Daily Archives: September 6, 2021

Don’t be afraid, for I am with you.  Don’t be discouraged, for I am your God.
I will strengthen you and help you.  I will hold you up with my victorious right hand. Isaiah 41:10

It has been a busy summer.  Summer is now coming to a close, this is the first update we have sent in a while. So, let’s see what has happened since our last newsletter.  

We continue to work with TeachMe2Love.  A ministry of our missionary friends based just up the road in Yarmaraguila.  This ministry works with disabled children.  Both Jon and Alicia are certified special education teachers and have many years in the states and Honduras working with disabled children.  We go as helpers to do whatever is needed to help the children as they learn and have fun.

The children are amazing and learn quickly despite their disabilities.  They love singing, dancing, listening at story time and writing. All these children can write their name and color very well.  Their smiles and hugs just make our day!  It is very rewarding to be able to work with them.

In the middle of May, on the weekend of the 21^st, Joyland, our home church in Colorado, hosted a conference with Dan Mohler.  Pastor Dan Mohler ministers to thousands each year, preaching the full gospel of salvation, healing, deliverance and blessing.  We had the opportunity here in La Esperanza to gather with some missionaries to view and discuss the Friday night session.  Several of our missionary friends have listened to Dan for many years and were very excited that we could join the conference. It was a wonderful time of being together, listening to God’s word (in English) from a powerful minister. His main theme was everything from God flows from His love for us. As we sat and absorbed God’s love, I was healed of dizziness that had been bothering me for a year and a half. Praise God this has not returned since that night, I am healed! Do you have a need? Focus on the fact that God loves you so much He will provide the best for you; repeat after me: “God loves me”.  

Summer in La Esperanza is a festive time.  The central park is decorated, various events are held in the park and people are out and about with masks on, enjoying the sun shine.  This year, these umbrellas were used to provide shade for visitors as they wondered through the different events and vendors that are setup on the weekends. We were fortunate to be there on a week day without many people around and snapped this photo.

June/July is our normal time for a visit back to the states. This year staying updated with the COVID requirements to leave Honduras, enter the states and return to Honduras was on the top of our list of things to do. We had our COVID test done the day before our flight and before we left the office found out the doctor was not in and could not approve our test results until the next day after our scheduled flight time.-ugh! The nurse called the doctor and she agreed to “work” our case on line and gave us approval, praise God! We had no problems getting to the states or returning to Honduras.

Our 3 weeks in the states were spent in Georgia, Colorado and Alabama. During this time, we visited our family and friends, went to a conference at Charis Bible College in Colorado and attended and spoke at our church in Colorado. While there we were able to meet with Erica, our daughter.  She lives in Arizona and traveled to Colorado Springs to see us.  Every part of our trip was wonderful!

One of the primary objectives of our trip to the states was to get the items we wanted & needed back to Honduras. Some items cannot be purchased in Honduras and some items are just too expensive to buy here.  We had ordered Bibles, children’s Bible story books and devotionals that we definitely wanted to bring back with us. Because of luggage limits, we always try to be sure we are planning to bring back exactly what we need and a few things we just want. It’s always a challenge but amazingly we made it with two of our four bags weighing right on the limit. We really enjoyed our time in the states, reminiscing over past mission trips, school events and life in general. Thank you to everyone, family and friends, who hosted our stay in the states. We had a great time!

The week we returned from the states, we attended a Honduran church service with a new missionary friend we met just before leaving for the states.  Ruth is Puerto Rican and the mother of a friend who lives here in La Esperanza.  She has done mission activities all over Central America and has contacts with many Pastors here in our region.  One of them invited us to visit his church.  The church has many children with the Pastor’s son leading their Children’s Church. The service was very good with beautiful music and a good sermon by the Pastor.  It is a beautiful small country church where the Word of God is being taught. Join us as we pray for the Pastors and churches here that many Hondurans will come into a deep relationship with Christ.

After a short summer break of travel to the states, the “home church” in Yamaranguila we attend has begun meeting again.   This church was started by missionaries Jon and Alicia in the restaurant of a Honduran friend, Ada.  Ada asked Jon and Alicia if they would start the church last spring so her and her family could hear the word of God.  We meet on Sunday mornings every other weekend and there are usually around 15 people in attendance.  This is a great time to experience the love of God with both missionaries and Hondurans sharing the Word of God.

We have had the opportunity to have a few gatherings at our house over the past few months that included area missionaries and Honduran friends.  Whenever we get together, we try to make it a time of fun and fellowship with plenty of games and food; sometimes a cookout, sometimes a celebration cake and sometimes just snacks but always fun. There’s nothing like a relaxing afternoon with our brothers and sisters in Christ.

Thanks to the truck that the Lord provided us, we have made several needed trips to the capital city since returning from the states. 

August was time to renew our passports and fortunately we could take care of this here in Honduras.  We traveled to Tegucigalpa to turn in our application at the embassy and then had to return in 8 days to pick up our new passports.  The passport process is much quicker doing it here than mailing it off in the states and waiting for weeks and weeks to get the new passport.  This is one of the few things we have found much easier to do in Honduras than in the states. 

Our friends were having problems with their truck. As they told us about it and said they were taking it to Tegucigalpa to get it checked out, Gene felt that we should follow them “just in case”, and at the same time pick up our new passports, which turned out to be a good thing.  Half way there, on the 3.5 hour trip, we saw a trail of liquid behind his truck and were able to get them stopped before the engine blew.  We sat on the side of the road with them for about 3 hours waiting for a tow truck to arrive but praise God it was a pleasant day and there was a store nearby so we could get a cool drink and bag of chips. Their truck needs major work so join us in prayer that all goes well and they receive the funds they need quickly so they can return to working with their people. During this trip, we were also able to help other missionary friends. They had taken a bus to the capital to get their passports renewed, spent the night with plans to take the bus back home the next day. We offered them a ride back to La Esperanza and enjoyed their company on the way back.  God is good and we are so glad that the truck He provided to us can be used to help both missionaries and Hondurans, whoever is in need. 

Now let’s look a little closer to home.  I mean what’s happening at the house.  Summer has brought some new guest to our house.  We went out on the porch one day and noticed this beautiful caterpillar. We had just recently talked with a lady who told us how she had been stung by a beautiful caterpillar and how painful it was.  It is a good thing that we already knew some of the caterpillars here give a nasty sting and some are poisonous so we swept him up and put him outside our fence.  A good thing to know when you are in a different country than your birth country, don’t assume caterpillars are cute little things kids can play with and that turn into beautiful butterflies.  Also, know that they can sting.  Oh well, enough about that. 

Speaking of wells; our water well had an issue.  The pump would start and immediately stop.  Then do it again and again and again until the power was shut off.  We checked it and discovered that the rubber bladder inside of the pressure tank was bad and water had filled the tank.  They do not work like that.  So, we called the Honduran handy man that we always use to fix things when they are too big for us to tackle (which is most of the time).  He came over and checked it out, removed the rubber bladder and went to town to find a replacement.  We found one at a local hardware store but of course it was not the same actual bladder that was being replaced.  You discover pretty soon in a third world country that usually you can never find exactly what you need.  But, thank God, the Hondurans are good at making things work, even when they are not exactly what is needed.  We were able to get the bladder replaced and the pump working again.  Praise God for the people He has connected us with.

A quick update on the Covid status here:  The government has just recently started to push the vaccine.  It has been available in La Esperanza for a little while now.  We even saw an actual drive thru just up the street from us last week.  They actually blocked the street and every car coming down the street stopped and got a vaccination.  The hospitals are still full here so we pray for all who are affected. Group meetings and church attendance are still restricted in number of attendees and of course we are still wearing masks everywhere, having our temperature taken before entering a business and having hand gel or disinfectant put on our hands everywhere we go.  Will this craziness ever be over?

We are thankful for God’s love and protection over us as we continue to follow His plans. With all that is going on in the world we can hold fast to the hand of the Lord and be confident that He will see us through.