Friday, July 15
Good morning from beautiful Honduras! Today God blessed our group with very little rain. The group woke up between 6:30 and 8:00 am for breakfast (cereal, toast, and fruit). At 8:10 we made our way to chapel for morning devotional. Singing was led by Tim Hines, it was amazing. Ken Haab from Sarasota, FL gave the devo. He had two main points, “TORCH is not for sissies”, and “Spanish-big deal”. He told us we were all here by faith, and when it gets tough to pray and ask for strength. He encouraged us to pray with the families we ministered to in English or in Spanish. The people here do not care if you speak Spanish; it encourages them to see people that care enough for them. Ken ended his lesson by reading the lyrics of two songs: Voice of Truth by Casting Crowns and Here am I by Mercy Me.
After devo Terry Reeves, our fearless leader, divided us up into three. One team of 30 went to Hospital Escuela then to Nuava Oriental for clothes distribution. The second team of 20 stayed at the Mission House to sort food and pack it to have it ready for distribution. When they finished the food breakdown they went to San Filpe Hospital for visitation. The third group of 36 went to Santa Ana, 12 were evangelism and 24 were construction.
The Santa Ana group left at 9:30 and arrived at 11:00. Each of the construction workers went straight to work. The Lord blessed us with a beautiful day today, finally no rain. We were able to accomplish a lot today. In the group of 24 we split into three groups. The first group built a shelter area for the people making the concrete bricks. The second group mixed concrete and dug a footer for a wall to be built later. The third group mixed and laid concrete for a sidewalk, which was beautiful might I add until the dog walked on it. The other 12 on the evangelism team conducted a small VBS for the kids while the adults had a Bible study. All in all it was a great day at Santa Ana.
The group of 30 that went to Hospital Escuela left after the Santa Ana group. When they arrived they broke up into 4 groups. The first group, led by Nayanne, went to the cancer treatment center in the hospital. Today the treatment center was much fuller than usual, but that did not stop the TORCH members. They went in with smiles on there faces and played as much as they could with the children. The second group, led by AB, went to visit the patients in the orthopedics, and trauma units. They also prayed for the patients and played with them as much as they could. The third group, led by Mark Herrera, went to the floor with patients who had some type of infection. The last group led by Nathan Reeves and Nikki Haab went to the surgery ward. The team of 30 visited many patients today and prayed for many families, please continue praying for these people, you might not know them, but I know they appreciate every prayer.
The last group of 20 stayed on campus today. Their job was to sort medicine, and pack food. The food was late so they all pitched in to help with the medicine, but then they ran out of medicine bottles. While they waited on Sparky to get back with more bottles, and the food to arrive, the group was able to get to know each other. Sparky and the food arrived at about the same time, so the team divided up to finish the work. Most of this group consisted of rookies, but they did an awesome job today. They started bagging the food then realize they didn’t put the black plastic bags in the boxes, so they had to unpack about 40 boxes and do it over again. Then they realized they put to much coffee in the boxes, once again they had to unpack then repack. With all the complications they were still able to finish 250 boxes and 800 bottles of medicine. GO TEAM!! After the team finished boxing and sorting and re-boxing and sorting and so on, they finally got to go the San Filipe Hospital to visit with the patients there. There they visited four wards. The first consisted of mostly adults with cancer or other illnesses. Then they went to visit two pediatric wards where there were eight children total. They finished at the rehabilitation unit by seeing another hand full of kids.
At about 5:30 pm all of the TORCH members arrived back at the Mission House to clean up for supper. Tonight we had spaghetti, yummy!! After supper we went to the chapel to break up into small group discussion. This was the fist time we have had the time to do this and I am glad we did. Each group discussed what had happened the past three days and how it has affected them. This gave the group the opportunity to meet new people and learn more about each other. Let me just say there are some AMAZING people here. After we were finished with small group discussion the Mi Esperanza group came and showed us a 15 minute video on the work that they do. Mi Esperanza is a training program for women in Honduras. Women are taught different skills they can use to get a job and provide for there family. Mi Esperanza stands for My Hope in English. This program gives the women of Honduras hope. When were finished we were able to buy products made by the Honduran women. There were some beautiful things being sold.
When everyone was finished buying the beautiful merchandise, we made our way to the chapel for devo. The devotional was given by Brain Henegar from Sarasota. This is Brian’s second trip to Honduras. He began his lesson by asking, “Do you consider yourself to be faithful?” He than told the story of the women of great faith in the Bible. This woman knew if she could only touch the clothes of Jesus she would be healed. When she finally made it up to Jesus after pushing her way through a crowd all she did was touch is garment. Immediately she was healed, and Jesus knew someone had touched Him. She admitted to it and He said, “Your faith has made you well”. Brian did an excellent job on faith. The lady in the Bible was the perfect example. This was a great lesson to end a great day of work. God Bless you all!!
Brandy Barnett
Where Did You See Jesus?
One individual saw Jesus in a little girl in the medical ward at the Hospital. The girl always had a smile on her face, and would ask everyone to pray that she would not get sick again and that she could be released.
Jesus was seen in the ones working in Santa Ana. There was no complaining a enough poop mud to last a lifetime.
Jesus was seen in the nurses at the Hospital. They were concerned about the patients and asked us to pray for the patients.
Jesus was seen in the Memphis group, they worked hard today packing and re-packing and packing again, and nobody complained.
Jesus was seen in Esperanza, one of our many translators. She loves what she does, and helps in everyway she can.
