This is a late entry (it’s 8:57pm Honduras time) as we just returned from a dinner “out on the town”. Ok not really but we did venture down the hill into town and had a delicious dinner at a local restaurant. This morning’s devotional was delivered by Dr. Dan Falco. He had us take a few minutes of silent reflection over two questions: “What is true peace?” and “Is it OK to be anxious?” His message said there are 254 uses of the word peace in the bible and he read the following passages: Romans 5:1, Matthew 6:25-34, and Philippians 4:6-7. He explained how the first words Jesus spoke after he rose from the grave were “Peace be with you”. Even though the Bible tells us not to be anxious we still are. When we ask God to take away our anxiety we get closer to finding true peace and knowing more about who God is. He encouraged us to give any anxiety we have to God. He concluded by thanking us (FBFCO) for inviting him and his family into our family and said it has been a real blessing to them.
Medical: Dr. Gates had a busy day performing several surgeries today at the local hospital. He removed three gall bladders, treated a man with metastasized cancer, and removed a large lymphoma as well as some other procedures I cannot spell nor pronounce. He had seen one patient yesterday and even gave the man cab fare to get to the hospital for the surgery. Triage saw around 175 patients today. When Shirley was asked if she could take one more “patient” at the end of the day it turned out to be a mother with 8 children!!! There are so many kids who come with their parents but they easily get separated so it is a challenge to figure out who belongs to whom. Dental was set up in the church across the way from where the Medical and VBS were set up. About an hour into their day they lost power which slowed them down for a short while. They had to siphon diesel gas from a truck in order to start the generator. Once that generator was up and running they saw patients non stop. The optical team saw around 65 people today – slightly less than the 76 they saw yesterday. They first take the patients to an eye chart and have them stand 20 feet away from the chart to determine what glasses to start with. Some patients need glasses for sight and some for distance. The age of the patient also determines which type of glasses he/she receives. Some patients don’t really need glasses they just want them. Sometime it is difficult to determine if the patient can’t see or if they are illiterate. Each patient reads from the Bible and they are given two or three different glasses to try until we find the right ones for them. Once they realize that they can actually see and their eyes light up – it is truly a blessing.
VBS: They had an adventure on their way to their location today. They had to cross a very narrow bridge and the bridge turned out to be so narrow that one of the wheels began to go over the edge and everyone had to hurriedly exit the bus so it didn’t tip over! Joe Aldrich helped build up the bridge with large rocks so that it could get across to the other side. They set up the usual games, crafts, music and puppet show. Hector’s voice is returning slowly. He and Roberto decided that instead of just reading from the Bible, they would have the kids act out the scriptures. The kids really love doing this and it brings the message home. The kids really love playing Frisbee (which they have never played before) and football. Everyone on the VBS team is getting much better with their Spanish thanks to the number of kids they say every day. Today they had at least 120 kids as Kim Andrews prepared that many snacks to hand out. Roberto said she is like Jesus because he doesn’t know where the food comes from but Kim seems to make what little they have multiply! They didn’t do the piñatas today as the kids were too hyper by the end of the day and they were worried about the kids’ safety. Crafts are pretty much the same where they make bracelets and games with the kids. One of the favorite crafts is a salvation bracelet that has 5 colored beads. The black bead represents sin, the white purity, green for reading the Bible, red for the blood of Jesus and yellow for the gold sheets of heaven. By the end of the day the crafts had all ran out but Jenee Woodard improvised and showed the kids how to play duck, duck goose – the kids had a great time running around after each other!
Construction: Yeah no rain today!!! It was overcast and that turned into a light drizzle by the end of the day but at least we got to work at the site today. We have such a scenic ride to the site. Especially on cloudy days like this you can see the lush, green tree-covered mountains just disappearing into the clouds. God’s work is truly beautiful! When we arrived 3 crossbeams still needed to go up so that was the first project to get started. Some of the team went the other structure on the site which is just a few dozen feet from the church where the roofing, cement and tile for the floor were being stored. This structure has stairs that lead to the roof which is flat and level. There was some other left over materials that needed to be cleared out so part of the team worked on bringing all of that up to the roof so that the structure could be used tomorrow by part of the Medical team who will be joining us at the construction site tomorrow along with VBS.
Some of the team worked on mixing the mortar for the walls and to use to adhere the tile to the front and side walls of the altar. Others worked on painting the 3 metal doors a bright rust color – two of the doors will go on the front of the church and the other one on the back. During a low point when there wasn’t much work to be done a group walked down the hill into the town of Pina Blanca where the church is being built. We had to in order to rescue Robert Pflasterer from the gang of kids that were attacking him. He was chasing them around like he was a monster and they were squealing and running around with delight. They followed us down to town and we got to see some of the stores and walked over a concrete bridge that hovers over a small river. Some kids were “fishing” off of the bridge using what looked like twine and a hook. Robert and John used their dollars to buy each child a frozen treat which looked like ice with some kind of snow-cone like liquid mixed in it. The kids loved that! It was $2 well spent. We walked back to the church and did a little more cleaning up and work on the church before heading out.
The team finished the roof today and the Honduran workers were busy finishing the inside walls of the church when we left around 4pm. As we were starting to drive away, the windows for the church arrived so we are curious to see how the church will look tomorrow when we arrive. We tore into a 5.75 lb bag of candy John Pflasterer had brought for the Honduran kids and devoured about 1/3 of the candy. By the time we got 20 minutes out of town, half of the bus was asleep from exhaustion or sugar crash and the other half was wide awake yapping with each other from the sugar rush. The construction team was the first to arrive back at camp. We got notice from Ken, the camp Director, that we had a ½ hour before we had to get back on the bus to meet the Medical/VBS team at a restaurant for dinner. So the men and the ladies who are inside the dorms took showers while the majority of the “cabin dwellers” just tried to freshen up as best as we could.
We met up at the Grande restaurant which served a wonderful buffet of potato soup, beef or chicken, rice, potatoes and a yummy cake desert that had a sweet cream on the bottom of the plate. Right next to the restaurant was a Mercado (market) so some of the team went in to get snacks. What was a little disconcerting was the man standing in front of the Mercado with a shotgun slung over his chest. But that didn’t stop our brave team of missionaries – no way!!! Last night some of us got to call home using Brent’s Magic Jack. That thing is a Godsend!! It doesn’t cost him anything and the only thing you have to deal with is that you are on speakerphone so EVERYONE who is waiting in line to use it can hear (and add to) your conversation. We are all one big happy family so at this point we are used to not having any privacy!!
Just a heads up for you all - tomorrow’s blog may be late. Our schedule is to have all three teams drive to the construction site. Medical and VBS will set up and do their usual activities. The construction of the church is almost complete so some of the team may be delegated to help either Medical or VBS. The rest of the construction team will work on the finishing touches like placing tile on the altar or painting. We will all bring our “church” clothes with us so we can be presentable for the dedication ceremony which is scheduled to go from 6-8pm. Then we will need to eat and head back to the camp which is a two hour drive.
Please keep Harvey Wilson in your prayers as he had to have yet another surgery to repair the injury he sustained to his shoulder while snowboarding. Thank you and good night!!!
Aprill Edwards