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
