And April?

How about summing up April in one post, especially since I did not post in almost all of April? 

We will try to stick to an update via pictures. I don’t have any pictures for all the cool/interesting/motivational/touching stories from the clinic (Valerie seems averse to taking pictures...well, sometimes technology in general, but that is another topic for another time) so just rest assured...that ministry continues unabated, strong and providing a physical and spiritual reminder that Jesus loves you.

Let us get the depressing out of the way first.

I won’t lie, this year has been rough for the mission, for us, for me, for the Churches. Please pray for our physical, emotional, and spiritual health...as individuals, a mission, and multiple bodies of believers. April brought the need for us to meet with the leadership of the Church in Sampedrana, and the end of Gender being the pastor there. I won’t go into the details in this public medium, just say that in following the Bible’s teaching, there was a need for a pastoral change. This was not easy, not something we were wanting or planning to do, and came up quite suddenly. The meeting was ultimately encouraging for God leading the Church into the future, but as you can see from this picture, brought more than one of us to tears. 




Otherwise in Sampedrana, Alfonso continues to work on the Hill Climber coffee property. Here you can see a small nursery he started at his house for coffee plants. Small in size...but I believe he said there were roughly 10,000 plants there. They need to be transplanted to bigger individual bags for further care and maturing before being planted, that process will begin soon, up on the actual property. 

The goal is not 10,000 plants...but more like 35,000 or more.  That should be enough for 2012 at any rate.  The property could potentially hold much more than that...(more than 60,000)









Also we used a group’s trip to Sampedrana to distribute food and encourage the Church after the announcement of Gender stepping down to also take three drainage tiles for the road to the property. There are some creeks and drainage that run through the road, and without tiles...the road will be impassable fairly soon when the big rains begin. Ask the group though...the road to get there is already fairly interesting, and they did not even go all the way up! Four wheel drive, even in dry weather, is a must every time.

Here is one of the tiles in the back of Oscar's Ford (pray for it as well...running, but not well, and has been in the shop while they try to figure out what needs to be done.  115,000 miles on a truck in Honduras, going where we go, means it gets quite a workout on a regular basis. 

Along the trek that day, Alfonso gave us a big bag of raspberries harvested nearby from wild bushes, and a gentleman with those awesome “royal lemons” let us take a few they were not going to need. Raspberry lemonade anyone? We are looking at planting these wild raspberry bushes into a fence for the coffee property, providing a crop, as well as thorns to keep cattle and anything else from just moseying into the property, that will happen later this year as time permits Alfonso to do so.   Who knows, we may end up making raspberry and other jams/jellies in a few years.

Speaking of Alfonso, we finally got the new motorcycle delivered to him...no more walking two hours or more with tools on his shoulders to get to work on the property!

Of course it was raining that day...nothing like starting off on the right wet foot! The motorcycle is a cheaper Chinese bike (KMF)...we just could not afford a Honda or Yamaha with the donations received, but this brand new bike should work well for the next few years...and by that time he will hopefully need a truck to haul all the coffee, workers, etc.!

Talanga’s Channel 15 building is now complete...after much love and labor from Oscar, some paid help, and volunteers. They made the move last week, and now we have a secure building, a greater tie between the station and the Church, and no rent payments every month! The property still has work to be done in the future of course, but this is a big step. Second floor work is not planned until the station starts covering some of its expenses again...for the time being Jose Luis will live in the studio building itself.  (Note the wood framing in front...that is the future home for what you will see in the picture below.)

Pastor Jose Luis in Talanga has gotten involved with the clothing ministry to try to do more outreach, as well as generate some income for himself as well. There is no quintessential clothing ministry store type...some are indoors, some smaller, some bigger, some have hangers, some tables, some on a tarp. They all might look different, but all have the same goal. (Jonathan started another store in Villa de San Francisco with the goal beyond the obvious outreach factor to generate enough funds to give a pastor we know an offering to feed his family and enable him to work as a pastor there...we will see how that continues to develop. His Eyes is not in a position to take on financially another Church plant, but God is moving things forward there without our direct/monthly financial support!)

The TSP progresses, albeit slower now. Donations are continuing to come in...but slowly, and that has us thinking carefully about what we can do and when. The floor was a big step, and is now done. We plan on using a group in May to put up the walls for the bathrooms and porch, and then take a look at the donations coming in to see if we can start on the false ceiling and/or electrical wiring. After that...bathroom fixture/plumbing, lighting/fans, dry wall, offices/sound booth, and the last step will likely be putting in the tile floor and window fixtures....that is...still quite a bit to be done! We won’t make our goal of June...we are now praying we might be done before November, if the donations are there that is more than doable.

The rock wall...continues. The goal with the greater welding and securing of the containers, and the future beefed up columns along with this rock wall is to not have to deal with any issues in the future of the ground pushing our retaining wall beyond its boundaries. Big project, but hopefully will be finished with the big labor next month, and we will let nature/gravity/rains to move some of the earth back into the hole over the next several months, and then pretty up that area very close to the clinic probably in early 2013 after everything has settled properly.

 Cantaranas...the Church continues to put in the work to see the building go up! They are still making the blocks, and doing everything required. Jonathan’s only request to the mission is helping with the roof for this big building. Pray funds would be designated for that roof...I am not sure how much we will be able to help when they are ready (and that will be soon with the rate they are going!) since the cost will easily exceed $5,000 for the materials (even with them doing all the labor to get it installed....steel/metal is getting more expensive all the time!)

April was a busy month. God is moving in always incredible ways. The enemy is pushing back as well. Busyness, stress, problems...they all take a toll on all of us, I know they do for me, but join us in prayer that He who is greater than all our problems would renew us, restore us, regenerate us for His work, His glory, His honor...that He might be praised!

Normal day

It was a regular, normal food distribution day.

We went to Cantaranas...as we were arriving, Jonathan was heading to the vegetable farm, asked us to go with him. Then he took us in to show us the new tomato plants they are trying out...trying out to see if they work well before we put more money into a larger crop.

He also introduced us to the family that is now watching over the property, a family of eight (father and one son shot both in the last seven years) now living in our small little wooden house...that house still without a bathroom or concrete floor. The house is necessary because without someone living there...things start to disappear. 

Jonathan found them and offered them to place to live and some work.

When we first met, immediately she said... “I know you from the eye brigade this year!”

After the introduction and giving her the corn, my time was spent mostly talking to Jonathan about the tomato plants, the future, what to do, the possibility of a community garden on the property, the bathroom that needed built and more. I did not get to chat much with the family.

But Jana did. She found out that the mother of the family, Adelaida, had been praying that very morning to meet someone from this “mission” that Jonathan had talked about, to know that this is where she is supposed to be, that it all made sense what they are doing and how they are living, etc.

God answers prayers...and when you are the answer to someone’s prayers...in a brigade, giving a smile, a prayer...or just showing up with a bag of corn, people notice more than you might think. Kind of an encouraging...and scary thought eh?

Soccer stalled, Church engaging

Two items to cover in today’s post. I’ll answer for you on whether or not you want the bad news or the good news first. 

1. Pastor Jorge from the Teguc Church stopped by on Wednesday to chat about a few things. Unfortunately the closing of the soccer field was the downer of those topics. While renting out the field brought in some funds, it also brought in some rather colorful elements of the surrounding communities, especially at night. I have some questions personally on how this was all handled/administered, but the long and the short of it is that people were getting robbed...not just those coming to Church but in the neighborhood right next to the Church, fights were breaking out, drugs were being used, vandalism has been a big problem on the Church’s property (remember one of the reasons we needed to fence off the clinic property?) which is not just from those guys, but they were doing their part for sure.  

Not having their fence/wall done has not helped matters. We had been working with them to finish it, but they lost interest and changed focus, so we stopped taking groups to help (as was our agreement...when they work on it, we will help work on it.)

Saturday they tacked up a temporary wall to just try to keep the drug users and other recreational vandals and site visitors out, and removed all the bleacher seating and roofing, as well as placed the rocks in the pitch to keep it from being useful even if they break the chain link fence to gain access. I told Jorge that when they are ready to get back at it, we would be there to help...but he was not sure when that might be, especially as that is not a decision he gets to make by himself.

Field being closed...avoids most of the problems that up until this point they have not found ways to avoid (some solutions potentially could have been...finishing the fence, having a guard/supervisor making sure everything is on the level, banning offenders, etc.) So, the pitch will be closed at least until next year. You might have figured out this means the Church itself can not use the field either...a big sacrifice as Jorge pointed out. The wood and roofing for the bleachers are stored for the time being, hopefully they will come up with a solution that will suit them, as well as the greater community sooner rather than later.

I post this because there were quite a few people involved helping us help the youth get that soccer field established a few years ago, and then the soccer ministry, and I know they plus others will want to know of this, prayerfully, temporarily discouraging news. Pray the Church can find a way out of this mess and into being able to use this great tool at least for the Church itself, and potentially again as an outreach to the greater community.

2. Anniversary service at Cantaranas yesterday.

The Church still just has a lean-to next to the house Jonathan rents (for their housing/clothing store) so somehow they were able to borrow the mayor’s office first floor to use for this service, which included guests and well wishers from all the Churches His Eyes supports (Talanga brought a big contingent in Celeo’s packed pick-up, Sampedrana brought the very full Land Cruiser, and nearby San Juancito) plus the band from the Tegucigalpa Church came, plus a full bus of 45 people, the Churches planted in Danli and El Bosque via the His Eyes Talanga Church were there, and even others I did not get to meet.   (You will notice in the picture everyone moving their chairs wherever they had to in order to get out of the very hot afternoon sun.) 

Three years having the Church there...wow. Seeing them dig the footers for their building on the property we bought, and starting to make their own block to start building next year, is encouraging.

(Here is a shot of people gathering around to see the Church with help from San Juancito put on a drama about Christ entering the life of a murderer who was in jail.) 

Seeing us have an anniversary service where we did an eye brigade almost 11 years ago, in a place at that time that was so remote we had to stay over night (the currently paved road was a cratered mess...took many hours to get to Teguc) and had no clue a Church would eventually be planted...was eerily cool. Yeah...God is like that.

Here is a picture of the building when we did the brigade so long ago...quite interestingly, in the middle of the picture is our Honduran friend Patti, who was helping on her break that day, and just happened to be back from Spain on vacation (she works there and has for several years...easier to get there without problems than the USA) to go with us last night to the anniversary service.