SECOND WEEK

We have done a lot of driving this week; that is why we haven´t blogged lately.

First, I want to thank Bob and Penny for coming and being such a great help. Bob was incredibly helpful with the car. (It passed the DMV inspection! Yeah!) Penny sang in church and baked chocolate chip cookies most of the day Saturday for the couples' meeting on Saturday night. We both worked on the lasagna. I was so blessed by having Penny here! Both Bob and Penny were stretched, but they both raised to the occasions.

Since the whole town was so worried about the little boy, Yirardi, we decided to just have a little talk and prayer with the couples Saturday night. John explained to then what prayer is and what it not (vain repetitions). They always like to stay and talk a little before going home, so they stayed until about 10:00 pm. There is a very young couple who wants us to visit them for counseling. We will try to do this next week.

Monday we walked on the beach again in the morning and went to Francisco's house for dinner in the evening. We were upstairs admiring the country scene and could hear the monkeys on the trees. Penny wanted so badly to take pictures of monkeys that Francisco decided to take us into the woods to look for monkeys. Alas, the monkeys heard us coming and got very quiet. We never saw any! After a while, we gave up and went back to the house. We had a delicious dinner of Honduran tostadas (they call it enchiladas, but you know them as tostadas). Their twelve year old girl (Mari) wanted to learn two songs from Penny. She wants to learn to sing like Penny! Penny sang with her the two songs she learned in Spanish, but then the girl wanted to learn one song in English. She wants to learn English.  They had a great time together in spite the language barrier. Francisco and Luz plan to get married next year (they have been together 13 years), and want Penny to come back to sing at their wedding.

Tuesday we got up at 3:00 am and drove to the airport. Everything went very smoothly. We said good-bye to Bob and Penny, feeling that their week here had gone by too quickly! On the way home we stopped by the German Bakery for breakfast (But we did not have ice cream, Rubia!). Then we had to drop the car off by the mechanic who was going to take it to the DMV check. We took a taxi home, and went to sleep. We were very tired. I am sure that Bob and Penny were very tired also. That same evening, at about 9:00 pm the mechanic came back with our car, and he even gave us money back! Praise the Lord we have found an honest mechanic!

Wednesday night we went out with friends from Atlanta who also own a place here. They are a delightful couple. They are volunteers with the Gedeons. We went to our favorite restaurant that serves typical food.
Thursday we had to get up at 5:00 to go up and back to the capital again, this time for business. By the time we got home it was 8:00 pm, too late for church; therefore, we went to church last night in the second town. This is the largest group, as I have mentioned before, many work on Sundays, so Friday night is the only time that they can go to church. They have instruments and a keyboard. We sang for over an hour. This is the place with only four posts and a tin roof, and bugs are attracted to the lights. We had beetles as big as helicopters flying and landing on us. Some of the young men catch them in mid fly and throw them out, but more comeback. They really cause a distraction, especially among the young.

Today, Saturday, I am cooking again for the couples (I miss you, Penny!). This time I am going to make Mexican enchiladas and chocolate cake. I hope they turn out because I am cooking from scratch. The only thing store-bought are the tortillas.

NEWS ABOUT YIRARDI:

They brought him home yesterday, but we haven't seen him yet. We will wait a couple of days because we know that the entire town will be at their doorsteps, and they need to rest. Thank you for your prayers. The Lord did the miracle. We hope that both Yirardi and his parents recognize it and give Him the glory.

Penny talking to Kassandra

Getting ready to sing

Singing

Francisco and Luz

Couples meeting

Penny and Mary

Baptism last Sunday


Until next time...from the beach....

BAPTISMS

 
 We had a great day today. All three groups got together at the beach and fifteen were baptized. John had to leave earlier to shuttle people back and forth to the estuary; then he came back and got us. We had beach chairs, sandwiches, water, beach towels, etc., but when we finally got there, we realized that the road to the beach was actually through the mangrove swamp. John did not want to take the car because we had no idea what we would find at the end, so we parked at a nearby restaurant and walked through the swamp. Bob and Penny were such troupers, never complaining. I have to admit that even for this Cuban, it was a new experience. I always stayed away from mangroves back home.

This is the estuary right by the Hacienda, we could have walked on the beach and joined the group, but John had offer to help picking up some of the people, and they also kept telling us that it was a different estuary, but it was not. We could have walked on the beach to join them from our condo. We will know better next time.

Pastor Alejandro talked to the congregation about the meaning of baptism. The candidates are on the left. Each candidate had to give his or her testimony at this time. Then we lined up in two rows and the candidates were escorted one by one to the water while we sang. After the baptism, we had communion, only those baptized could participate. Then the pastor presented a newly engaged couple and talked about sexual purity. He told the young people that engagement was only for marriage and that the time should be use to get to know each other better and nothing else. Also a mother dedicated her daughter to the Lord. By this time, the tide was really high; water was waist high wading back, but we decided to walk on the beach to the restaurant where we had parked the car and have lunch there, instead of eating our sandwiches. We invited two other couples to go with us.

Now we are all resting. Wading through all that water is very tiring.

Until next time,,,form the beach...

CHILDREN`S HOSPITAL

I have to report what has been going on the last few days. First of all, we attended church on Thursday. We had a good group and Penny sang two songs. They were so appreciative of her singing! Two other girls sang solos Thursday night, so Penny (so nice of her) is going to sing with them on Sunday! They are having a baptismal service on the beach on Sunday. Eight people from all three groups will be baptized, so there is only going to be just one service Sunday on the beach.

Now for the little boy: after seeing how everybody in town is so upset about the boy and how everybody wanted to make sure that we knew about it, we decided that we had to go visit him and be with his parents for a couple of hours. The boy's uncle and his wife, Paola, are Christians and attend the little church in town, so Thursday night we talked to them about the situation. The uncle had just been there to see him and told us how devastated the parents are. By the way, in the midst of all his grief, the boy's father remembered to ask his brother-in-law to go to his house to get our cellular phone, which they keep at their house while we are not here, and give it to us. We asked the uncle and his wife who would be willing to drive with us to the capital because we had no idea where Children Hospital was. There are no street names and numbers anywhere in this country. You just have to know certain landmarks and get directions from there. So, Paola said that she would go. This would mean that their little six-year-old girl would also be coming with us. They wanted to leave at 3:00 am because that is normally when they leave to go to the capital, but we settled for 5:00 am; therefore, yesterday we all (including Bob and Penny who went with us) got up at 4:00 am, picked up Paola and her daughter and started for the capital. It is a five hour drive on a two lane highway.

Paola always travels by bus to the capital, so we had a couple of times when by the time she realized that we needed to turn, it was too late, but we found the hospital and found parking after driving around the hospital for a while. Paola had phoned ahead, and they were waiting for us.The boy's mom, Arleth, was having something to eat across the street from the hospital in a little restaurant whose owner used to work here at the Hacienda. He knows them and lets them stay there all day. Only one person can be with the boy at the time. They are doing three eight hour shifts. Arleth was coming off her shift and trying to get some food down. She has no appetite whatsoever. A skinny girl to begin with, she is looking tired and malnourished. Dad was in the hospital with the boy. There are also two great-aunts who take turns for the third shift, but it is Arleth who spends the whole night at his bedside, sitting on a very hard wooden chair. They are renting a room with three beds near the hospital where they can go and rest between shifts.

We hugged and cried, and we tried to give her some comfort. It is very hard when people don´t have the Lord. She says she has faith, but she is talking about rosaries being prayed, amulets and idols, as well as faith in God. The boy was having lunch, so we had to wait to go up to see him. They have socialized medicine in this country. This is what it looks like: there are bars around the hospital much like a prison., and there are guards. You have to have a pass to enter. They had already talked to the guard to let us in, but Randall, the father, had to come down with his pass and talk to the guard again. He asked how long I was going to be up there, etc., and let me enter with the parents' pass. Since I had to go by myself, I was instructed how to get to his room on the 4th floor. I went straight to it. The nurse told me that I had to wash my hands before entering. Hospitals are not pleasant places, but I find children's hospitals especially depressing. Yirardi's bed was next to the window, which is good. I could face the window and talk to him and did not have to see the other patients. He is such a smart boy. He knows what is going on and is afraid. Somebody gave him an amulet that he is wearing around his neck. He showed it to me; it is a blue stone, but I have never seen anything like it. I don't know what it means. They shaved his head, so he is upset about that. I told him that his hair will be more beautiful when it grows back, and he laughed. What bothers him the most of the hospital stay is that time goes by so slowly. I told him that is the reason they are call "patients." He needs to be patient. We talked for a long time. He really wanted to talk, but I knew John was outside in the sun waiting for his turn, so we prayed and I left. John had to repeat all I did to get to his bed. He also stayed and talked for a long time. Yirardi told John that he now looked like an old man with his head shaved. John had to laugh about that. We promised him that he could come to John's birthday party on June 16 because we knew that he really wanted to come.

The tumor is small. They will operate at 7:30 am on Monday, which is 6:30 am California time. Please remember this brave little boy and his devastated parents on Monday. They don't know how long the surgery will be. It all depends of what they find when they get there. Since this is socialized medicine, I am sure he will go home as soon as possible after that. The problem will be the post-op visits, since they live so far from the hospital. After visiting with the parents for a while longer, we left and drove all the way home again. We got home at about 8:00 pm, a long day. By 9:00 we were all in bed and sound asleep.

Today we got up at about 6:30 am, well rested. John and Bob went fishing with a local guy. Penny and I went for a short walk and then started cooking. Penny is making chocolate chip cookies and I am making lasagna for the couples' meeting tonight. While we were gone yesterday, maintenance came and unplugged our thermostat upstairs because it is not working properly, but we did not know about it, not a good thing when we are baking and cooking all morning. Soon it was 85 degrees upstairs.  I made a few phone calls, and they came with a one that we can use until the new one arrives. I gave the guys fresh baked cookies. Penny says that they are going to find excuses to come back, so they can get some more.

Tonight is the first couples' meeting. We will have lasagna, chocolate chip cookies and will pray for Yirardi. John is preparing some short talk about the hope we have in the Lord. Pray for open hearts. Pray that the Lord will use all this for His glory.

Until next time...from the beach...

YIRARDI

We have very sad news to share. The only child of our best friends here has a brain tumor. We knew that he had been ill for the past three weeks with headaches and vomiting. They finally found out what was wrong with him at Children's Hospital in the capital. This is affecting the entire town. Everybody that we meet is very, very sad about it. The mood in town in somber. It has a lot to do with the fact that they are a very tight community and that they don't know the Lord. They have no hope. The extended family meets every night at Great-grandma's house to have rosaries for his health.

This morning I was able to talk to the mom on the phone, and she let me talked to the little boy. He is a little sad, but sounded much better that I expected. I told him that many people were praying for him. They are going to do and MRI today and probably perform surgery this weekend. Please pray that everything will go well. Tonight we will go to church and pray for him also. We have asked a few people, including the boy's mother about having the couples' meeting Saturday, and they all have told us that we should meet and pray; so, that is what we are planning to do. We are now thinking of driving to the capital to be with the family either tomorrow or next week, but we need somebody from town to go with us because we have no idea where the hospital is, and this country does not have street names or numbers.

Please continue to pray for this boy and his family. Pray also that the Lord will give us wisdom to talk and minister to people.

Until next time...from the beach

WE HAVE ARRIVED!

We arrived back at the beach last night with our friends Bob and Penny. We had a great trip. The Lord really blessed us! We were the last passengers to go through Customs Inspection, and they did not ask us to open any of the suitcases. It was a blessing, since Bob had a suitcase full of his tools and we had car parts and other equipment. We really did not want to explain anything to them. Our driver said that they were probably tired and wanted to close up shop. We were able to stop by a supermarket on the way to our condo to pick up some supplies. They were also closing when we got there, but we made it; therefore, we were able to have a snack before going to bed and a decent breakfast this morning.

Bob and Penny came with us to help us out with our car and a few things around the condo. It is a good thing he is here because the car battery is completely dead. The people from the transportation department came with a charger, but they could not revive it, so they took John and Bob to the nearest town, but they only had one battery, and it did not fit.So, John, Bob, and the guy from transportation went to the grocery store and picked up more groceries for us! We were making sandwiches for lunch when the German Bakery truck arrived, good timing! The people from the transportation department had to go to the big town 45 minutes away this afternoon, so they are going to pick up a battery for us and bring it back.

Bob has been keeping himself busy all day. Right now he is checking the electrical outlets in the garage to figure out why the battery went dead while connected to a charger. There is enough stuff around here to keep him busy for a month. I hope that he is willing to let go of some things so that we can have some fun!

We are well, although a little tired. If we can use the car tonight, we will start visiting our friends. Pray that we can connect with them and organize our first couples' meeting for this Saturday.

Until next time...from the beach...