Hospital Ministry

Hospital Maternity Ward

Today for the second time this trip, Paul, Mike, Peggy and Melissa visited the local hospital with Nilda, from the Gates of Hope, who assisted Mike with translating. We delivered onesies and receiving blankets along with tracts in Spanish explaining the plan of salvation.  Additionally, we offered prayer for the moms, their babies, their futures and their eternal life.  There were four rooms with eight to ten beds each, filled with young mothers and their infants.  Two of the young women's babies were still born.
We found one mother with no family or clothes and her premature newborn in the ICU.  She asked if we had clothes for adults.  We sorted through the gifts provided by our church members and found nearly a bag of clothes we'll deliver tomorrow.

Premature baby in ICU

Each of us was touched on various levels by the experience of seeing these young mothers who don't have the means to nurture or support their babies.  Many of the new mothers were "babies" themselves who displayed expressions of desperation rather than joy.  We pray that God will intervene in the lives of all the mothers and babies we encounter to provide hope for a better future.
We plan to visit the hospital again before we leave Tocoa on Thursday.

Young Mother with Newborn

Donna's Post

Some of you might remember me telling you about the lady who had twin girls (identifying them with nail polish)...she wanted me to come in to see them. She had a dark one-room house, approximately 12x14, with a dirt floor and what appeared to be a boulder underfoot just as you stepped thru the door. Update...she now has a level concrete floor! And BTW, she has 2 older children. So that's 6 in a one-room house. Can you imagine? The oldest, a boy, always looked angry in the pictures...that might have been his macho-look...I don't know, but this year he seems happy...smiling all the time. He was helping with the younger kids, too.


- Posted from Tocoa, Honduras

Palm Sunday Procession

Here's a link to the Palm Sunday Procession this morning at the local catholic church across from the hotel we are staying.

Philippe's house construction continues

First of all we are aware of the storms that hit NC today and we pray for everyone's safety. Several of us called home today to make certain our loved ones were okay.

It was a long day for the team members working on the house as they continued building the block walls and moving "allot" of dirt and breaking it up so the concrete floor can poured. It was in the 90's today and the guys worked from 8:30 a.m. to dusk, which is around 6:30 p.m. They were extremely tired and need a well deserved day of rest tomorrow.

A group went to the local hospital to hand out receiving blankets and other items.

Donna is still not feeling well and Andy had a rough day. Please be in prayer for them to get well.

There was a double wedding at the local catholic church across from our hotel, which was interesting to observe.

Didn't have any pictures to share today, but hopefully will have some tomorrow.


- Posted from Tocoa, Honduras

The team has arrived!

The rest of the team has arrived in Tocoa!

Unloading all of the luggage out of Juan's truck

After the team arrived we broke up into two groups; one group went to the grocery store to pick up peanut butter, jelly, snacks and bread. Most of our lunches for the week will be peanut butter sandwiches. The second group went to the bank to exchange US dollars for Honduras limps; the exchange rate is 1 USD equals 18.895 Limeira. It's always an ordeal to get anything done at the bank, what should have been a 5 minute transaction took approximately 45 minutes. Oh well I keep forgetting we are on Honduran time! 

After lunch we all headed to the Salem Baptist Church to begin the activities. But before we could go we had to push Juan's truck so he could jump start. It seems the new alternator he put on his truck is overcharging and causing the battery to heat up and loose its charge. But it wouldn't be a normal trip if something didn't happen to Juan’s truck!

Pushing it back into the parking lot to get a good start.

Pushing Juan's truck to jump start the engine

When we arrived at Salem Baptist Church we first had to unload some suitcases  to take inside the church.

Next the team headed over to Philippe's house to join the the local workers in building the house.

Donna continued her cross-stitch classes today with the women of the church.

She received her gold needle for finishing her first project!

The team had dinner at one of its favorite places to eat, which is an outside restaurant serving real good Honduran tacos. 

Before I sign off tonight I would like to ask everyone to say a prayer for Donna; she has been struggling with some respiratory issues and is having a rough time. The dust and the trash burning have been giving her fits.

- Posted from Tocoa, Honduras

Salem Baptist continued

The ladies continued with their cross-stitch and jewelry crafts today. Donna has been giving out gold needles to the ladies who have been doing well with their cross-stitch. Each time she gives one the ladies all clap. It's very special to see how proud they are of their accomplishment.

To keep some of the kids occupied today, Donna gave them a puzzle to work on. After I gave them some guidance they caught on and were able to complete the puzzle in a couple of hours. It was special when they finished they started calling my name for me to come and see their finished puzzle. I told them "muy buena", which means very good. They were excited they had finished! Some of the kids also wanted to play hopscotch, so I let them take the chalk and draw their own squares. They got a big kick out of the blue chalk dust all over their hands.

























Philippe's house is coming along, but I don't think the walls will be finished by the time the rest of the team arrives.



























The rest of the team will be in Tocoa around noon tomorrow. Praying God will give them safe passage on the last leg of their trip to Tocoa. Looking forward to them getting here.

I'm getting more comfortable driving around town, except for allot of the roads we have to drive on are dirt roads and "very" bumpy! My body is taking a beating with these rough roads!

Here is a few more pictures of the kids.

Signing off for the night....




























- Posted from Tocoa, Honduras

Activities at Salem Baptist Church

Today's activities got started slowly. We were suppose to meet the ladies at the church at 1:00 p.m. Well we were on time, but the folks who had the keys were on Honduran time.

So we improvised and Donna worked with the ladies and their cross-stitch projects in front of the church. Donna was pleased to see several of the ladies had already or nearly completed their first cross-stitch project.

This is Marian who assisted Donna with translation and cross-stitch instruction

At 3:00 p.m. Someone with a key showed up and let us in the old church where the activities are being held. So the ladies moved in doors where Donna could continue her instructions and show the ladies some more difficult cross-stitch patterns, for those who had already completed their first project.














Donna also brought some childrens books for the church and they really enjoyed looking through them and of course they wanted to take them home, but we explained to them they were to remain at church so all of the kids would have an opportunity to read them.

Diana found her a book to read!

- Posted from Tocoa, Honduras