A Good Tired

Saturday was work day in Los Pinos. Several of our ladies had spent days planning and organizing, sorting clothes & shoes, and packing all of the things from several containers. I have never been involved in a clothing give away that was so well planned and organized. There were 1015 people that were served with new clothes and most of them went away giving the praise to our God. At the end of the day, there was on older man that came to me as everyone was getting on the bus – he said thanks to God that we were there in Los Pinos today.
While there was tons of activity going on at the church building, our teams of evangelist were back on the mountain teaching and telling the good news. There were four more souls added to the Lamb’s Book of Life yesterday. That means that there have been 29 new Christians this week....more to come.
Still more good things were happening on Saturday – as the workers were at the Los Pinos Church, the Mi Esperanza – Women of My Hope – program was shuttling our women to the training center to have manicures done by the women that have graduated from the cosmetology course. Mi Esperanza is a program that teaches the women of Honduras the skills they need to provide for their families – they also teach the word so that it is truly a program that offers hope.
Josué’s house was finished yesterday and everybody was pretty tired by the time of last nights devotional. A really good tired!
Saturday was “Another Great Day in Honduras”.
Marc

No hey problema

Friday in Honduras was again “another great day in Honduras”. We sent building crews to San Miguel to build three houses and others to talk to the people about Jesus. In Honduras, everything doesn’t always go as planned and you just gotta go with the flow or the frustrations would allow Satan to take your focus off of the mission. Yesterday was one of those days for one of our house crews. The crew went to the building site that they were given and as usual started measuring and digging corner holes. This is one part of construction that takes the most precision and time – because as we all know, a good foundation is what keeps a house standing. Anyway, our house team had unloaded all the materials, measured the site for corner posts, dug the holes, and began to set the posts. About this time, another person came up to the site claiming that the lot was his and that we couldn’t build there. Well, rather than take any chances, the crew reloaded the wood on the truck (a lot of wood too! Somehow it seems that the pile grew after it was unloaded the first time), they un-planted the corner posts, and went to another site. It was really cool that nobody complained and that this crew was able to get the wood moved and another house almost completed even though they didn’t get to get going until almost 2 PM.
One other crew went about 40 miles from the mission house and began construction on a house for Josué and his new wife. This house is unusual because it is 20 feet wide by 10 feet deep. It is also – when finished going to be much taller than a usual TORCH house because it is going to have a loft on each end. That house was about 75% completed yesterday and will be finished on Saturday.
There were 3 more new Christians that the Angels celebrated yesterday too. That – I think brings the total to 25. Our God is good! All the time.
Pray that we will have “another great day in Honduras”
Marc

Josue

Thursday in Honduras was truly “another great day in Honduras”!
There are now 4 new Christians in the community of Santa Ana, another family has a new house, there are over 200 families that have food in their houses, and my friend Josué is married.
Several years ago, six to be exact, I met a 15 year old kid that worked at the airport as a luggage hustler – (one of the people that grabs your bags out of your hands and wants to take it to your car or bus to get a tip.) That year we at TORCH hired Josué to work summers for us. He is a great worker and was always willing to do anything we needed. Even without much education, Josué was learning English and is now fluent. The second year that he worked with us, Josué became a Christian. Just like all of us, he has struggled with his walk with Jesus. Earlier this year, I saw Josué and he told me that he was going to be a dad and I asked him about his wife – he told me that it was just a girlfriend and as a friend, I told Josué that this young lady and his baby needed a commitment beyond that of a girlfriend/ boyfriend relationship. Josué was very hesitant to make this type of commitment and after a lot of talking it all came down to the fact that his grandmother was totally against this marriage. A little more digging and I found out that grandmother was afraid that Josué wouldn’t taker care of her anymore if he was married. Well, several of us made the trip out to Josué’s village to meet with his grandmother and to seek her blessing for a marriage. On Wednesday she gave the blessing and last night we threw a wedding for Josué and Caryn. Please pray for them as they will be parents within just a few days.
With only a couple of work days to go, we are all realizing that we still have much to do!
There have been 22 people that have made a commitment to Jesus and have been baptized but, there are so many more that need to know Him. We have distributed tons of food but, there are still too many hungry people. There are bad houses everywhere. All of this is why this ministry will continue and we will work just like Jesus – helping one person at a time.
Marc

Great Days in Honduras

Tuesday & Wednesday have been wonderful – best described as two great days in Honduras. We worked both days in Los Pinos and the results have been amazing to say the least. In the past two days, we’ve built 6 houses, passed out over 100 bags of food in a very poor community, held a ladies class, sent about 20 people to spend time with children in Hospital Esquala, sent several teams into the community to tell the good news, and have seen 10 people become Christians. Simply amazing what our God can do and we are blessed to be a part of his plan.
In Los Pinos, the people that have new houses are so grateful for the chance to have a dry place to live with their families. One new house was built for a very young single mother, another for a family of 10, another for an elderly lady in a wheel chair, another for a lady that was going to lose her rental house on Monday the 31st. We can all tell you so many stories about people we have met that have had their prayers answered by the team that you sent to Honduras. When we finish a house, the people always know where the credit goes, they give the thanks and the credit to our God.
It is now early Thursday morning and we are all dreading the end of our mission. Sorry folks, we all just want to stay and continue to serve.
Over the next few days, we’ll continue to build, feed, love, and teach. All in the name of Jesus. Please continue to pray for our team. So far we have been very blessed with no major cases of Hondo Revenge, nothing more than a few scratches and mosquito bites. Pray for our evangelism team and for our safety.
We are all set for “Another Great Day in Honduras”
Marc

Sunday & Monday

Sunday started with a bus ride to Santa Ana where we attended worship in the building that our team build last summer. It was amazing to see the 200+ people worshiping in a place that was a bare plot of land only a year ago. Our worship finished with the baptism of the brother of the young man that chose Jesus on Saturday.
From Santa Ana, we travelled into Tegucigalpa to eat in an area that we like to call the "Campero's Area". All good food from chicken to pizza to burgers. From Campero's we were off to the Valley of Angels for shopping and relaxation. We then went to Santa Lucia for our evening devotional. That was in the oldest standing church building in the America's. Built in 1531 with no nails, it is a beautiful building and the singing there was incredible. While we were in the devotional, a couple of folks were studying with one of our bus drivers and the study was well. After the devoyional, we found out that Franklin wanted to become a Christian and plans were made to baptize him. What a great finish to a wonderful day.
On Monday we sent three building teams to Los Pinos. This is a community where a church was planted 3 years ago and it is great to report that the congregation is doing very well. The building teams built while groups went up on the mountain to invite the ladies of the community to a women's bible study an the children were invited to VBS. The bible study resulted in a new Christian in Los Pinos. All in all it was a Great day in Los Pinos.
While the Los Pinos crews were making things happen there, there were a few that went to conduct a bible study with Mario and his family. This is the same MArio that I wrote about a few weeks ago. Turns out that MArio and the mother of his children had never been married and wanted to do that before they became Christians. We were able to pull together a wedding in about 30 minutes and smiles were everywhere. Immediately after the wedding, Mario and his wife confessed the name of Jesus and entered the waters of baptism. God is good! All the time!.
There were also teams that worked on packing food and some that went to Hospital Esquala to be Jesus to the children there. The food team packed over 5000 pounds of food and the hospital team came back emotionally drained. Please pray for everyone that goes to work in this hospital ministry. It is a very emotional day but, the smiles of the children tell me that they see Jesus in the people that are spending time with them.
Sorry for the shortage of blogs so far. Getting the internet to cooporate is sometimes a "welcome to Honduras" thing.
Pray for our team while we " have another great day in Honduras"
Marc

saturday

What a day! Our team started as usual with breakfast & morning devotional and we were out the gate by 8:40. We made it all of 1/4 mile before one of our buses broke down and we had to have the other bus return to help out. Al ended well and we repaired the bus and travelled on out to Santa Ana where our teams worked throughout the community. The dental clinic went as smoothly as any clinic as I've ever seen. We had new people - that had never gone into a community to tell people about Jesus - doing just that. There were over 50 at the 2:00 PM bible study and there were 2 new Christians at the end of the day.
The two houses were beautiful works and two new families are now dry and warm - all because God provided the resources for his work to be done. There were teams that worked with the childrens home - some people painted and others were just being Jesus to the children in Santa Ana. You had to be there to see just how awesome it really was. You can be proud of the work that the people that you have sent to work - this is a wonderful group of people!
Last night we tried to get in to "El Picacho" the statue of Jesus that looks out over Tegucigalpa. Normally, our teams are able to easily get in at night but - "welcome to Honduras" the gates were locked so we ended up having our evening devotional behind the statue- nevertheless - it was a great close to the first day that the whole team was able to work together.
Saturday was a "Great Day in Honduras".
Marc

Everyone is Here

This is Nicole posting again for my dad. Sorry to have kept all of you anxious moms waiting so long to know that your babies mede it safely. The group from St. Louis arrived on Thursday, and only one bag was missing. It was so good to see everyone. We enjoyed a lunch Church's Chicken. Fried Chicken seems to be a staple of the eating out diet here. wherever there is a Church's, there is also a Popeye's, a KFC, and a Honduran place called Campero's all on the same road. On thursday night my dad talked about what faith is and how we will see faith in people of HOnduras that we won't even imagine. We will see people with no food and no money to buy food, but they have such a strong faith that God will provide for them. It was a great day.

On Friday, the group went to Santa Ana, a town about 45 minutes outside of Tegucigalpa. Last year a piece of property was bought here. There is now a clinic, a church, and a children's home with five precious little boy (the children's home just opened) A few of the ladies and Ben from Ft. Laderdale worked in a dental clinic. Most of the people got their bad teeth removed. It was neat to see the kids smiling even after teeth had been yanked out of their head. The rest of the group from St. Louis went with Mark Connell, a youth minister from Birmingham that spends his summers down here working for the Lord, to build a house. This was a house site that the preacher at the local church picked out. If I understand correctly, the family that had lived there had lost their house to a fire. They had a roof over their head last night which is awesome because it rained pretty hard for part of the night.

While the group was working hard and serving the Lord, my dad and I went to the airport to pick up everyone that came in from everywhere else. As soon as they were off the plane and through security, they loaded the buses and went to Santa Ana to meet the rest of the group. Many of this group came last summer and saw what the land here looked like. All were amazed to see how their hard work had paid off and that those sidewalks they built really did go somewhere. They spent their time entertaining the kids that just wanted to hang around the clinic as well as playing outside with the boys at Casa de Esperanza, the children's home.

Back at the Mission House, everyone found their way to their room before dinner. The lovely staff at the Mission House served us with delicious Honduran cuisine. At devo we talked about taking care of the poor and needy both here and at home. We also shared where we found Jesus. Many people see Jesus in the eyes of the kids. It is so easy to see Jesus in these children. They are so willing to love complete strangers, and they have no reason at all to trust and love us but they do. That is a lesson that we can all learn from them: Love whether you know the person or not. Well it was another great day in Honduras.

Today we will be building 2 houses, having another day of a dental clinic, and Wesley Thompson and his crew will be going into the community to tell the pepole about Jesus. I will write more on that when the day ends.

Ready

FYI this is Nicole, Marc's daugher, posting. I have been here since the end of May. Everyone is so excited about "Don Marco's" group coming. It is going to be a great trip. I am excited for each person that has never been here before. Your eyes will be opened and your hearts will be broken. For those who have come before, I gauruntee that it will be better this year than last. If you got to work in Santa Ana, you will be able to see where all of your labor went. This property is beautiful. We will even go to the church there on Sunday. I can't wait for all of you to get here. I will be waiting at the airport to give each of you a big hug.

Work Plans

Here is a daily summary of our work plans - just know that Honduras has a way of making plans change.
20 Group from St Louis Arrives. Food Packing & Clinic Prep
21 St Louis group in clinic & work at Casa de Esperanza All others arrive- Food Packing & House building clinic.
22 Dental Clinic Evangelism House Building Food Distribution Children’s Hm
23 Worship at Santa Ana Valley of Angels
24 Evangelism VBS House Building Food Distribution Children’s Hm Hospital Esq
25 Evangelism VBS House Building Food Distribution Children’s Hm Hospital Women’s - Ministry
26 Evangelism VBS House Building Food Distribution Children’s Hm Hospital Women’s - Ministry
27 Evangelism VBS House Building Food Distribution Children’s HmBlind School Jimmy Hughes
28 Evangelism VBS House Building Food Distribution Children’s Hm Hospital
29 Evangelism VBS House Building Food Distribution Children’s Hm Hospital Women’s - Ministry
30 Worship TBD St Louis departs Group to work at Santa Ana
31 All others depart.

Next Week

Next Week –
Wow! All of us can officially say that we’ll be heading to Hondo NEXT WEEK.
For all of you that are new to this, I won’t even begin to try to describe what this is going to do to you, for you, and throw at you. You are going to experience a wide range of emotions and at the end, joy will prevail.
For those of you heading to your second trip to Honduras, well, all i can tell you is that this year will be better than last year....same thing for those of you that have been on many missions – every one is better than the one before. Funny how God works that way, it’s what keeps us coming back – time and time again and loving every minute of it.
Mom’s & Dad’s that are worried about their kiddos – don’t! We will take care of them and deliver them back to you – better than before. God is going to turn their lives upside down. Some of you are going to have your kids come home telling you that they want to change majors and become missionaries.
While I’m on the subject of worried folks, here is my cell number in Honduras –
011 504 351 8214
If you call it from your home phone, dial the number exactly as it is listed above. You will get a big surprise on your next phone bill – about $3.00 or more per minute. This is an emergency number and you shouldn’t expect to call it and get connected to your child. I will deliver the message. Phones are scarce in Honduras and it is expensive to call back to the states. There may be one or two occasions that your child will have access to an internet phone – anyway, we’re only gone for 10 days and you can keep up with everything we are doing on this web site. You can also attach a message and we will print them and make sure that your favorite person gets your message.
Okay everybody, lets get lots of rest, lots of prayer time, and keep up the excitement for next week. Our God has big plans for this team and great things are bout to happen.
Let’s go have a great day in Honduras,
Marc