Trip Journal

June 30th - July 3rd Tegucigalpa

Our intent is to update this site while we are gone 2-3 times per week.  Remember - we're in a rural town and communications may be difficult.  no news is good news!  Thanks for praying for us!

Last Update 7/2/2001

 July 2, 2001

We were awakened Saturday morning at 4:15 being serenaded by the church congregation of Santa Cruz with hymns of blessings and gratitude by people we have really grown to love and appreciate.  They taught us lessons that have impacted us greatly.  After an hour of sharing, we said our good-byes to these people, got another hour of sleep and then began our preparations to go to Tegucigalpa.  We finally boarded the bus at 8:45 after many farewell wishes, hugs and tears and were sent off on our way by the community leaders and many friends we had met. 

 

We had an uneventful 3-hour bus ride back to Tegucigalpa and are staying at the Honduran Mia Hotel.  It was good to freshen up with a little warm water!  Some people took more than one shower in a matter of 3- 4 hours.

We got our first taste of American food again by having Dominos pizza for dinner.   We spent time acclimating bask from village life.  The weather in Tegucigalpa is cooler and cloudier than in Santa Cruz, with a little more rain.

 

Saturday night we shared the hotel with the Costa Rica soccer team which ended up beating the Honduras soccer team on Sunday afternoon.

 

Sunday morning we joined the Church of God for their morning worship.  This church is very similar to Westwood in that they have Worship leaders, guitars, keyboards and songs on the overhead.  The Pastor spoke on Psalm 139 – Where can we go from You?  We can’t go anywhere where You aren’t with us.

 

After a BBQ buffet lunch at the hotel, we traveled about 1 hour northwest of Tegucigalpa to a little town called Valley of the Angels and spent the afternoon shopping.

 

This morning, Monday, the team went to a local shopping mall and spent a few hours shopping and had lunch at a typical mall food court with Subway, Burger King and TGI Friday’s.

 

This afternoon we had a debriefing meeting to preparing the kids for the return to the states, each one sharing a highlight from the trip.  Highlights were seeing God close doors in order to open another one, having the opportunity to experience God’s grace, meeting new friends among our own team members and with the people of Santa Cruz and seeing answers to prayer.  We also prepared for our reentry of emotions and describing our experiences to those who might be interested.

 

Supper tonight was pizza and ice cream followed by a Praise and Worship service to conclude our time here.

 

Prayer requests:

       Keep Dr. Vides, Rosario and their family in your prayers as they deal with a family concern.

       Pray for our safe return home on  Tuesday evening

       Continue to pray for rain for the village of Santa Cruz

 June 29, 2001

Wednesday we went to the church and finished painting the mural based on verse John 15:5.  We also painted the name of the church above the front door.

Dustin was scheduled to do his two performances for the kids at school, but was only able to do one as the head master denied the second performance.  The city council instead allowed him to do a performance similar to the one in Guayape.  Dustin is a world champion unicyclist and his performance not only includes tricks on the unicycle and juggling with fire, but also parallels the challenges of riding a unicycle with his testimony.  There were about 300 kids who attended the performance on the soccer field.  One of the city councilmen, who does not attend the church, was taking notes of the biblical references that Dustin mentioned in his testimony.

 

That evening, we had a party with the church family.  Our students had a local carpenter build a 2ft by 3ft cross and found thorn bushes in the woods and made a crown of thorns.  They presented the cross and crown of thorns to the pastor.  Both the church group and our team got to share words of appreciation and thankfulness.  It was a great celebration and a lot of fun with cake, singing and playing games.

 

Thursday we visited more homes again although this time for more of a social visit.  We split into groups of 2-3 and we were able to meet with a lot of people.  We visited at least 150 different homes to thank them for their hospitality and to tell them how much we loved their town.   It was nice way to continue the relationship with the people of Santa Cruz.

 

Later that day we prepared for a community gathering at the city center.  This was kind of a bon voyage for the kids.  We showed a Spanish Vegitales movie and did a lot of kid things – bubbles, puppets, making things out of pipe cleaners, and making necklaces and bracelets out of beads. There were at least 200 kids in attendance. 

 

Today we started cleaning up the houses we’ve been living in for the past couple weeks and organizing what we will be leaving behind such as clothing and medicine for Dr. Vides to distribute.  Tonight we had kind of a ‘last supper’ with the city leaders eating an authentic Honduran meal with beans, rice, chicken and beef.  We spent the evening talking and preparing for our departure tomorrow to Tegucigalpa at 9:00am.  We should arrive in the city at about 1:00pm.

 

Continued prayer requests:

q       Please pray for rain in Santa Cruz.  Although this is their rainy season, rain has been scarce so the crops are suffering. 

q       Pray for a safe journey for us to the city and for our continued fellowship.

 

Everyone’s spirits are good, but we will be sad to leave tomorrow.  Many of the students have said they would like to come back to Santa Cruz.  They will miss all the friends they’ve made.

 

In Tegucigalpa we will visit the Valley of Angels where the local merchants sell their wares, do some sightseeing, and have some group time.  We will have one more update before our final arrival back in Minneapolis on Tuesday night!

June 26, 2001

On Sunday we worshiped at the Church in Santa Cruz.  The pastor allocated half of the worship time to our team to do our service and then they did their service.  It was a fun experience since we were together, but yet each group did their own thing.  We will be getting together with the people from the Church again on Wednesday evening to share stories and words of appreciation and thanks. 

 

Monday we had the opportunity to go across town to the neighborhood that primarily received the money donated by Westwood for reconstruction after the flood.  We had a fun morning getting to know the people and playing with the kids.  The neighborhood invited us back to show their appreciation for our support in their time of need.  One of the questions they kept asking was why we were here?  It was great to be able to tell them that our main objective was to share the love of Christ with everyone.  Mark shared his testimony about how God touched his heart last year in Honduras and why he returned on this trip.  It was all really cool.

 

Today was a day for assisting with the housekeeping and laundry chores.  Some of the team finished painting a mural at the clinic.  We also painted a sign outside the clinic with Dr. Vides name on it – he loved it!  Dustin, Al, Mark and Drew went to Guayape this evening to put on a program for the people of this village.  There were about 400 people in attendance to see Dustin do his unicycle program and hear his faith story.  They then stayed to watch the video of Matthew. The rest of the team had a special time of prayer and worship for what God was leading us to do in Guayape.

 

Tomorrow we will be moving to the Church to paint another mural.  We also plan to paint a sign to identify the Church.  Dustin will perform two unicycle programs tomorrow and share his faith story in the schools.  One program will be geared for the older kids and one for the smaller children.

 

Everyone is doing well and spirits are high!

 

June 24, 2001

Thursday the team had the opportunity to climb a mountain to see Santa Cruz from a distance.  It was a beautiful site.  We also were able to gather with the church people and share with each other, and make plans for distributing the Bibles in the community on Saturday.

 

Friday we were able to get most of the painting completed at the clinic.  Some of the students continued with the home visits doing chores and interacting with the people of the community.  This has been a great time of sharing and the people of Santa Cruz are so grateful for the help and fellowship.  Friday evening, the boys in the group planned some group time and led us in worship.  It was a great time of bonding for the team and the boys did a fantastic job!

 

Saturday morning we teamed up with Dr. Vides’ church to distribute 400 Spanish Bibles of the New Testament.  It was received very well.  It has really made a difference being here a week, building trust and confidence with these people.  We also invited them to watch the video again about the book of Matthew.  This was basically a repeat of the last time, but it was back by popular demand because there were so many people who were not able to see it the first time.  Also, more people are aware of what we are doing in the community and want to hear more.  The first half was shown on Saturday with about 350 people in attendance.  The second part will be shown on Sunday evening.

 

Also on Saturday, Dustin, James and Al were invited to the next town over, Guayape, to see a real soccer game.  They thought they were just going to watch, but were handed jerseys and told to get in and play.  It was a lot of fun and they ended up in a 1 – 1 tie.

 

Please continue to pray for us to build God’s church here in Santa Cruz.  There are currently about 60 people in the church.  Pray that this trip will create some momentum for the church to grow and share the love of Jesus Christ.  The people of Guayape have heard what we are doing in Santa Cruz and have expressed a desire for us to show the video in their village as well. 

 

Everyone is healthy and doing well.  We will leave you with a quote from the journal of one of the students regarding an observation about the people of Santa Cruz not having much material wealth. This same impression has been made on many of us here.

 

“If you aren’t enough without possessions, then you will never be enough with them”.

 

Pray for us and for our continued work in this community.  More updates in a few days.

 

June 21, 2001

Santa Cruz received a lot of rain today; which was badly needed for the crops, so we are very thankful that those prayers have been answered.   

 

We have a number of projects we’ve been working on:

 

- Spending more time with the families

- Finishing the painting project at the clinic

- Helping organize the clinic

- Hauling rocks in the plaza to prepare it for cement work to be done by the city council

- Working at the daycare preparing food for 200 children and teaching them English

- Gathering firewood in the mountains for the City Council

- Fixing some plumbing problems

- Continue making friends with the local people and helping anyone in need

 

The team is going to meet with the local Church on Thursday night to discuss plans for making some home visits in the community later this week to distribute Spanish Bibles.

 

The City council continues to offer their hospitality and making the village a comfortable and safe place.  Everyone continues to have a good time.  There is plenty of drinking water, and everyone remains in good health.  We are anticipating Andrew and Mark’s arrival on Friday.

 

The next update won’t be until Sunday 6/24. 

June 18, 2001

Honduras update 6/18/01

Sunday morning we enjoyed a time of worship at the local church.  We extended an invitation to the people of Santa Cruz to come watch a video on the book of Matthew in the evening.  It was a full house as many took us up on our offer.

We spent the afternoon playing in the fields with the children.  We had a great time playing our favorite kids games: football, soccer, Red Rover, blowing bubbles, coloring, and Frisbee. 

We are eating well and settling into our routing of breakfast at 7:00, lunch at 12:30 and dinner at 6:00.  The meals consist of a combination of American classics integrated with Honduran food such as rice, beans and tortillas.

The days have been spent working on special projects alongside the people of Santa Cruz.  Some of the students have been in the homes helping with various household tasks such as laundry, cleaning, cooking and making tortillas.  Others have been painting the medical clinic both inside and out.  Another group spent the day at the daycare center helping prepare meals and teaching English to the children.  One of the special projects today was a group of students (called the Dam crew) made a 6-foot dam in the mountains to create a water reservoir.  It was very hard work, but extremely rewarding.

We challenged the local soccer team to a match.  It was a great game ending in a tie.  The only ones who scored on our team were the girls – they rocked!

The people of Santa Cruz were invited to come back on Monday night to watch the 2^nd half of the Matthew video and the place was packed, spilling out into the street.  After the presentation, the local pastor invited people to respond to what they saw in the video.  It was a very moving experience.

An update on the previous prayer requests; the 11-year-old boy Dr. Vides is treating is doing better and went home today.  The village also finally received some rain - as a matter of fact it poured!

Dr. Vides is thrilled to have the team in Santa Cruz and is very excited to see the changes happening in the village.

We thank you for your continued prayers.  Everyone is healthy and doing well, and happy to be of service.  We are excited that Crystal, Erin and Dustin have now joined the team after arriving safely in Santa Cruz today.  We look forward to sharing more of our experiences in a couple days with another update.

June 16, 2001

Hola, from Honduras

 

We are happy to report that everyone is in good health and we are having a wonderful visit.

We are quickly learning names of the local people and they are learning ours as well.  We are making many new friends as we work along side the people of Santa Cruz.  The food is good, and we are being well cared for by our hosts. 

 

On Friday we had a big party in the Village Square.  The kids played hacky sack; we did face painting, worked on our juggling routines, and wrapped it up with Spanish editions of Vegitales.  It was a real carnival atmosphere and everyone had a lot of fun.  We also celebrated Amy Peterson birthday with a special party.

 

Saturday we spent the day working with the residents in their homes, helping with domestic chores.

We helped with laundry, cleaning, gardening, and some small repairs.  Some of the group also spent the day at the Medical Clinic, stocking shelves, cleaning and moving things around, as we hope to paint the clinic on Monday.

 

We would all like to wish our Dads a big Happy Fathers Day, and we send our love on this special day.

 

We do have Prayer needs that we would like to communicate:

 

An eleven year old local boy attempted suicide on Friday, Dr. Vides is treating him, but his needs are great, please pray for him and his family.

The area is in great need of rain; the crops are being devastated due to the lack of rain.

 

A homeless man in Santa Cruz could really use your prayers as well as he is having a difficult time finding his way.

 

Look for our next update in a couple days and keep us in your prayers. God Bless.

June 14, 2001

Greetings from Honduras!

We arrived safely today in Santa Cruz!   Everything went extremely well getting through customs.

The only glitch we had was that the bus broke down on the way to Santa Cruz.  While waiting for a new tire to arrive, we just passed the time away by playing games and hanging out.  It’s been a great day, but we are very tired from the traveling.  Our spirits were boosted by the warm reception from the people of Santa Cruz; they are so excited that we are finally here.  We are now all settled in our quarters and will meet in the morning to put together the game plan for our stay.   Look for another update in a couple days.

God Bless.