If you have EVER been to Honduras you have heard the term, "Welcome to Honduras." And all of the Torch members know exactly what that term means. For those of you who have not been here before, you are about to learn for yourselves what this phrase means. This phrase can cover a huge variety of things as you will soon read about.
Today was full of unexpected events. In other words, if something could go wrong, it did go wrong. Today actually started out normal, at least until devo was finished, then everything went a little bit crazy. EVERYBODY went to Santa Ana today, including Marc Tindall's group of 60 people, plus our group of about 47. Our original plans for today were as followed: build bunk beds for the new dorm at Casa de Esperanza; build one house; give out food during a food distribution; and play with the kids at Casa de Esperanza. Oh, and send a crew to Mololoa for concrete work and to work at the Manna Project…once again that’s what our plan WAS.
After devo we got the buses loaded up with supplies that we needed for the day, such as tools and food. Then at 9:00, 3 buses left, 1 was full and 1 was only half-way full, and we had over 50 people plus 200 bags of food on the third bus. We then called Elroy (all of our buses have names) to come back and get some of the people so they wouldn’t have to stand the whole way to Santa Ana. The third bus (bus with no name... yeah, that is its name) decided to pull out and go ahead and leave because it was taking so long for Elroy to get back up the mountain. About 9 stayed behind to wait for Elroy to get back to the mission House. About 30 minutes later we called Elroy to find out where it was only to learn that it had turned around when it saw the bus with no name pass it. Both buses headed out to Santa Ana with only about 15 people still on Elroy. Those of us still here, 9 of us, rode in the pick-up truck the whole way to Santa Ana. As if all of this transportation confusion wasn’t bad enough, there was a 7 car wreck on the highway to Santa Ana, so the typical 40 minute drive there, took 1 hour and 40 minutes. This was the beginning of "Welcome to Honduras."
Once we finally got there, we waited for Noel (the preacher at Santa Ana) to show us where the construction site was. 13 people + tools piled into Terry’s truck and they drove quite a ways to the site…or at least as far as the truck could go. After the truck stopped the crew had to walk through the cornfields about 10 minutes to the actual site. Talk about being off of the beaten path! As that crew starting tearing down the old house, they realized that they were going to need more help, so Terry drove back and got another truck load of workers, larger than the previous one and took them out to the site. On this truck load he took most of the food distribution team, and told them that they would have to put the food disribution on hold for a while. "Welcome to Honduras."
Meanwhile, those who were left at Casa de Esperanza played with all of the children around the village up by the clinic, located near the road, and the children from Casa de Esperanza. The plan to build bunk beds was delayed for another day because the lumber for the beds never showed up. (Welcome to Honduras!!). Therefore, those who were at Casa de Esperanza decided to go door knocking and hold Bible studies. As we were about to leave, a little boy came to the clinic with a large, deep gash in his forehead. He had been playing and fell on a rock. We couldn’t just leave him there like that, so Dr. Love, from Marc Tindall's group, gave him a couple of stitches. Welcome to Honduras.
After the medical treatment we were able to leave. Meanwhile, the construction crew was still out in No Man’s Land finishing their house. They had a challenging tear down before they could build the new house. All of the family's belongings were taken out of the old house and placed near the corn field. While all of this was going on in Santa Ana, AB took terry's truck and went back into the city with a truck load of food that Jen Wright's group had packed. He met up with Jen and her team and took the food to the “dump,” and had the most organized food distribution that TORCH has ever had. The dump is located outside of the city and the poorest of the poor live out there. Their main income is digging through the trash looking for stuff that can be recycled. It is one of the saddest places you can ever visit.
The first bus with the construction crew arrived just after 6, and the other bus arrived around 6:30, so it was a very late evening. After supper with mystery meat and rice, we hopped on the buses and headed to El Piccacho for devo. It’s always such a moving site at the Jesus statue. It’s breathtaking looking out over the city. We had over 130 people up there for devo, the singing was amazing!
Marc gave us a great message tonight and talked about second chances. He told us a story of a 10 year old boy named Leuven, who about 3 months ago was put in Casa de Esperanza by a judge, but Leuven was taken right off the streets, and when you live on the streets you have to be tough, and Leuven was a tough guy, so when he was at Casa, he was always beating up the rest of the children and Jen couldn’t have that, because it would put the children in the same situations as they were in. They had to give Leuven back to Casitas Kennedy, which is the government run orphanage, which is really horrible. Nobody really cares for the children there; they’re not showed what love is. Leuven would always tell the workers “my mommy’s coming to get me” and they would ask him “why would you want that” and Leuven responded “no, my gringa mommy.” He was talking about Jen Wright.
About 3 weeks ago, a man from the Jimmy Hughes orphanage was at Casitas Kennedy visiting, and he gave Leuven a pair of shoes, some limpiras, and a gum wrapper with the words “Santa Ana” on it. The next morning at 5 am, Leuven escaped from Casitas Kennedy and traveled for 12.5 hours until he reached Casa de Esperanza. This ten year old, illiterate child traveled 12.5 hours across a city of 1.4 million people to Santa Ana for a second chance. With the limpiras he had left over, he bought all of the children at Casa, as much fruit as he could afford in a way to apologize to them for beating them up. When he got to the gate of Casa de Esperanza, he asked Jen “Can I come home?” and she let him stay. Ever since then, they have had no problems with Leuven and he is always trying to help around the Casa. It’s just amazing how many times in our lives that God gives us second chances, and this is another great example of that. Tomorrow we get to sleep in a little bit later than usual so that will be good.
Please everyone pray that it doesn’t rain tomorrow so that we can have a blast at the water park with the kids from Didasko and Casa de Esperanza!! Adios from Torch Central!!! In Him
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