December

This month has flown by!!! I cannot believe that it has been almost a month since I last blogged! My appologies!
We started out this month with preparing for the Malone Trip, headed up by Ashley! From ordering wood, to purchasing dinner foods the first week went fast. The group came and built two houses, held prayer groups in the feeding center of Nevo Orental, visited the sick and lonely, fed and showed the people at the Tegucigalpa Landfill the love of Christ, even after a camera was stolen.
While the group was at the dump, a younger Honduran child asked for one of the American boys shirts. After some deliberation, they swapped shirts soon everyone was exchanging shirts. I felt like it was a great way to show the people of the Landfill, that we are NOT above them!
While the group was here, we had the five brothers (who where taken back from Casa De Esperanza) come and help us! They brought lots of fun and great smiles to the week! While they were with us, at various different times, they told us about their lives at home. The brothers informed us that their father was drinking more and more and that was getting more violent. They had told us in the past that there dad wasn't so kind, but know it had became clear that we needed to do something different.
After hours of prayer Jen, Sam and I decided it would be best to confront the situation when we brought them back after the group left. We met with Chilo (the boys father) and Maria (their mother) at Wendys. We didn't go into detail about what we knew, we just informed them that it was time to change the course of actions. We offered to send Chilo to an Alcoholic rehab center, and offered to take Maria and the boys in while he was there. He said that he wanted to some time to think about it and asked us to come up to their house on Christmas and re-discuss the issue.
On Christmas day we made our way up the mountain to visit their family! Sam had some money donated from her church for boys christmas, so we were able to buy them a few things! After opening presents and eating Nock-A-Tamailas (i know i spelled it all wrong!)we sat down to talk. Chilo informed us that he was still on probation and that he owed his boss about $100.00 (us). We informed him that we would handle getting the paper work from the Judge and paying off his boss. He told us that he needed a few more days to think about it and this time we brought God into the situation. We had brought our friends, David and Janet Garcia, they are full time missionaries here from Miami Florida. Janet asked Chilo if Christ was an influance in his life, he replied no. After some talking and prayer, Chilo accepted Christ into his life right then and there!
A couple of days later, after they had time to pack up their things we went and brought them home! Sadly Chilo decided to hace one last Hoo-Rahh and drank about $100.00 worth of alcohol in about a days time. We brought Maria and the boys home and Jen and I brought Chilo to the treatment center. The center is very nice and would meet every standard in the states. ITs very similar to the 12 step program designed by AA. He will be there for two months. They boys and Maria have to go and visit with a counsalor as well, so that will be good.
So as of now our house consists of Jen, Sam, David, Maria, Carlos, Edwardo, Saul, Johnny, Jovanni, Marvin, Mario, Fransico, Antonio!!! Its a lot of mouths to feed! I feel like i have started my own children's home and I love it!
Maria had asperations to start the Mi Esperanza program soon and once the father is out we hope to find job placement for him too.
As you can immagine having all these extra mouths to feed is costing way outside my projected budget! God says knock and the door shall be opened. Well the Lopez family knocked on our door and know I am knocking on yours! Fincaial support would be greatly appericated! We are all broke and living by faith. God keeps providing as the needs araise! I am learning to lean soley on him. Its really hard! Considering I have been working since I was 13.
I love you all and thank you!
David

Board Meeting Update | Prayer Request and more!!!

Since deciding to move to Honduras three months ago, my faith in the Lord has increased traumatically. God has shown me to rely solely on him, and showing me that he is faithful thru and thru. God has shown us as a group our mission and our purpose for being here, while also showing us our own personal missions. Below you will find a summary of our Board Meeting the other day and ways you can help! We plan on working with each other, to help achieve higher and more effective ways to serve the people of Honduras, while showing them the face of Christ.
Sam plans on working with the people in the dump more effectively. God has given her aspersions to help take the people out of that situation. In previous discussions Jen, Sam and I have talked about creating a community where people can come and live for a period of time. The people would be able to attend a Church, have three meals a day, children will be educated and more importantly the parents or adults living in the community will be taught a trade of some sort, that way they can go out and provide for their families. I say all that, to say, we feel as if God wants us to take small amounts of people, about ten families every eight to nine months and bring them into our “compound” and allow them the opportunity to better themselves and the future of their family, while serving and learning about the Lord we all serve.
God has placed hurting people in my heart. He has given me the heart to care for the sick, needy and abandoned. My plan is to create something like a store or supply center inside the state run hospital, Hospital Escuela. The poor and needy of Honduras travel for hours to come to this horrible hospital to receive the worst of the worst medical care. Please do not miss understand me, most of the doctors and nurses there are caring and loving, but the hospital itself does not have the means of supplying medications, surgical supplies or even just basic necessities a hospital should have such as IV tape. Within the supply center I want to be able to offer people all the necessary items that their family members would need for free or at a reduced low cost rate; from everything such as tape, to medications, to surgical supplies for the doctors. Along with helping people with material items, I believe that this is a great way to introduce people to Christ. We will offer spiritual guidance to families and information about churches in their area.
Jennifer plans on working with the kids at Casistis Kennedy. These kids are taken off of the streets and put here, before they are placed into a child’s home. God has placed the kids of Honduras on Jennifer’s heart, and she yearns to form relationships and bonds with the teenage girls at Casistis. God has also placed a community in Santa Ana on her heart. She has aspirations to dig wells that would supply clean drinking water to the community there. If these wells are successful, we will start implementing them in our TORCH homes that we build during the summers. They are very affordable, only costing about $50 total.
As a group we will be working with other organizations throughout Honduras, helping the street children. Currently, we are working on establishing a relationship with USAID and UNICEF to help in an effort to help the street kids of Honduras. The children of this country break all our hearts and we hope and pray that God opens more doors to help in better ways.God has blessed us with enough money to feed at the dump two times already, send some medical supplies to Hospital Escuela, donate 50 blankets to a clinic for street kids, work with other missionary families, join a church that preaches in English on Sunday evenings and learn the ropes about starting a new ministry. We have been able to help at a children’s home in a remote part of Honduras and serve in the mountain communities. God has allowed us to donate two computers to Cadena De Amor and we are anticipating on donating ten more to a local public school! God has shown us each our own personal missions as well as our mission(s) as a whole.
God is working in our ministry. He is opening doors left and right to serve the people here!!! Thank you for continuing to support me in serving the people of Honduras!
Currently our plans are costing more than expected. Also, our car stopped going in reverse. We need a new transmission and it is more costly than in the states. Since we know it will take months to get the parts in and things like that from the states, and our ministries are going to start exploding soon, we are in need of another car. For a decent reliable vehicle, we project that we would need somewhere between $5,000 and $7,000. We plan on purchasing a more cost effective vehicle; that will serve dual purposes. We have looked into purchasing a Toyota FJ Land Cruiser (an older model) for $5,000 from some friends here. Purchasing a Toyota or something similar would be best, so that we have the opportunity to have it fix faster and cheaper.
Please take the time to pray and ask God how you can help. We are praying that God opens doors within the next couple of weeks, because we need to take our Suburban into the shop before it gets worse and creates more problems.
Thank you for your prayers, support and love for the people of this country.

Good yet Sad Day

On Tuesday morning Sam Ashley and Mike got up early and prepared over 200 peanut butter sandwiches to hand out in the Landfill. We left our house at about 12:00 to head out to buy some bags of water then to the dump. We purchased over 210 bags of water, because that is all the stores along the way had. We arrived at the dump, and people surrounded our car. Men, Women, Children of all ages, faces dirty with God only knows what. Normally, when we visit the dump, there are a lot of people. Today for some reason, the amount of people seemed to had doubled or even tripled. There was a lot more women and children!
Please keep the people living and working in this area in your prayers. Sam, Jen and I have been working on a plan to get some of these people out of this environment and into a program that we wish to start. Pray that some doors start to open and that we will be able to effect people lives positively.

Thanks

On Thursday Sam, Jen and I celebrated Thanksgiving at Casa de Esperanza. It was probably the best thanksgiving I have ever been to. Marc Tindal had each of the children say what they were thankful for. Starting with the oldest children to the youngest, to brought tears to my eyes hearing that they were thankful for their new families their at Casa and the new friends that they had made.
After lots and lots of food, we went to unload a container that Jen shipped from Nashville. Jen received a phone call at about 4:30is pm. to be at Baxter Institute to unpack the container. Ashley and I were heading to San Pedro to pick up our friend Mike, so we turned around and went to unload the container. After about waiting for an hour or so, the people called and said that they would not be there until 8:00am the next day! Jen had already organized about five other people to be there; WELCOME TO HONDURAS!
Ashley and I went to San Pedro and back on Thursday - early Friday morning. I was at Baxter after only 3 hours of sleep, fully awake and ready to start unpacking. I should have known that the people needed to inspect the contents of the container wouldn't show up until at least 11am. Thus being the case, we didn't finish until 5 pm. unloading and trucking the items to their proper places. But God is good and faithful; he supplied us with more things to serve the people of Honduras!!!

Giving Blood :-)

We went and donated blood! It was a great thing! We were able to try and help save Dr. Gomez's life by donating blood but unfortunately Dr. Gomez passed away late Sunday Night. Here are some pictures of us donating!!! :)

Helping Others...

Well, since I have been able to, I donate blood on a regular basis in the states. Its one of my favorite things to do. After being in Honduras, by law, you are not allowed to give blood for one year. I was always frustrated when the blood mobile would could to the church or school because I would never be able to give.
Yesterday, after getting back into Tegucigalpa, we met up with Gina Larios and her family. Both of her parents are doctors and at her fathers office they had set up a projector to watch the soccer game against Honduras and Mexico. Gina's mom went and talked with a close, family friend in the hospital there.
After the game, we went to visit the man as well. He is losing lots of blood among many other problems. I left the room for a minute to use the bathroom and when I returned Ashley looked at me and asked, "David, want to donate blood for Mr. Gomez " Without even thinking, my automatic response was yes! I was excited about it!! I asked if I was the right blood type. They said that it didn't matter because the blood bank told the family that if they got people to donate, they would give him blood first. So they have recruited the four of us and more are expected to be there! We are all anticipating what and how the process here works!
We are leaving now, to go and donate!!! I'll you know how it goes!!
ps. Honduras won the soccer game last night, therefore, they can now go to Africa to start preparing for the World Cup. The people of Honduras spirits are lifted today.

Made It!!!!!!!!!

Well, after staying up all night Friday and traveling all day Saturday, I finally made it here to Honduras!! I love this country. After arriving in the San Pedro Sula Airport and standing in the passport line for about an hour, I found both of my bags and went to catch the bus. Since I had stood in the passport line for so long I missed the bus to the Grand Centeral Station. So I found a taxi driver to tax me there, which actually cost less then taxing the bus :). After finding the right bus station to go to, I met a lady by the name of Danielle, she was a older Honduran lady, but she spoke perfect english.

As we departed on our four our bus ride to La Esperanza, we got to know eachother very well. I found that she moved to the United States about thirty years ago. She had traveled the world baisicly. She told me about her career as a real estate agent in California, about her children in Ohio and New Mexico. I learned of her family here in Honduras. The best part about talking to her was when we started discussing our religions. She is a Jehova Witness and it was really good to sit and listen to what her beliefes were. It was a total God thing, because we got to discuss my faith as well. For about two hours of the trip we had our bibles open, discussing differences in our faiths. It was very uplifting.

Sunday morning was very excitting for me. Church was supposed to start at 1 pm. At about 1:15 the substatute preacher still wasn´t there. Ashley and Sam both begged me to do a short lesson. Good thing Joe had made me teach his class a few weeks ago. I was already prepared!!! As I got up to start my lesson, I was reading from Ephesians 6:13-15, when the preacher came running in. He was very apologetic about being late, he was picking up about 20 more people for the service. He went ahead and preached and did a very good job.

After being here for only a day and a half, I have already been able to witness and talk about God´s love several times. Thank you, my family, for giving me this oportunity to serve the people of Honduras.