The long awaited clothing container arrived on Monday. Praise God! Everyone involved with the ministry was happy to see it...in more ways than one as you might be able to imagine. It reminds me of one of those flow charts that show up in the press to show everyone how tourism affects so many different areas of life. Same thing, this just involved life...and the Kingdom. Cool stuff.
God waters you
You send clothes
We get clothes
Staff work clothing stores...sorting clothes, sharing Gospel, taking it too the streets...or near them in the stores.
People get clothes, get Gospel
Seeds planted
God waters them
Rinse and repeat
In other news, we should have some neat pictures of the next new clothing store, coming soon to 21 de Febrero. Be sure to stop by for the grand opening next week.
We are hoping this will just be the first of several new stores this year. Praise God!
Friday, January 26, 2007
Oh thank God....it is the police
The title is a paraphrase from a favorite movie of mine (surprised?), and it occured to me after the aftermath of the robbery came hard and fast on Tuesday.
We had the help of an eye witness who put himself...in the literal sense...on the line by showing us where one of the people he saw as they were breaking in and taking things (they took quite a bit of stuff).
Due to the very predictable response we were sure to get if we went to the house unaided, we approached the local constables requesting assistance only in recuperating what belonged to us.
Simple, right?
Well, being proven correct is not always pleasant. We approached the house of the individual identified (he could be seen through the open front door with our eye witness), with the obvious presence of the police, and asked Mr. X to give us what he took, to settle it like friends and be done with the matter. Mr. X choose to give the same schpiel as Sgt. Schultz, only without the German accent: "I know nothing!" At this point, the police stepped in...said there was an eye witness, and that he would be coming with them....suddenly, an epiphany! With a quick call inside the house, a digital camera was produced. Amazing.
Then the hunt was on....I felt like I was on a sickening slow roller coster where I was told to follow the police as they did there thing, following leads from person to person, leading them from house to house.
I have seen enough Law and Order to know what was going on was....well on second thought I never saw anything like this on Law and Order. Everyone first protested greatly...we have nothing, only for four homes to fall to having things they could not explain how they procured, especially when we identified them as ours. The worst was the guy that hid the DVD players he took, but failed to hide my obviously big, odd, and official camo military hat I use for work. Me: That looks like my hat. Police: Where did you get that hat? Mr. T: I pity the fool! whoops....Mr. Y "Uh, I don't know". You can take it from there.
Well, so did the police. It was a bit surreal the whole process...the police station, the guards, the sounds, the families arriving hoping to get their sons/husbands/boyfriends back. All thinking we had some power to tell them to release them after they had been found with the stolen things. The whole five hour process was educational, in the kind of way you wish you had not learned something.
We shared with our brothers and sisters (the families of those involved represented at the station) the iniquity of it all, of all of us, the lieing, the stealing, the forgiveness available that lasts only from God...this after the TV cameras came to push the police's view of nabbing a big theft ring...and as we were discussing the whole ugly chapter in this ugly saga, another media truck pulled up and we all decided for all those involved it would be best if we all left...families, us, friends.
What will happen? What will we all learn? Will we get our "stuff" back? Will the judge decide to put the men in prison despite our lack of any pressing charges? Only God knows. We pray for wisdom, for the Holy Spirit to guide us and those involved in all the areas as this situation hopefully comes to a close at least in terms of incarcination, but for also healing and a new chapter in the relationship between the Church and these neighbors who we are hoping to reach, no matter how many break-ins (and I have lost count) we have.
We had the help of an eye witness who put himself...in the literal sense...on the line by showing us where one of the people he saw as they were breaking in and taking things (they took quite a bit of stuff).
Due to the very predictable response we were sure to get if we went to the house unaided, we approached the local constables requesting assistance only in recuperating what belonged to us.
Simple, right?
Well, being proven correct is not always pleasant. We approached the house of the individual identified (he could be seen through the open front door with our eye witness), with the obvious presence of the police, and asked Mr. X to give us what he took, to settle it like friends and be done with the matter. Mr. X choose to give the same schpiel as Sgt. Schultz, only without the German accent: "I know nothing!" At this point, the police stepped in...said there was an eye witness, and that he would be coming with them....suddenly, an epiphany! With a quick call inside the house, a digital camera was produced. Amazing.
Then the hunt was on....I felt like I was on a sickening slow roller coster where I was told to follow the police as they did there thing, following leads from person to person, leading them from house to house.
I have seen enough Law and Order to know what was going on was....well on second thought I never saw anything like this on Law and Order. Everyone first protested greatly...we have nothing, only for four homes to fall to having things they could not explain how they procured, especially when we identified them as ours. The worst was the guy that hid the DVD players he took, but failed to hide my obviously big, odd, and official camo military hat I use for work. Me: That looks like my hat. Police: Where did you get that hat? Mr. T: I pity the fool! whoops....Mr. Y "Uh, I don't know". You can take it from there.
Well, so did the police. It was a bit surreal the whole process...the police station, the guards, the sounds, the families arriving hoping to get their sons/husbands/boyfriends back. All thinking we had some power to tell them to release them after they had been found with the stolen things. The whole five hour process was educational, in the kind of way you wish you had not learned something.
We shared with our brothers and sisters (the families of those involved represented at the station) the iniquity of it all, of all of us, the lieing, the stealing, the forgiveness available that lasts only from God...this after the TV cameras came to push the police's view of nabbing a big theft ring...and as we were discussing the whole ugly chapter in this ugly saga, another media truck pulled up and we all decided for all those involved it would be best if we all left...families, us, friends.
What will happen? What will we all learn? Will we get our "stuff" back? Will the judge decide to put the men in prison despite our lack of any pressing charges? Only God knows. We pray for wisdom, for the Holy Spirit to guide us and those involved in all the areas as this situation hopefully comes to a close at least in terms of incarcination, but for also healing and a new chapter in the relationship between the Church and these neighbors who we are hoping to reach, no matter how many break-ins (and I have lost count) we have.
Saturday, January 20, 2007
Right visitors, wrong time
Well, this is a scoop. Not the kind of scoop I am delighted to report, but a scoop nonetheless, since the February update is a long time coming.
We got word this afternoon that there was another break in, this time in the garage. I was out running when the call came in, so Valerie got Oscar on the phone, fresh back from vacation by a matter of hours, and he headed up to assess the damage.
No fires, and it appears not everything was taken, although since he has been gone and I have been cleaning/arranging, we will not know the extent of the loss until I head up tomorrow morning.
Apparantly this time they broke/smashed, somehow entered through the door near the clinic, where the stairs are (for those of you that know)...meaning they broke the intial lock, the board bracing the door, and the outside padlock. Obviously they were highly motivated to get in.
Ironically I wish I was upset or burning with something, but hopefully I have a somewhat more mature take on the matter and just pray for those that did the breaking that God would touch their hearts, as there is no lasting forgiveness except that through Him.
And for those that do not know...Grissom and his team will not be by to dust for prints and the like. Here you just resign yourself to the fact that you need to better protect property that is highly valued, even if not of not a high worldly value, lest it get taken. And no one was hurt, so that is good news. In another bit of balancing the bad news with "it-could-be-worse", remember that somewhere North of 90% (some say 95%) of murders here are never prosecuted. Not sure what made me think of that...hopefully I am not getting the gift of prophecy, but if I am, then "que Dios hará, hará", a take on the famous phrase this one meaning, "whatever God will do, He will do." (note those that love to pick on Spanish that the phrase in Spanish is much shorter to say than English).
This has strengthened our resolve in finishing the wall surrounding the property. Ironically with half the wall completed, it creates pockets of places where one can hide, and thus we are hoping to double or triple our efforts not worrying about the short term downsides (i.e. money) to finish the most critical parts of the wall in order to dissuade (notice the word prevent is most glaringly not used here) such opportunists in the future. If the wall was done, I am relatively confident the robbery today would not have happened. But....all in God's timing.
Rejoice with us, obviously not in the loss, but in the fact that we can be sure of our hope is not in what we have or lose but in Christ Jesus who never leaves us!
We got word this afternoon that there was another break in, this time in the garage. I was out running when the call came in, so Valerie got Oscar on the phone, fresh back from vacation by a matter of hours, and he headed up to assess the damage.
No fires, and it appears not everything was taken, although since he has been gone and I have been cleaning/arranging, we will not know the extent of the loss until I head up tomorrow morning.
Apparantly this time they broke/smashed, somehow entered through the door near the clinic, where the stairs are (for those of you that know)...meaning they broke the intial lock, the board bracing the door, and the outside padlock. Obviously they were highly motivated to get in.
Ironically I wish I was upset or burning with something, but hopefully I have a somewhat more mature take on the matter and just pray for those that did the breaking that God would touch their hearts, as there is no lasting forgiveness except that through Him.
And for those that do not know...Grissom and his team will not be by to dust for prints and the like. Here you just resign yourself to the fact that you need to better protect property that is highly valued, even if not of not a high worldly value, lest it get taken. And no one was hurt, so that is good news. In another bit of balancing the bad news with "it-could-be-worse", remember that somewhere North of 90% (some say 95%) of murders here are never prosecuted. Not sure what made me think of that...hopefully I am not getting the gift of prophecy, but if I am, then "que Dios hará, hará", a take on the famous phrase this one meaning, "whatever God will do, He will do." (note those that love to pick on Spanish that the phrase in Spanish is much shorter to say than English).
This has strengthened our resolve in finishing the wall surrounding the property. Ironically with half the wall completed, it creates pockets of places where one can hide, and thus we are hoping to double or triple our efforts not worrying about the short term downsides (i.e. money) to finish the most critical parts of the wall in order to dissuade (notice the word prevent is most glaringly not used here) such opportunists in the future. If the wall was done, I am relatively confident the robbery today would not have happened. But....all in God's timing.
Rejoice with us, obviously not in the loss, but in the fact that we can be sure of our hope is not in what we have or lose but in Christ Jesus who never leaves us!
Sunday, January 14, 2007
Honduras? Are you sure?
I was at the airport seeing off the latest group earlier this month and among all the remodeling which continues there (which by the way is looking better and better every time I am there), there was a curiously lonely sign placed in the hall of which I took great note.
Read it outloud with me, won't you? No one will think you are weird, or any weirder than before.
Now, I don't know about you, but there were a few surprises on that list for me, some humurous (oriental veggies from Honduras?), some flabbergasting: the 3rd largest supplier in the world to the USA of apparal? What about the big boys like China, Korea, Mexico....even the USA itself. Wow.
And now we are back in Honduras after spending five days in El Salvador for the CIY conference. If you do not know, El Salvador switched its currency to the dollar several years ago (the currency was called the Colon (Columbus) before that. While this meant less muss and fuss for us (we brought dollars with us), our traveling companions did not have time before hand and ended up changing their Lempiras to dollars at the border, and then we got to have fun explaining how much a dollar is worth...and what those little coins are worth. It was the inverse experience from hosting groups that get Lempiras, and then think they have disposable monopoly money.
And if that were not enough...at the first of many post border stops Silvia went to get some water. The lady selling politely said two bags for a "cora". Silvia then asked us what a cora was, and thus the debate began. Turns out quickly that it is worth 25 cents. The longer explanation (that Brendy, an English speaking Honduran had to point out to us later in the week after yet another Honduran asking about how much a "cora" was worth) is that "cora" is the El Salvadorian way of saying...quarter. Go figure.
(yes, that is a pool...and with the heat at the camp site, many people needed it daily)
The one run-on sentance wrap up of differences between Honduras and El Salvador?
El Salvador has volcanoes, more trees, more moolah (new mint dollars I had not even seen), more factories, more people, pupusas as a national food, a capital city airport that is over an hour from the city it serves, and no Espresso Americano, much to the chagrin of all the Hondurans.
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