Day 7

    The date is July 1st of year 2013.  It was on this day 20 years ago that team member John Everett entered this world.  There is no better way to celebrate a birthday than working and serving the people of the beautiful country of Honduras.

    The day started off with an amazing breakfast by Saundra (like it would be anything different).  Anywhoo....this trip is more than just about this wonderful birthday boy and this amazing woman.

    Today we got to do one of the things that I enjoy the most in this world......build!!!  We built a house for a family whose mother was living with them and they did not have enough room for them all.  The build went very well and it was an awesome community to work in.  There were people of all ages that came from the surrounding area to lend a helping hand.  I am so grateful for the children there.  From their willingness to work, to just seeking attention just wanting someone to play with them.

    We also handed out a metric ton of food bags in this very same community.  The bags consisted of rice, beans, flour, sugar, etc.  It was great to get to see the faces that lit up with such a simple gesture.  We were very fortunate that the storms held off until we were pretty much done.

    Our evening was spent in downtown Tegoochigalpa driving the streets and passing out rice and beans, fresh tortillas, and water.  The big thing in this area is sniffing glue and it is absolutely heartbreaking to see the grip that this addiction has on people.  It shows no discrimination........male or female........young or old.  So many are affected by this and there is no end in sight.   I saw a woman who was pregnant and sniffing glue.  It tore me apart to think about what kind of havoc this addiction was wreaking on her life and also the life of her unborn child.

    All in all it was a very good day.  As I have heard from a couple of wise men.....It is another great day in Honduras!!!!

    (Eric Somerville)

                                           
                                                                     (build site)

                                                                        (cutie Genesis)

                                                          (group picture with the family)

                                                                 (delivering food bags)

   

Day 6

  Today was spent entirely at Casa de Esperanza. This is definitely a favorite for all of us!
  We started at church where we were greeted by all the excited faces of the kids saving seats for team members. After the (two hour and completely Spanish) service, the kids went for naps and we headed down the road to grab some lunch at a local cafe run by another missionary in the area. Once the team had our fill of delicious food we headed back for play time.
  On the way to church this morning we listened to a song by Jeremy camp with these lyrics:
This is my desire 
This is my return 
This is my desire to be used by You 

You want to be real 
You want to be emptied inside 
And I know my heart is to feel You near 
And I know my life 
It's to do Your will 
It's to do Your will 

All my life I have seen where You've taken me 
Beyond all I have hoped and there's more left unseen 
There's not much I can do to repay all You've done so I give my hands to use

  As I watched the team interact with the kids it reminded me of this song over and over. I saw all of them being used by Him each in their own way. While one was shooting a make-shift basketball, another was brushing hair, and another was pushing someone on a swing, and another was kicking a soccer ball and another was rubbing a back of a little one in need. Love poured out from everyone today and I witnessed each one giving God their hands to be used by him.

By: Caity

Day 5

          Hi this is Elizabeth! Today was quite an interesting day once again for the team and me.  This morning we visited The Valley of the Angels, which is a large community of shops on the outside of Tegucigalpa.  It is located way up in the mountains, which makes for an uncomfortable travel to say the least.  We got to spend the day shopping and spending quality time with some members of the team. I was very fortunate to spend time with my best friend John and two of my favorite boys who live here in Honduras: Marvin and Francisco.  We bought many authentic Honduran valuables for our friends and family back home, and also visited a wonderful authentic café for lunch.

          Our next stop was interrupted by an unexpected detour that consumed much of our time. We were on our way to a village to play soccer with the children of the area and we were pulled over at a police check out (operatibo) to check the documentation of the vehicle, which is common here.  The police officer also needed to check our passports, as we are foreign to this country. Of course we had the old copy of my expired passport so this was an issue. Also it was a problem to this police officer that we did not have the passports in hand with us.... Three hours later and many jokes later the police officers gave in and let us go. By this time we were nearly late for dinner.

          We were meeting the kids from the orphanage Casa De Esperanza to play in the playplace and eat dinner.  For most of the team we were looking forward to seeing some familiar faces and for others make new friendships. And that we did. This was a nice way to introduce us back to the kids and get us ready for our visit tomorrow!

Day 4

Me llamo Zeta. I am bad at riding on planes and I am a Poke'mon master. But mostly, I just love Jesus and even though it's a little cliche' I have seen God work this week.

Hospital Escuela- This place is horrible. But I had some great prayer time and God revealed Himself in a solemn but merciful way to me and I'm so glad we went. Basically, we brought a bunch of donated stuffed animals with us and handed them out to the kids. That seems simple, but for me it was the farthest thing from my comfort zone possible. I essentially walked into a room full of physically and emotionally broken children and was expected to strike up an encouraging conversation in a language I don't speak. Each floor we visited, every new room we entered we discovered new pain and sickness afflicting the toughest kids I've ever encountered. All without being able to speak truth to them in their own language. It was ok, though, because the God of Moses was behind me and ended up reaching past me, as well as each of the champions I am proud to call friends in my group, and busting down the language barrier in a beautiful way.
     Yesterday, we read a story about a leper who hadn't been touched, even by his own family, for five years, but was then emboldened by the distant sight of his daughter as he hid behind a tree near his own home, to go and seek out the Teacher that had come to his city. When he had found Jesus he called to Him and He came, touched the leper like no one else would and healed him with a word. This story is about Jesus not only restoring the man's health but restoring his humanity with a touch. And that was the lesson we carried with us into the hospital. We spoke to the children through touch, restoring their humanity and their sense of self-worth as only Jesus' hand reaching through us could.


Basilica Suyapa- A huge Catholic church. Probably the most expensive looking building I've ever been in. Had some good prayer time here. Also, Wiz and John stealthily evaded the guard and made it to the top level of the church and back outside without being discovered. I was moderately impressed.


Casitas Kennedy- This place was freakin' sweet. It is a subsidized orphanage with some of the most happy-go-lucky kids EVAR and they molestar'ed the snot out of me. First we bought 3.2 billion pizzas and hauled them all over, set them down and got down to business with some intense frisbee after which a kid made off with our frisbee. Then I watched and giggled as Eric, Wiz and John were mobbed by ravenous, raging kiddos when they tried to hand out said pizza. After pizza I nonchalantly painted a couple of girls' nails alongside Caity and Wiz and got the frisbee back, we promptly made the mistake of letting a kid hold onto our frisbee while Henry started dancing. The frisbee stayed lost this time. I was devastated. More importantly, Henry, a teenage boy who lives in the same house as David (our host) is my God Blessed HERO. I TELL YOU HWAT. This dude danced to requested songs and the screams of star-struck girls for a solid 25 minutes. Then he proceeded to teach a few girls some dance moves and then give his testimony about how he grew up with drugs, sex and alcohol and through Christ he was able to set those things aside to discover and subsequently embrace the gifts given to him such as dancing and drawing. This guy's heart is really in it and a piece of me is going to stay here with him.


Mother Teresa Home- Another orphanage. For little kids this time, I'm talking 2-5 years of age. Not a lot happened here but we were again able to spread the love of Christ through touch and quality time spent coloring pages and taking an obnoxious amount of pictures as well as swooning over a particularly chubby little guy whom we had to beg to sit still for a while because he was so flighty.

When we got home our hired hand lady cooked us the most awesome pork chops in the nation. Then I learned how to play the card games Rook and 31.

Then we fedoodled.

Molestar (verb): to bother.

Day 3!

Shalom!

 This is John Everett. Today we went to the dump in the afternoon to pass out bologna sandwiches and water. It was a very hard place to be because the conditions these people work in. They do not have money so what they do is go and pull plastic and other recyclables to sell. We sat in the back of the truck and passed food out to almost everyone. 

    The other thing we did today was pass out clothes to people in a church that our group built years ago that i was not a part of. What we do is "sell them" for a small price to give the people a sense of ownership over the clothes that makes them feel better and they know they own these clothes. Today was a very good day.

   We also went to burger king to buy food that helps pay for a girls surgery who needs a tumor removed on her brain stem on her T1 and T2 vertebrae. God is Good!

Build 1

            Today began our first real day of work in Honduras.  We woke up well rested and ready to do some hard manual labor.  We loaded up in our fifteen-passenger van and headed for the property of an employee that works at Corey’s school.  Our intent was to show her and her family the love of Christ by building them a new house.  It was a hot day and the sun was relentless on our tender white skin.  But the team persevered through rock in order to dig holes for the corner posts.  As the hard work continued we saw a house gradually take form.  As we built, I noticed someone else working tirelessly, it not a team member, and not on the house.  The woman, whose family would soon occupy the house, was slaving over the stove fire.  She was preparing a meal for each and every person with a hammer, shovel, spud bar or piece of wood.  The aroma of the food was captivating, but the notion of sacrifice that came from the meal blessed my soul.  She made a stir-fry type dish that could feed a village.  It was so delicious.  And it was a clear sign that God was looking out for us because we forgot the sandwiches that we had made for lunch.  After a few more hours of hard labor, the 16 by 16 house was completed.  The team and the family entered.  We linked hands and began to thank God for the family and for the opportunity.  After we prayed, the woman gave thanks, first to God and then to the team for our willingness to follow Him.  Exhausted and satisfied with our accomplishment we left the family in their new home.

            We took a much-needed moment to relax once we returned home.  The boys, who are staying with us badly, wanted to go swimming.  Being hot and sweaty, a cool swim sounded quite inviting.  We played and swam with the boys at the community pool for a while until we had finally cooled down.  We returned to the house once more for dinner. 

            To celebrate our first full day in Honduras we went to La Creperia.  It was a must for the team to experience this cultural wonder.  The team enjoyed a dessert dish that consisted of a crepe, strawberries, chocolate, and ice cream, named the Belga.  It was a legendary dessert of which our grandchildren will one day hear tales. 

            Con panzas llenas y corazones contentas (with bellys full and hearts content) we returned for devo.  After good conversation and even better reflection, it is time for bed.  Hasta Manana!

Mike Wallace

Working hard!

 Almost finished.

                                       

   The new home owners!                                       

        

 The Belga

Satan's attempts vs. God's plan

I wish I could say that the only issues we encountered ended with a determined Elizabeth on her way to NY.  However, Satan had other plans.  Upon arrival in Atlanta, we had planned to get to our hotel and rest up for the second leg of our journey on Tuesday.  As we exited the plane we waited for others with connecting flights to pass by and even get their gate-checked luggage.  We were the last to retrieve our luggage.  As Josh walked over to get the remaining green bag, he turned back and said those four horrifying words “It's not my bag.”  Indeed it was not.  Delta was somewhat useful in helping us track down the passenger who mistakenly took the bag.  After being sent to all corners of the airport we caught up with a sweet elderly lady who had mistakenly switched her carry on bag full of cake (we don’t know either) with Josh’s clothing for the week.  Needless to say we would not be getting the sleep we wanted.  But how dare Satan try to destroy our spirits by using a sweet old lady with cake.  God pulled us right through and with positive attitudes.  However, the next day he was at it again.  Delta was not allowing us to check Eric in.  They had mistakenly given a voucher to Elizabeth from Eric’s ticket instead of her own.  Our Delta agent was calm and relaxed and it helped tremendously.  Our Hopes and spirits were still high as the ticket was processed and we eventually boarded our flight.

            Upon arrival we grabbed a quick pancho sandwich for lunch.  Next stop was Mi Esperanza to learn about their ministry.  They assist mostly single moms who are in need of work.  They teach them trades like sewing, hair styling, and computer skills.  They also have a store for souvenirs full of products made by their students.

            After this we returned to the house.  The rest of the evening was spent recouping and sorting clothes in preparation of our clothing store later in the week.

Thanks for your prayers and support.  This mission wouldn’t be possible without an awesome God and an unshakable body of believers behind us every step of the way.

Phillipians 4:13

Mike Wallace