Bienvenidos from Honduras!! We awoke this morning to a light rain which made it a little humid but the hills looked amazing from behind the clouds. We all met for breakfast at 6:30am and had a yummy choice of French toast, eggs, oatmeal, and fresh strawberries. Today’s devotional was delivered by David Hyde who reminded us of our key verse that is on the back of our team t-shirts. It is from Isaiah 52:7: How lovely on the mountains are the feet that bring good news. He eloquently expressed how we were brought here for different reasons but that God has a plan for each one of us and that he will light our way. After that we sang 3 songs together and then boarded our respective buses and set out for the day’s work.
Construction: By the time we arrived the clouds had cleared and the sun was shining so we shed our long sleeves for short ones and hastily applied sunscreen before starting our work. The Honduran workers had either continued working last night after we left or started early this morning because the 3 trusses were already in place and they had started working on the back gable. The main focus today was the floor so several people started clearing and leveling the dirt so the concrete could be poured. Others worked on finishing the back gable and Steve House helped the Honduran’s finish welding the trusses. The rest were either mixing concrete or hauling materials where they were needed. During lunch Robert Pflasterer gave out bracelets to the little girls and tennis balls to the little boys. By the end of lunch there was a mob of children surrounding him!! The floor was separated into 5 sections and by the time we took a break for lunch only 1.5 sections of concrete had been laid. The pastor came by after lunch and gave a “pep talk” to the Honduran workers and miraculously, the pace picked up significantly. He wanted to get the floor completed because they are expecting rain tomorrow. By 4:15pm we had 4 of the 5 sections done. An executive decision was made to stay as long as it took to get that last section done.
If you’ve never seen concrete mixed by hand it is an experience. They take dirt and mix it with concrete using shovels. They make a big pile and then start at the bottom shovel the mixture into a new pile to mix. Then a well is dug in the middle where lots of water is poured – we call this the volcano because if one wall breaks then the water pours out like lava. Once the water is in the middle, 4-5 people do the “concrete dance”. They all circle around the mound shoveling the mixture higher to make a sort of dam. Eventually the water is covered by the mixture and then you start mixing it all together until it is wet. This process is very labor intensive and time consuming but the Honduran’s have it down to a science. Prior to the pastor’s pep talk we were shoveling the concrete into 5 gallon paint buckets. After his talk we were using the buckets, wheelbarrows and anything else we could find to get it done as fast as possible. We finished around 5:30pm and called the rest of the team to let them know we’d be late for dinner which is served at 6:30pm. When we got back to camp we were greeted by some of our friends and family with loud claps and cheers!! We ate dinner and then quickly ran to our rooms to crash.
Medical: The team was at a different school today. The kids had their uniforms on and some were still in class while the team set up. It was the same set up as yesterday with evangelism being the patient’s first stop. It seemed like they were more reluctant to go to the evangelism today then the people were yesterday. Sonia, our local Honduran helper, made sure that everyone received the gospel. Three nurses triaged and there were runners who directed the patients which room to go to. VBS was at the same location. The VBS team had to walk out of the school where medical was set up and around the fence down a dirt road and down 5 steep stairs to reach the area where they would set up for the day. Dr. Ruth (a Honduran physician) and Laurie Woodard were in charge of the women’s medical. They saw 25-30 patients and each patient got one on one attention. Dr. Ruth took her time with each woman to make sure she heard and understood the gospel message. Dr. Rodney Bughao our dentist had 3 chairs going: one for cleaning; one for extractions; and one for fillings. Patients were from all ages from 6 to 50. The consensus heard from this team was that the bathrooms were much nicer than the day before – the toilets actually flushed!!! Overall it went much smoother because of the way they set up. It was more organized and they saw a lot more families today, whereas yesterday it was more single mom and kids or single men.
VBS: VBS was in a grassy area down the steps from the school where the medical team was set up. It was a hot and humid day but the kids were in great spirits. They were much more calm and willing to listen than the kids yesterday. They played American football with the kids. They shut the school down for the day for this event. They got to play Frisbee for the first time in their lives. They had around 80 kids and had 2 piñatas again. After they were all done and packing up a man came by with his horse and several people got on for a short ride. It’s been really fun talking to the local teenagers who come by and watch the VBS team play games with the younger children. The kids had a lot of fun singing along with Joe Aldrich’s guitar. At crafts the kids made salvation bracelets which were very popular today – they want extras to take home to their families. And each craft is Jesus centered so they get the gospel message in a fun way. During the kid’s lunch some of them sat with the VBS team and just colored. The kids really enjoyed the pre-recorded puppet show about John 2:13 about the wages of sin and one woman asked Hector Leanos to pray over her infant baby.
Have a wonderful night!
Aprill Edwards