January Team!

2015 started out with a POWER TEAM from the US.  We had seven folks from our home church in Maryland who came down to escape the cold weather... no, I meant to write they came down to work!  It doesn't matter what I wrote as they certainly did work, long hours, great attitudes, and all to share the love a Jesus! We squeezed in a visit to our home in Humuya to enjoy some fresh coconut water from our coconut trees.

They arrived on Saturday afternoon and first thing Sunday morning we were up in the mountains to help give a special Sunday service for children.  Our friend, Aurora, started a children's ministry there and has been faithfully discipling the children for over a year.

Just recently the attendance has dropped to around 15 children as it is the time for the coffee harvest and many kids go to help their parents harvest coffee.  We had coloring pages for the kids.  They LOVE to color!

Our coming and holding a special event was an opportunity to have new children come. There were over 60 kids that came!  They heard a Bible teaching, did some special crafts, received a nice lunch, and most importantly, they were invited back for the next Sunday when Aurora will be teaching again!  It was a great start for the team to come alongside Aurora in this ministry she is doing and help her!

Sunday night we went to the church in El Coquito where we held a VBS during the week.  Our pastor, Charlie Baile, shared a great message with translation by our own deacon, Scott Chesemore (who was a missionary in Ecuador for 10 years).

They made extra special decorations in the church to welcome the team and the church packed out to the point that some people were left having to stand around the edge. Notice the floor covered in pine needs.  It not only looked pretty, it smelled nice too.

There was a special ribbon cutting ceremony after the service, officially opening the bathrooms our church has sent funds to construct.  During the service there was a slide show of the construction and it was amazing to see that not only were the men working but also the women, and the youth - both boys and girls!  This was truly a whole church project!

Monday was a busy day preparing for the week but we did make it out to visit a local business that makes aluminum pots like the one below in the photo.  

The team was amazed to see how hard these men worked having to make a fresh mold from soil for each item cast.  The aluminum is recycled from local scrap and melted down in a blast furnace fueled by used motor oil.   The incredibly bright light in the left of the photo is the blast furnace!

When the aluminum is poured it is cherry red.  It cools quickly and the new piece will be removed in just minutes!  We had a great time discussing possible Scriptural applications from this.  Can you think of any?

We did a three day VBS with over 80 children from 5 to 12 years old.

Our team had some Spanish speakers who could lead the stations and we also had the help from Aurora and some of her siblings!  They are a strong Christian family eager to serve the Lord!

Some of the activities could be done without the need to speak Spanish!

The Bible station had a Bible verse for each day which the children quickly memorized!

There were also arts and crafts which usually included something to make and a coloring page!

We provided a lunch each day which the women faithfully prepared!

The team did skits each day as another way to teach the Bible lesson!  What lesson would you want to bring in the animals two by two?

We even had a dinosaur skeleton dig!!

What is this crazy cardboard thing with the children trapped inside???  It's a not-to-scale Noah's Ark and it was one of the favorite stations of the week!!  As you can see from the photo, we needed some duck tape to keep our Noah's Ark a float!

After a fun morning of VBS, we put on the work gloves and dug into a construction project with the men from the church.

We completed a large cement slab behind the church that will double as a church kitchen and children's Sunday school area.

One of the VBS activities had the kids following clues to find hidden treasure... just like we look for hidden treasure in the Bible!

All the children received masks and loved getting to be a variety of animals!

In fact, they were very good at acting out their animals!

The men also enjoyed afternoon games using a soccer ball in the church (don't try this in your church at home)!

The women had great fellowship time too!!

During the last VBS day as part of the arts and crafts station each child put one hand print on a sheet to make a cross!

Pastor Gustavo, who is the pastor of the El Coquito church, wrapped up the week and gave an invitation to the children to put their lives in Christ.

The VBS was over but we had one more construction project.  We put in another cement floor with the men from the church.  This time is was in a simple adobe house of one of the women in the church.  It is a small two-room house where she, as a single mother, is raising six children.  Above we are praying for the Lord's blessing on her and her family!!

The team from the states were just seven folks but here is a group picture of all the workers for the VBS program!!  We were there helping the folks from the church!!

This was a great way to kick off 2015!!  There was a special blessing in that our daughter Kelly had just started as a full time Equip missionary a few months before and so was here to help us in all the many preparations needed for the team!!

Thank you to the team for coming, for the church for sending them and for the families who let them travel!!

A big thank you also to our special friends here in Honduras who added so much in giving so freely to the Lord by loving their neighbors here in working at the VBS in a church that is not their home church!!

And how are they to proclaim Him unless they are sent? 

As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!”  

Romans 10:15

Christmas Shoes

As I mentioned in the last post we received two recent donations to be used to bless the kids at CADIN and the second amount was used for shoes.

This is a pair of shoes that one of our CADIN kids wore all year!  There are stores here that sell good used shoes and even though they are relatively cheap it doesn't help if a person just doesn't have the money for shoes.

We told the volunteers at CADIN that we had some funds for shoes and they went to work.  They measured all the kids feet and then went shopping in the market and these women can get a deal!  In fact, they were able to buy brand new shoes for all the kids who have participated in CADIN over the past four years and that is over 60 kids!

On the day that we handed out the food bags we told the kids to come to the CADIN house the next week for shoes.  The day we passed the shoes out took an amazing amount of organization!

Here Esmerelda and Ellen are checking the CADIN roster for each child's name and then that child was given a number placing them in their group to receive shoes.  Because it was a much larger group of kids then normal we actually took over the front porch of the house across the street to organize the kids.

Here are two brothers who were in CADIN this year and we invited them to bring their two younger siblings to receive shoes also.  This is a family of seven children, living in simple one room 'house', and being raised by their single working mother.

We brought all the kids in the CADIN house and sat them down to start the day off with a lollypop!

Then we all prayed and thanked God for the many blessings He has bestowed on our lives.

Auora told the story of the birth of Jesus and included many little dramatizations with the children.  This made it extra fun for the kids, caused some giggles, and also kept them more attentive!

Here she explained what each of the gifts were that the magi brought to Jesus and that Jesus is the gift of God to us for the forgiveness of sins so that we can have a relationship with God.

We also did a memory verse:

"Give thanks in all circumstances; 

for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you."

1 Thessalonians 5:18

Then came the new shoes and BIG smiles!!

The shoes had been separated, bagged, and labeled for each child.

The difference for so many of the kids is rather huge and their new shoes had them walking on air!!

What a great blessing and time to talk into their lives about the greatest gift of all, Jesus!  I pray that some of these kids may grow up to tell others about the love and forgiveness they have received in the name of Jesus!

“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, 

so that everyone who believes in Him 

may not perish but may have eternal life." 

John 3:16

God's perfect Christmas gift was given in Christ Jesus!

Christmas Meals

We received two end of year cash donations specified for the CADIN program.  The first was to buy food for the families of this year's kids.

I asked our neighbor where the best place to buy the food would be and she said it was a "bodega" just off market street in La Paz.

Only the front part of the bodega is open to the counter so there's no walking aisles and touching merchandise.  The variety might be low but they have one of just about everything you would need for cooking and cleaning.

The owner, Manuel, came out to help us.  He asked us if we were missionaries and buying the food for distribution.  He said he has helped other missionaries do the same and so if we just give him the list of what we want, for how many people, then he will figure out how much of each item to get for each bag based on how much we wanted to spend.  This was AMAZING!  He helped us with the list, gave us a GREAT deal, and then had his guys make up the 30 bags of food!!

Manuel told us to come back in an hour and when we did everything was ready!!

Each bag had 2 bags of corn flour, 5 lbs of beans, rice, sugar, coffee, oil, oatmeal, seasoning and salt.  Each bag was over 25 lbs of food!!

We met with all the CADIN volunteers to put a name tag on each bag and started the delivery process!

If it wasn't for the help of the other volunteers there is no way we could have found all the kid's homes!

Some of the streets within the city were less streets for cars and more like walking paths but we managed to drive in and out, up and down, through the neighborhood to each home!

David, in the brown shirt, is the son of one of the volunteers, he is a great Christian young man, and was super excited to help out with the food distribution to bless the families!

I include this picture of the donkeys just to emphasize that while we were in the town of La Paz it is quite different from what may be your US paradigm for what makes up a town.  While most folks don't have cars they may have the work vehicle of choice... the all terrain sport burro!!

As we gave out each bag of food we told each child how much we enjoyed having them in CADIN that year, we told their family what a blessing the child was and that the food is a blessing freely given in the name of Jesus Christ!

Here is the latest Equip missionary, Kelly Zell, helping out!

Ena, in the green shirt, is the founder of CADIN, and is here blessing this mother as she gives out the food.

As I have mentioned before, the ministry at CADIN is amazing because the volunteers themselves are giving from the very little they have and so some of the volunteers were given bags of food also!

We spent the entire day having fun together passing out the food!!  When we were done we were quite exhausted but also full of the joy of giving!!  What a great way to prepare for Christmas!!

"Give, and it will be given to you. 

A good measure, pressed down, 

shaken together, running over, 

will be put into your lap; 

for the measure you give 

will be the measure you get back.”

Luke 6:38