having them here.
Wednesday's paper announced that there was a village in the Tegucigalpa area that was "bulldozed' away. The land owner had taken the squatters to court and won. He reclaimed his land by using a bull dozer to clear out 300+ families. Somebody had duped the squatters into believing that they owned the land and had sold lots for the houses. There was nothing that anyone could do.
On Wednesday morning, I had a call from my friend that is the director of Jovenes en Camino telling me that the paper work was complete for moving a couple of their kids to our home. We were able to take in Jose and Anna on Thursday afternoon. They are 7 and 8.
Also on Thursday, we found out about Gabriela. This young lady is 18 and was in a motorcycle accident 2 weeks ago. Her upper right leg was shattered and the Dr's at hospital Escuela did the best that they could to repair the mess. After 2 weeks they realized that the leg won't heal without proper orthepedic surgery materials. The family couldn't afford the more than $1000 cost of the pins, screws, and other materials needed for the surgery. Without the surgery supplies, the Dr's had told the family that the girl would loose her leg at the hip. Thank's to our amazing God, we were able to purchase the supplies and hopefully, Gabriela will have surgery this morning. PRAY!
Yesterday (Friday) I recieved a call that I had been waiting for for a long time. I have been working with friends in Nashville to put a water well in Oriental. There is a group from Texas that has a well drilling ministry and they have been promising to get us on the schedule for a long time. Yesterday I got the call that the time is here. I am meeting the manager of the operation in Oriental this afternoon to begin the process. Once complete, this village of more than 1000 will finally have a source for their water needs. What a blessing.
Please pray for the needs that I have talked about here. Please lift up thanks for the answered prayers here too.
Be a blessing to somebody today!
Marc
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
I Like This Quote
The other day I read this quote -
"Vision without action is only a Dream!
Action without Vision is only an activity!
Combining Vision & Action can change the World!"
I like this.
Imagine adding Jesus to the center of every Vision?
Imagine waking up every day with only one purpose in mind - your Vision!
Vision with Jesus in the center and Action with Jesus as the master will surely change the world.
One soul at a time.
Be a blessing to somebody today!
Marc
"Vision without action is only a Dream!
Action without Vision is only an activity!
Combining Vision & Action can change the World!"
I like this.
Imagine adding Jesus to the center of every Vision?
Imagine waking up every day with only one purpose in mind - your Vision!
Vision with Jesus in the center and Action with Jesus as the master will surely change the world.
One soul at a time.
Be a blessing to somebody today!
Marc
Thursday, February 05, 2009
January 2009 Report
We finished 2008 and started 2009 in the states. While there we were blessed to be able to spend time in Fairview Heights with our home church. They are amazing! We could not have a more loving and supporting family. I was able to speak at both Sunday School and during worship.
While in Fairview Heights, I was able to meet with friends that had access to a mobile medical clinic. It is one that is built on the chassis of bus similar to those used for rent car shuttles. It is in excellent condition and we were offered the bus as a gift. Of course we accepted and we will be working to transport the vehicle to Honduras prior to the many groups working here during the summer months. In addition to summer usage, we will partner with Baxter's clinic. The Baxter institute has an ongoing clinic operation that utilizes the resources of doc's from a medical school in VA. They will be able to use the clinic in many of the remote clinics that they tie in with remote churches. It is a perfect partnership.
From IL we travelled back down to Arkansas where our son in law graduated from Harding. As soon as graduation ended we were on our way to Kansas to meet with the Overland Park Church. They had contacted me and asked me to speak to them about short term missions. This is a church of about 800 and their college plus group had been looking for a mission opportunity. This group will be joining the team from Topeka in the summer of 2009 and it looks like they will have about 30 travelling to Honduras for the first time. The total KS Torch team will be about 50 to 60 strong and this is only the second year. Pretty amazing & very exciting!
On the same Sunday we were blessed to be able to speak and meet with the Central Church in Topeka. They are very excited to be coming back to Honduras in 2009 and we are blessed once again with the family there. The Topeka team formed because one of the families there had been coming to Honduras with my large July team - they went back to Kansas and told them that they should ask me to come and speak. I was able to go and speak & preach in September of 2007 and the rest is history.
We left Kansas to spend Christmas with all of our family in Texas. While there, we were able to speak & preach in both Shamrock and Wheeler. Both of these are wonderful churches and we are again blessed because our amazing God has put them in our lives.
We ended our tour of churches in Gulfport, MS and headed back to Honduras on January 8th. We didn't arrive back in country until the 9th because our tickets required a "lay-over" at the Miami airport (landed 1:30 AM departed for Tegucigalpa 10:00 AM).
We had to hit the ground running as there was much to catch up on.
On the day we returned, our AIM'ers told us that they had decided to return to the states. There were some issues within the team that they needed to resolve and they are in Lubbock working to regroup. Please pray for them.
Terri and I are continuing the Tegucigalpa dump ministry. We make about 350 bologna sandwiches a week, we buy about 100 pounds of bananas, and 10 gallons of water to share with the hungry people - men, women, and precious children - every Wednesday. We are blessed when we are able to share this work with others and in January we were able to team up one Wednesday with Karen (director of Casa), her mom and a friend from Ohio. Yesterday we shared the work with a group of ladies from PA as well as a few other folks from here in Tegucigalpa.
In January we were able to build 3 houses for families. A container of medical supplies from Mississipi arrived and is already helping many many people that have needs. The crutches, wheelchairs, walkers, hospital beds, and many other goods were put to immediate use.
In January, we were able to spend time with a friend from California. Mandy works with a group of ladies from Danli. The ladies there assemble gift items for Mandy's business and it is exciting to see her work to get more women able to feed their families.
In January we were able to spend time with new friends from Texas. JB Roberts and Dan Carpenter were here to find out more about the work we do and to meet with a number of folks about the needs of Honduras. These gentlemen work with an organization called Hunger Plus as well as Rotary Clubs International. They have already shipped a container of medical supplies our way (should be in country today) and have plans to help us with many many projects. Once again, our Amazing God introduces us to amazing people.
In January we were diasppointed to lose the family that we had hired as house parents for Casa de Esperanza. The Montes' family made the decision to return to work as full time ministers and have moved south to work with a church there. Pray for God to deliver the families we need to help us care for the children here at Casa de Esperanza.
We are continuing our plans to plant churches in 2009. Santa Katerina - south of here has already given us land and we will be going there this weekend to survey and take some gifts to the kids there.
Once again, Terri and I want to thank you for your continued prayers, for your encouragement, and for your amazing support.
We love you,
Marc & Terri
Be a blessing to somebody today!
While in Fairview Heights, I was able to meet with friends that had access to a mobile medical clinic. It is one that is built on the chassis of bus similar to those used for rent car shuttles. It is in excellent condition and we were offered the bus as a gift. Of course we accepted and we will be working to transport the vehicle to Honduras prior to the many groups working here during the summer months. In addition to summer usage, we will partner with Baxter's clinic. The Baxter institute has an ongoing clinic operation that utilizes the resources of doc's from a medical school in VA. They will be able to use the clinic in many of the remote clinics that they tie in with remote churches. It is a perfect partnership.
From IL we travelled back down to Arkansas where our son in law graduated from Harding. As soon as graduation ended we were on our way to Kansas to meet with the Overland Park Church. They had contacted me and asked me to speak to them about short term missions. This is a church of about 800 and their college plus group had been looking for a mission opportunity. This group will be joining the team from Topeka in the summer of 2009 and it looks like they will have about 30 travelling to Honduras for the first time. The total KS Torch team will be about 50 to 60 strong and this is only the second year. Pretty amazing & very exciting!
On the same Sunday we were blessed to be able to speak and meet with the Central Church in Topeka. They are very excited to be coming back to Honduras in 2009 and we are blessed once again with the family there. The Topeka team formed because one of the families there had been coming to Honduras with my large July team - they went back to Kansas and told them that they should ask me to come and speak. I was able to go and speak & preach in September of 2007 and the rest is history.
We left Kansas to spend Christmas with all of our family in Texas. While there, we were able to speak & preach in both Shamrock and Wheeler. Both of these are wonderful churches and we are again blessed because our amazing God has put them in our lives.
We ended our tour of churches in Gulfport, MS and headed back to Honduras on January 8th. We didn't arrive back in country until the 9th because our tickets required a "lay-over" at the Miami airport (landed 1:30 AM departed for Tegucigalpa 10:00 AM).
We had to hit the ground running as there was much to catch up on.
On the day we returned, our AIM'ers told us that they had decided to return to the states. There were some issues within the team that they needed to resolve and they are in Lubbock working to regroup. Please pray for them.
Terri and I are continuing the Tegucigalpa dump ministry. We make about 350 bologna sandwiches a week, we buy about 100 pounds of bananas, and 10 gallons of water to share with the hungry people - men, women, and precious children - every Wednesday. We are blessed when we are able to share this work with others and in January we were able to team up one Wednesday with Karen (director of Casa), her mom and a friend from Ohio. Yesterday we shared the work with a group of ladies from PA as well as a few other folks from here in Tegucigalpa.
In January we were able to build 3 houses for families. A container of medical supplies from Mississipi arrived and is already helping many many people that have needs. The crutches, wheelchairs, walkers, hospital beds, and many other goods were put to immediate use.
In January, we were able to spend time with a friend from California. Mandy works with a group of ladies from Danli. The ladies there assemble gift items for Mandy's business and it is exciting to see her work to get more women able to feed their families.
In January we were able to spend time with new friends from Texas. JB Roberts and Dan Carpenter were here to find out more about the work we do and to meet with a number of folks about the needs of Honduras. These gentlemen work with an organization called Hunger Plus as well as Rotary Clubs International. They have already shipped a container of medical supplies our way (should be in country today) and have plans to help us with many many projects. Once again, our Amazing God introduces us to amazing people.
In January we were diasppointed to lose the family that we had hired as house parents for Casa de Esperanza. The Montes' family made the decision to return to work as full time ministers and have moved south to work with a church there. Pray for God to deliver the families we need to help us care for the children here at Casa de Esperanza.
We are continuing our plans to plant churches in 2009. Santa Katerina - south of here has already given us land and we will be going there this weekend to survey and take some gifts to the kids there.
Once again, Terri and I want to thank you for your continued prayers, for your encouragement, and for your amazing support.
We love you,
Marc & Terri
Be a blessing to somebody today!
Saturday, January 24, 2009
End of the week
It's Saturday night and the week is quickly coming to a close. It was another great week in Honduras - we were able to build a house for Maria and her 3 kids on Wednesday and another for a man named Nelson and his 4 sons. I love building houses and these were great families that needed a place to live. On Wednesday - about the time I drove into the property, I got a call that a container was in town and that they needed help to unload. The container was full - very full - of medical supplies and many people will be helped by the shipment. I went back to Tegucigalpa to help unload the 60,000+ pounds of goods in the shipment.
On friday Pamala was finally able to have the surgery that she needed on her foot. This will hopefully help her to be able to walk and play without the pain that she has had for years. When she was little she was hit by a bus and the surgeon didn't quite replace her heel cushion - the surgery yesterday was designed to correct that. I was able to leave the house sight to be with Karen and Pamala for the surgery - she seems to be doing well and her pain is under control.
Last night - was the one night of the week when we don't have staff sleeping in the house with the kids - Karen usually takes on that task. Since she spent the night at the hospital, I voluntered for the duty. All went well with the kids. Everybody was asleep within a few minutes of bedtime and everybody was up and at it by 6:30 this morning becaue - today was the day that I had promised to take them to lunch and a movie.
We went to lunch at a fried chicken fast food place so that the kids would have a place to play for a few minutes before we went to the theater. As soon as we were in the resturant, Rosita started with the pee dance - she loves to go to the bathroom in any new place - she went in but came out pretty quickly because she couldn't unfasten her belt. Undoing a belt when somebody is doing the pee dance isn't easy and everybody in Popeyes was watching and smiling. The kids love Popeyes because first it is chicken and second, they have free re-fills on drinks. I thought the free re-fills on drinks was a good idea until we left to go and sit through a 2 hour movie. We headed out to the cinema - at one of the local malls. Nobody trusted me to take 12 to the movie by myself so - one of our workers went along to help me out (thank you Lord). We parked and unloaded everybody and grabbed hands so that we could keep up with everybody. Good plans don't always work. About 100 yards into the mall I heard Saundra say - "DORIS!". That was our Oh crap moment. Doris wasn't with us. I quickly made sure that the 11 remaning were close by and Saundra ran to find Doris. Thankfully, she had just stayed behind at the van. Well, we were off to the movies - which didn't start for another 20 minutes. While sitting there, there was a massive attack of free re-fills and everybody needed to GO. I took them 3 at a time and the first to visit the bano was Cindy, Daniela, and Sisi. Everybody was doing the dance so I let Cindy and Daniela go into the ladies room and since nobody was using the mens room - I sent Sisi in. The first 2 came out in a reasonable time and we were waiting on Sisi - I decided it would be a good idea to open the door to check on her. I just about fell over when I opened the door to see her washing her hands in the men's urinal - she said look poppie - they put soap in it for me.
I was able to get everybody else to the restroom - without any other happenings before the start of the movie. That wasn't the end though. After about 30 minutes of the movie, the pee wiggle started and before the end of the movie I had made 9 more trips to the restroom. Of course one was with Rosita. As you may or may not know, Rosita is unable to hear. She always thinks she needs to lock the door - so she did. While she was in the restroom, a line started. We could all hear her - first the flush and then the water and then the hand dryer. The first lady in line was really needing to go and I could see her relief when the hand dryer stopped - I could also see her panic when it immediately started again. She started knocking on the door and I told her that it wouldn't do any good beacuse the person in there couldn't hear - she kept knocking. The hand dryer went off again and started again - 6 times. There were 9 ladies in line when Rosita finally came out.
When the movie was over, I took 9 kids with me out the front door and Saundra took another 3 to the restroom. When Saundra came out of the restroom, they wouldn't let her exit the same way as my group so - we were split up. It took a while but, we both finally figured that the best thing to do would be to go to the van to wait. We finally had a reunion and were able to head home with 12 happy tired kids. Just as we pulled into Santa Ana, Jackson had a bit of car sickness hit and he left all of the chicken, popcorn, sprite, etc on the van floor. I was happy that he waited until we only had a quarter mile to go and not 20 miles.
After everybody was out of the van and it was all clean from the car sickness, I realized that in the rush to get out of the theater, I had left my backpack in under the seat - 25 miles away. My backpack contains much of my life - including my passport, my notebooks, and this week - the money to pay for 2 houses. I didn't believe that I would ever see it again. I just figured that somebody would open it and say "look what the Lord has given to me". More than $2000 in cash and a passport that is worth about $10,000 on the blackmarket. I prayed and then I called my friend Milton Estrada to rush to the mall to see if he could by chance find my backpack. Then Terri and I jumped into the car to head that way. We were barely out of Santa Ana when Milton called and told me that he had my backpack and it looked like everything was there. Our God answers prayers - even for something as simple as a backpack. We met Milton and all is well.
The end of this week was one that I won't soon forget.
Be a blessing to somebody today!
Marc
On friday Pamala was finally able to have the surgery that she needed on her foot. This will hopefully help her to be able to walk and play without the pain that she has had for years. When she was little she was hit by a bus and the surgeon didn't quite replace her heel cushion - the surgery yesterday was designed to correct that. I was able to leave the house sight to be with Karen and Pamala for the surgery - she seems to be doing well and her pain is under control.
Last night - was the one night of the week when we don't have staff sleeping in the house with the kids - Karen usually takes on that task. Since she spent the night at the hospital, I voluntered for the duty. All went well with the kids. Everybody was asleep within a few minutes of bedtime and everybody was up and at it by 6:30 this morning becaue - today was the day that I had promised to take them to lunch and a movie.
We went to lunch at a fried chicken fast food place so that the kids would have a place to play for a few minutes before we went to the theater. As soon as we were in the resturant, Rosita started with the pee dance - she loves to go to the bathroom in any new place - she went in but came out pretty quickly because she couldn't unfasten her belt. Undoing a belt when somebody is doing the pee dance isn't easy and everybody in Popeyes was watching and smiling. The kids love Popeyes because first it is chicken and second, they have free re-fills on drinks. I thought the free re-fills on drinks was a good idea until we left to go and sit through a 2 hour movie. We headed out to the cinema - at one of the local malls. Nobody trusted me to take 12 to the movie by myself so - one of our workers went along to help me out (thank you Lord). We parked and unloaded everybody and grabbed hands so that we could keep up with everybody. Good plans don't always work. About 100 yards into the mall I heard Saundra say - "DORIS!". That was our Oh crap moment. Doris wasn't with us. I quickly made sure that the 11 remaning were close by and Saundra ran to find Doris. Thankfully, she had just stayed behind at the van. Well, we were off to the movies - which didn't start for another 20 minutes. While sitting there, there was a massive attack of free re-fills and everybody needed to GO. I took them 3 at a time and the first to visit the bano was Cindy, Daniela, and Sisi. Everybody was doing the dance so I let Cindy and Daniela go into the ladies room and since nobody was using the mens room - I sent Sisi in. The first 2 came out in a reasonable time and we were waiting on Sisi - I decided it would be a good idea to open the door to check on her. I just about fell over when I opened the door to see her washing her hands in the men's urinal - she said look poppie - they put soap in it for me.
I was able to get everybody else to the restroom - without any other happenings before the start of the movie. That wasn't the end though. After about 30 minutes of the movie, the pee wiggle started and before the end of the movie I had made 9 more trips to the restroom. Of course one was with Rosita. As you may or may not know, Rosita is unable to hear. She always thinks she needs to lock the door - so she did. While she was in the restroom, a line started. We could all hear her - first the flush and then the water and then the hand dryer. The first lady in line was really needing to go and I could see her relief when the hand dryer stopped - I could also see her panic when it immediately started again. She started knocking on the door and I told her that it wouldn't do any good beacuse the person in there couldn't hear - she kept knocking. The hand dryer went off again and started again - 6 times. There were 9 ladies in line when Rosita finally came out.
When the movie was over, I took 9 kids with me out the front door and Saundra took another 3 to the restroom. When Saundra came out of the restroom, they wouldn't let her exit the same way as my group so - we were split up. It took a while but, we both finally figured that the best thing to do would be to go to the van to wait. We finally had a reunion and were able to head home with 12 happy tired kids. Just as we pulled into Santa Ana, Jackson had a bit of car sickness hit and he left all of the chicken, popcorn, sprite, etc on the van floor. I was happy that he waited until we only had a quarter mile to go and not 20 miles.
After everybody was out of the van and it was all clean from the car sickness, I realized that in the rush to get out of the theater, I had left my backpack in under the seat - 25 miles away. My backpack contains much of my life - including my passport, my notebooks, and this week - the money to pay for 2 houses. I didn't believe that I would ever see it again. I just figured that somebody would open it and say "look what the Lord has given to me". More than $2000 in cash and a passport that is worth about $10,000 on the blackmarket. I prayed and then I called my friend Milton Estrada to rush to the mall to see if he could by chance find my backpack. Then Terri and I jumped into the car to head that way. We were barely out of Santa Ana when Milton called and told me that he had my backpack and it looked like everything was there. Our God answers prayers - even for something as simple as a backpack. We met Milton and all is well.
The end of this week was one that I won't soon forget.
Be a blessing to somebody today!
Marc
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
A Day In The Life
Monday was pretty busy - at the end of the day I saw my friend Dennis as I drove into the gate. He had been crying and I asked him if there was a problem. He told me that his grandmother had died. In 3rd world countries, death usually results in a pretty quick burial. There isn't much formal funeral home work for the poor so - it's necesary to get some newly departed into the ground before the odor changes too much. Since Dennis' grandmother died in the afternoon on Monday, it meant that the funeral and burial was to happen on Tuesday. I told Dennis that I would drive him and that we would leave at 7:00 AM the following morning.
Early Tuesday Noel - the former minister in Santa Ana - asked if he could go with Dennis and me. Well when it was time to go, I thought that we would have 3 in the truck. Welcome to Honduras - Dennis had his 2 boys and his ex-wife. On the way into Tegucigalpa, Dennis had a call and I heard him say - red truck - double cab. As we turned off the highway toward our destination Dennis said - there is my sister. We stopped to pick her up - along with her daughter. Now we had 8 in the truck. We headed out toward Danli and the road was pretty typical - lots of holes in the road. About 10 KM short of Danli, we truned toward the final destination - a town called Taupasanti - it was listed at 29 km away and initially the road was great. After about 5 min, all that changed and the dirt soon became mud and the straight became curves and the flat became mountains and the edge became steeeeep clifs. It was pretty much a crazy ride going around the hair pin turns on mud. If I didn't believe in God before this ride, I would have still prayed!
On the way into Taupasanti, we picked up another 9 or 10 of the family and finally made it to the house - the palce of the funeral too. Dennis' mom met us at the car and immediately wanted me to "meet" her mother. The meeting was brief and then she insisted that I eat. The family is very poor and the only food was rice and tortillas - there was only 2 plates in the house and they insisted that I use one of them. I didn't realy want to eat - not because of fear of ilness but because of the fact that there wasn't enough food in the house for very many people.
After lunch, I heard Dennis ask Noel if he would preside at the funeral. The service was brief and later we left in the procession - everybody walked and the casket was carried by grandsons - about 2 blocks toward the town square and back to the cemetary for burial. The family was responsible for both digging the grave and filling it in.
Leaving Taupasanti, Dennis asked if I could give a few of his family a ride closer to their houses. The "Few" turned into about 30. Yes - there were 30 people in and out of my truck. We drove up the mountain about 10km so that the family would be closer to their houses. They still had 2 hours to walk to get home - almost all up a mountain. Crazy.
We lightened the load down to 10 back to Teguc.
We finished the day by arriving back at the house at about 6:00 - just in time for our 7:00 Tuesday "midweek" worship.
I am blessed that I was able to share this day with Dennis and his family.
Be a blessing to somebody today!
Marc
Early Tuesday Noel - the former minister in Santa Ana - asked if he could go with Dennis and me. Well when it was time to go, I thought that we would have 3 in the truck. Welcome to Honduras - Dennis had his 2 boys and his ex-wife. On the way into Tegucigalpa, Dennis had a call and I heard him say - red truck - double cab. As we turned off the highway toward our destination Dennis said - there is my sister. We stopped to pick her up - along with her daughter. Now we had 8 in the truck. We headed out toward Danli and the road was pretty typical - lots of holes in the road. About 10 KM short of Danli, we truned toward the final destination - a town called Taupasanti - it was listed at 29 km away and initially the road was great. After about 5 min, all that changed and the dirt soon became mud and the straight became curves and the flat became mountains and the edge became steeeeep clifs. It was pretty much a crazy ride going around the hair pin turns on mud. If I didn't believe in God before this ride, I would have still prayed!
On the way into Taupasanti, we picked up another 9 or 10 of the family and finally made it to the house - the palce of the funeral too. Dennis' mom met us at the car and immediately wanted me to "meet" her mother. The meeting was brief and then she insisted that I eat. The family is very poor and the only food was rice and tortillas - there was only 2 plates in the house and they insisted that I use one of them. I didn't realy want to eat - not because of fear of ilness but because of the fact that there wasn't enough food in the house for very many people.
After lunch, I heard Dennis ask Noel if he would preside at the funeral. The service was brief and later we left in the procession - everybody walked and the casket was carried by grandsons - about 2 blocks toward the town square and back to the cemetary for burial. The family was responsible for both digging the grave and filling it in.
Leaving Taupasanti, Dennis asked if I could give a few of his family a ride closer to their houses. The "Few" turned into about 30. Yes - there were 30 people in and out of my truck. We drove up the mountain about 10km so that the family would be closer to their houses. They still had 2 hours to walk to get home - almost all up a mountain. Crazy.
We lightened the load down to 10 back to Teguc.
We finished the day by arriving back at the house at about 6:00 - just in time for our 7:00 Tuesday "midweek" worship.
I am blessed that I was able to share this day with Dennis and his family.
Be a blessing to somebody today!
Marc
Saturday, January 03, 2009
December 2008
2008 waas a flash - it is over!
I plan to post a year end summary within the next week or so - in the mean time, here is a brief summary of the past couple of months.
November was extremely busy and productive. We started the month with construction of a memory house for the aunt of friends in Mississippi and finished the month with the construction of 3 more houses. In between, Terri travelled to the states on what was to be a brief trip to lead a ladies retreat in IL. She ended up in IL for a couple of weeks to take care of some medical issues and some surgery. All is well and Terri made it back home for our Thanksgiving feast. Terri and Karen prepared more than enough food for everyone at the children's home and many guests. We had more than 45 at our lunch and it was amazing. We are blessed.
Prior to thanksgiving week, we welcomed Mike and Kim Miller into our home for a few days. Mike and Kim are from Florida an have been in Honduras for about 2 years. They are working on the development of a children's home in the San Pedro Sula area. They stayed at our house while working on legal issues in Tegucigalpa. About the time that Mike and Kim departed, we were blessed with a small group for Thanksgiving week. In October we put out a call for folks that wanted to come and build - this was the week when we built the 3 houses. On Saturday of the same week, we travelled to Santa Katerina to see the land where the new church / feeding center will be built. The community has already started clearing the land. We plan to do more work there - every month beginning in January 2009.
December began with a group from Mississippi coming to help us take some Christmas joy to the people at the dump. The group brought more than 250 gifts for very needy men, women, and children. We were able to feed everybody and deliver the gifts to just about everybody and it was an amazing day.
The following week we spent time with our friends at Baxter - the ministry school in Tegucigalpa. Graduation week at Baxter is wonderful and we are blessed greatly because of the work that they do. Baxter supplies many many talented preachers to the churches in Latin America.
On the 11th, we travelled to the states to both work and spend some time with our family. We have done both - speaking in 6 churches, driving more than 3000 miles, and spending time with family in Texas and Arkansas.
Our God is faithful 100% of the time. He provides for us and tells us to leave the worrying to Him. He has planned much for us to do and has all of the resources for us to do the work that He has planned. He is awesome!
Be a blessing to somebody today!
Marc & Terri
I plan to post a year end summary within the next week or so - in the mean time, here is a brief summary of the past couple of months.
November was extremely busy and productive. We started the month with construction of a memory house for the aunt of friends in Mississippi and finished the month with the construction of 3 more houses. In between, Terri travelled to the states on what was to be a brief trip to lead a ladies retreat in IL. She ended up in IL for a couple of weeks to take care of some medical issues and some surgery. All is well and Terri made it back home for our Thanksgiving feast. Terri and Karen prepared more than enough food for everyone at the children's home and many guests. We had more than 45 at our lunch and it was amazing. We are blessed.
Prior to thanksgiving week, we welcomed Mike and Kim Miller into our home for a few days. Mike and Kim are from Florida an have been in Honduras for about 2 years. They are working on the development of a children's home in the San Pedro Sula area. They stayed at our house while working on legal issues in Tegucigalpa. About the time that Mike and Kim departed, we were blessed with a small group for Thanksgiving week. In October we put out a call for folks that wanted to come and build - this was the week when we built the 3 houses. On Saturday of the same week, we travelled to Santa Katerina to see the land where the new church / feeding center will be built. The community has already started clearing the land. We plan to do more work there - every month beginning in January 2009.
December began with a group from Mississippi coming to help us take some Christmas joy to the people at the dump. The group brought more than 250 gifts for very needy men, women, and children. We were able to feed everybody and deliver the gifts to just about everybody and it was an amazing day.
The following week we spent time with our friends at Baxter - the ministry school in Tegucigalpa. Graduation week at Baxter is wonderful and we are blessed greatly because of the work that they do. Baxter supplies many many talented preachers to the churches in Latin America.
On the 11th, we travelled to the states to both work and spend some time with our family. We have done both - speaking in 6 churches, driving more than 3000 miles, and spending time with family in Texas and Arkansas.
Our God is faithful 100% of the time. He provides for us and tells us to leave the worrying to Him. He has planned much for us to do and has all of the resources for us to do the work that He has planned. He is awesome!
Be a blessing to somebody today!
Marc & Terri
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