Noel Aragon Update

Last week I posted this -
Noel Aragon
If you were in Honduras last summer - with this TORCH Team, you would have met my friend Noel Aragon. Noel was the guy in Santa Ana that was always smiling. He is the preacher in the new church that was planted in that community.Noel is married and has two beautiful children.This past week, Noel emailed to let me know of some difficulties that he and his family have encountered. They have a 2 year old daughter and over the Christmas holidays, she fell down a flight of stairs at the apartment complex where they live. She landed hard on her face and the initial consultation with Dr's made them think she would be okay - no eye or brain damage. Now, after almost 3 months, there appears to be continuing problems and the Dr's are thinking that little Karina has broken 3 bones in her face and will require surgery. We won't know till she is able to secure more scans and see's a couple more Doctor types.Noel doesn't have the money to pay for surgery and our TORCH Team is going to do whatever it takes to take care of this child. I will keep everyone posted on what is happening and will post some pictures of little Karina as soon as possible. In the mean time, pray for her healing.I am travelling to Honduras this week and will be scouting areas for our work this summer. Please keep me in your prayers as we are planning for our mission this summer.
Marc
Here is the update -
Karina was able to go to the Doctor on Monday of this week. I will hear back from Noel shortly and know if she is going to have surgery. It appears from seeing Karina this weekend that she has recovered well from her injury and we all need to pray that she will get a great report.

March Is Here

Well, March 1 has come and gone and that means two things - first, if you haven't sent an application, you are late. Let's get 'em in as soon as you can. If you plan to be a part of the July group and you haven't contacted me - DO IT NOW. The second thing that March means is that we are only 41/2 months away from our mission. WOW - this year is rapid!
Planning for this year is well under way and we - as usual are going to be right in the middle of some pretty amazing work. Our group will be a little smaller - about 75 or so - so we won't be going to 3 mountains at the same time but, that doesn't mean that the work will be any less rewarding. Our plans are to build - several houses as well as a Sunday School building in Santa Ana, we'll pack tons of food and distribute it to very hungry people, we'll be working in several days of medical clinics, the children's home- Casa de Esperanza will be open and we will have teams working there every day, Hospital Esquala will be part of our ministry, and every day we will send teams of people out to teach the Good News to the people in the communities where we are working.
I have had several questions about our work and how everything will be done - well, the best way to describe it is to outline a typical day -
We'll all get up to a beautiful morning- some of us have coffee about 6:00 and talk till breakfast at 7:00. At about 7:45 we meet for devotional and following that I make announcements about the ministry opportunities for the day. Most days we will have a construction crew that will be working on the Sunday School building and one person will be in charge of that. We'll probably average 2 houses per day and there will be crew leaders for those teams. We will have a VBS program and one or more evangelism teams. We'll send people to the hospital for ministry with the kids and we'll send a small team to Casa de Esperanza to work. There will be a food distribution team as well as medical teams. Once you know all the opportunities, you choose your work, meet up with your team leader and we all leave the mission house about 9:00 for our work. After a day of service, we all return to the mission house at about 6:00 for showers & dinner. At about 7:30 we have devotional and then we are off to bed so we can go & do it again the next day.
It always seems to come together.
If you are wondering about what shots to get - here is my answer - the most important shot is tetnis - make sure that you are up to date. Some folks get Hep A&B all good - if you plan to travel in your life, it wouldn't hurt to get those anyway. We have never encountered Maleria so I wouldn't go out and pay for those pills unless you just want to go and blow away extra money.
Please feel free to call or email anytime you have a question - and send your stuff to me ASAP.
(Pics of work from last year- the church in Santa Ana where we will build classrooms.)
Now that we are getting close, I will be updating this BLOG more often. Feel free to post comments and let everyone know about your plans, etc. Let's challenge each other to raise the bar. We all need to work together to raise the dollars that we will need to do the work that God has planned for our team. Never be afraid to ask people to join the team by supplying the funds to build a house, buy food, or send out a missionary.
Get ready for a great day in Honduras!
Marc