Why call them "coasters"? They actually move pretty fast

Highs are great, lows not so much. Mix the two and you are left a little punch drunks sometimes.

I’ll buck a trend and start with the low...a big low for me, and for the mission. The group that was scheduled to arrive next month and help us with the foundation for the future sanctuary building for the Church in Tegucigalpa cancelled today.

That hurt big time I’ll admit. Kind of like running and someone clotheslines you and you just fold up inside. I found out just as we were having a great time over supper with the eye team from NECO FCO that is here this week (more eye brigades.)

I have to admit that there are some lows amongst the highs there as well. We were in Cantaranas today, and the group performed to a high level...they worked well together, worked well with and for the patients for Christ, and we put people before numbers or anything else we were doing to a level that is not normally seen here (taking time to explain to people what they have...or don’t...how to handle it, how not to handle it, etc.) I have been doing the chief complaint portion of the exam for the last several brigades. It is an important step I suppose, it helps guide the rest of the exam, it helps those down the line to know what to look for, what to fix, what not to fix, etc.

But...I am human, and I admit that as much as anyone that I like to get a little more involved than just asking a few questions. I want to get to try the perkins tonometry, the portable slit lamp they brought, to get a closer look at the CD of the woman with glaucoma and some botched surgeries, just to get to do some ret, or even working in the dispensary. But the great fact is...I’m not needed there. I’m just stuck doing chief complaint.

And at the same time...I know that is garbage thinking. I know that scripture humiliates me, and I think that is the proper word when we think about what it means (free from pride and arrogance for one thing) from Romans 12 and I Corinthians 12....which can be boiled down to in this case: do what God has for you to do, and do it in love. I think I heard one guy say something like “I must go down, He must be lifted up.”

I had no time to take pictures today during the brigade once we got started. We were busy. Seeing every patient at chief complaint does have one advantage...you see what people come in to get, what they need. No one came in just asking for a check-up, all of them had one reason or another for being there specifically...some very specifically and with urgency in their voices. The total number of people seen...is not the important thing, but we were busy from when we got there until we left...late, but again, with a higher purpose.


Jonathan and the brothers and sisters of the Church there in Cantaranas have continued work on the tomato property that God has blessed His Eyes with through friends in the US who purchased the property...the plants have been purchased and are growing in the nursery, while the property is prepared with the herbicides, the rototilling, the irrigation all being laid, and on, and on it goes. Has it been easy? No, but again, all this is with a higher purpose...to find ways for the Church to maintain itself, to provide people ways to serve their Church body, to earn some honest income, and to provide for the needs of the Church extended body, pastor, and eventually the general mission of His Eyes as well...all to the glory of Christ Jesus. Jonathan reports two baptisms from the Church last week...and the small donation received from the brigade work today will be used to make blocks for the Church building they are slowly putting together.

Sunday afternoon with the group we went out to El Tablon, a first for us, working with Celeo who met a small Church and its pastor there through the outreach of Channel 15 in Talanga. Turns out...the pastor there is actually his cousin, which neither knew. The Church building there is so small...we had the clothing distribution in the larger nearby pulperia, a first to be sure for us. Celeo told me on Sunday that several people in the past week had Christ enter their hearts through the ministry of Channel 15 and the Church God has planted there through His Eyes!

And, the money that was donated for the wall project on the clinic mission house property is still paying dividends...Carlos is working this week installing electricity in our wall/storage containers (as well as fixing some other lighting issues in the man cave and mission house that are long overdue.)

I struggle to keep up...which is not even honest, I surely can not. Up and down we go...it is quite a ride. If it becomes my ride in my mind...the wheels go off the tracks. It is His...mission, His work, His body....His ride.

I feel wholly unworthy, and then I read something that just screams at me...James 4:6...But He gives us more grace. That is why Scripture says: “God opposes the proud...but shows favor to the humble.”

He gives us more grace...which is a good thing, because I most certainly need it.

Please join us in prayer over the foundation work for the sanctuary in Teguc...we want to begin and complete that as soon as possible, and will need more help now to be able to do that...as well as the rest of the project of course. Every one of those $25 square feet of the building do add up, and will help us one way or another to get to that completed building even sooner.