Honduras Missions - Hearts and Hands

So yesterday (Friday) was a travel day for our team.  The drive from Tocoa to San Pedro Sula where we fly home from is around 6 hours, so the team likes to break it up a little so its not such a long day.  Friday we drove a good distance so on the day of our flight we have less driving time.  During that drive and our time relaxing you have some time to reflect and contemplate the past week. Our Wisconsin team leaders joined the Illinois team this week primarily as a exploratory mission to figure out how we can best partner with this team and bring our own teams in the future to continue and help grow the mission in this area.  There is much work to do and I think there will always be a need.  Laceibita is an area where few missions go as many go to Tegucigalpa and those surrounding areas.  I think partly because its harder to get to Laceibita than those other areas. After spending the week working with the people of Laceibita and talking with mission c...

Today we celebrated again!    The regular school in La Ceibita was dedicating a classroom to two missioners from the Illinois team that had passed away.    There was a large ceremony and the team was invited to it.    So many people came to celebrate the dedication of the new classroom.    So manny thank you’s shared and people recognized.    This is truly a community that gives back and loves each other.    After the festivities we spent some time walking around the grounds and visiting with the children, parents and teachers.    We then gathered everyone and loaded up the vans to head to the church.    Some cool off time was needed so we sat and ate lunch and enjoyed the shade of a building! It’s been so hot here, hotter than I like and hotter than I can often cope with. All week long though the heat has not been an issue and I think God has been giving me the strength I need to function and do his work....

I have been awake since 4am.  It’s not uncommon for me to wake up in the middle of the night and my mind start racing.  This time I spring awake with racing thoughts of commitments and taking a leap of faith.  3 of us from the Wisconsin team came here with the intent to kind of shadow the Illinois team, learn about the area and see where we fit in with this team and how we can help. Where our help is needed and where we can be most useful.  It’s been a week of learning and meeting new folks and getting the lay of the land, as well as a week of many blessings.  We have met so many beautiful people, so committed to Gods work and the mission.  Both Honduran people and North American people.  We have been blessed to be invited to be part of the team and I know I personally am humbled by what I see. Tonight the myself and the other Wisconsin team leaders had a meeting with the team leaders from Illinois. We discussed our commitment and involvement in this...

Tonight we had the privilege of attending the wedding of a Honduran couple that belong to the church in La Ceibita. All of the work we have been doing to paint the church was in preparation for this wedding. Lots of work to clean up and get ready but it was done with many hands making light work. We arrived on time but typical to Honduran time, it took about an hour or so for the ceremonies to get started.  People came and went, children ran through the building, and everyone was in bright colorful clothing for the wedding.  It wasn’t too much different from a North American wedding in that the vows were the same and the message was the same.  It was unusual in the fact that it was on a Wednesday evening and it was in Spanish. It was beautiful and Christ centered.  We did learn tonight that weddings in Honduras are extremely expensive.  However, in August weddings are free as far as the government paper work etc is concerned.  So there are a lot of Augu...

Today we went to visit the site that the new special needs school is going to be built on.  The area that it is in is a beautiful area surrounded by palms and mountains and is peaceful.  When we arrived the school had set up tents for shade and provided water for us.  The media showed up as well as people from the mayors office and parents and children of the school as well as teachers.  It was a heart warming experience to see the appreciation for all the effort put to pulling this project together.  Many people talked and the children presented people with mugs that had the school logo on them.  The children are so sweet and fun to be around.  After the talking and presentations, we then all gathered in a circle as the first stones were laid for the building.  Several members of our team that were active in getting this off the ground helped lay the first stones.  There were photos, hugs and thank you’s. At devotion this morning, we were ...

It’s been a busy couple of days!  We began our trip out here to join the Sullivan Illinois’s Hearts and Hands team on Monday.  Leaving Milwaukee at 6am, we flew to San Pedro Sula in Honduras.  It was a long but very interesting day.  We left the airport in SPS at 12pm and it took us until about 7pm to get to Tocoa where we would spend the week.  It was a LONG drive!  But, through some beautiful countryside, miles and miles of palm tree forests and then miles and miles of pineapple fields.  We went through busy towns and quiet rural towns and saw everything from typical Honduran homes (which are often not much more than broken buildings, some with roofs some without and some barely standing) to fancy big homes behind gated communities. We caught glimpses of the ocean and were surrounded by beautiful mountains.  Until you have driven here in Honduras it is hard to even imagine what the traffic and cars and the way people drive here is like.  An...