Had It Not Been the Lord

"Had it not been the Lord who was on our side, the anger of the enemy would have swallowed us alive. Had it not been the Lord who was on our side, the waters would have engulfed us, we would have surely died. Blessed be the Lord who would not give us up. Blessed be the Lord for His unfailing love. The snare is broken and we have escaped. Our help is in the name of the Lord. Blessed be the Lord!"

Had it not been the Lord, we wouldn't be here. The Lord brought us all here with a purpose and I hope we are all fulfilling His purpose. He knew exactly what He was doing when He brought this particular group of people to serve the Hondurans this past week. He planned out the lives we were going to impact. Had it not been for Him, we would not know unfailing love and the importance of sharing that love with the people here. So many people here are looking for hope and something to believe in. When you're living in poverty you need something to look forward to beyond this life. I mean, we all need something to look forward to, but when you're living in luxury it's harder to realize it. Here they live humble lives and live within their means. They focus on sheltering and feeding their family, and bringing God into their lives is like presenting them with a mansion. A dream can come true for them in heaven if they are taught about the Father's love for them and know that all they need to do is obey His word. If they know that there is Paradise after death that lasts for eternity, that gives them so much to hope for! More than any of us can every dream or imagine.

Sorry for not posting last night...Terry gave me the night off so I could enjoy some time fellowshipping with my fellow missionaries. Then the internet failed us when it came time for devo tonight, so I hope you don't feel like I forgot about you all! No news is good news right? Well I'm gonna try to catch you all up on what's been going on the past two days.

Yesterday, we sent out a small group to Choluteca to deliver the items that came in the container. They did an excellent job of driving there and back in one day--even got back in time for supper! Big Steve, Aaron, Holly, Diane, and Craig were so happy they were able to get everything to those people before they left. God has some great timing in order for us to get it there in time! I have a story to go along with this trip...but I'm going to save it for a time when I can upload the picture that goes with it. 

The main projects we had for the day were two house builds and a Hospital Escuela visit along with a food distribution. The two houses were built in the same area, which was very near the city dump. You could see the dump from our worksite, along with the vultures flying around all above us. We had much smaller groups for these builds, each one with about 10-11 people, but we got our work done, even though it took a little longer than we expected. Both the sites had a destruction of the original home before building could start. The site I was on was primarily rock, and from what I heard about the other site it was mainly sewage...yes, that kind of sewage. It was a beautiful day for working outside, except maybe the sun shouldn't have been so intense...I know of a lot of people who got some pretty rough sunburns from being out working the whole day (myself included). But when you're down here for a while it's bound to happen eventually. The last group had a great day at the Hospital and distributing food. They spent more time than they expected at the hospital so they weren't able to give out all the food bags, but some of the group got to in the cancer ward which is awesome. Many of them were touched by a little girl who was given the news that she has Dengue Fever and her family was taking it very hard. They prayed with them and we have continued praying for them. There is a severe outbreak of Dengue here in Honduras and many of those affected do not survive because they can only treat the symptoms.

Now on to today...
We began our morning with church service in the cafeteria. Ben Wright brought our lesson and Steve Johnson led us into thought before the Lord's Supper. Steve talked about how knowledge is powerful and how everything is just one big connect-the-dots game. We are one dot, that touched the lives of another dot, who will go on to impact another dot, and it goes on and on. After services, we packed up for our day of shopping. Many in our group were introduced to the Mi Esperanza ministry that was started by Lori Connell and Janet Hines. This ministry empowers women by helping them find ways to support themselves, and in turn, their families. A lot of shopping was done here, then we went on to grab some lunch and headed to the Valley of Angels. Two hours were spent shopping here and then the rain came as we were leaving. By the time we made it down the mountain, the city was flooding. It was an interesting trip to the mall since our first path was blocked by rivers of water, and the next way we still had to cross through a river. Even our bus was having some leakage problems. Duct tape can be used to fix anything though, as long as you have some gatorade bottles to duct tape to the roof of the bus to catch the dripping water. Needless to say, it was a funny bus ride in the rain and we didn't get too wet in the process. 

Our group has two options for tomorrow. One bus will be going to Didasko which is an orphanage about an hour away from the mission house. This group will spend the day there with the kids, playing and just having a day of fun. The other bus will be taking a group to the special needs orphanage in Tegucigalpa. I am very excited about this opportunity because even after coming here for 4 years, I have never made it there. It's going to be a great day working for the Lord ahead of us, and I know we'll all make our best efforts on our last day working with Hondo group #1. 

My plan is to upload a bunch of pictures once this team leaves and hopefully the internet will be working better since no one else will be trying to use it the same time I am. I apologize for the lack of pictures on this trip. Sometimes I feel like standing behind a camera takes away from the moments we are put in. As badly as I want to record every moment while I'm here, I want to be able to fully be a part of them. So hopefully all your loved ones that are down here will be taking plenty of pictures for you to enjoy once they return home!

Blessed be the Lord,

Leah