Encouragements and Frustrations (à suivre en français)

Greetings all!
It’s been a while since I’ve posted in this blog. So I’ll begin with our July experience:

House repairs, and two days in a hotel.

We suddenly noticed the tiles on our kitchen floor were starting to move and crumble under our feet. We notified the owner, and the same day he had somebody tearing up some of the tiles. Three days later, we had to move out and stay in a hotel (at the owner’s expense) while the cement under the tiles was being repaired and smoothed out. As we were out for two nights, we stayed in two different hotels – a good way of checking out the hotels for future reference!  Decent hotels are amazingly low priced here.

Changing a roof on the children’s home

In the end of July, Doug Cambell and Eugene Murphy arrived, to change a roof on the building f the Children’s Home (There are three roofs, one had been changed already, and the other is pending a future project). Doug is one of the pastors of Great Village Baptist Church, in Nova Scotia. Doug and Eugene stayed in our home while Doug’s daughter, Ally, stayed at the Children’s Home.  I spent most of my time with Doug and Eugene, getting in their way on the roof and helping when I could, and translating. Amazing how hot it can get, standing on a metal roof! I learned that sun block also needs to be applied to the lips.  We were very grateful for Doug and Eugene’s work.
After they left, Ally remained for a couple more weeks. For one of those weeks she stayed in our home as she helped out at our local church clinic (Ally is a nursing student). We also took advantage of this time to do a bit of tourism, taking all three of them to Comayagua (capital of the department, and once capital of Central America), and taking Ally to Esperanza (highest city in Honduras) in the final week.

Turned Back at the Border

Second week of August, I was due to travel to El Salvador to participate in a week’s teaching of First Principles to a group of pastors there. I made sure I had my papers in order. Returning from my former trip to El Salvador in May, I was given a new three-month permit for temporary stay in Honduras (permanent residence application still in process), and was informed there would be absolutely no problem during those three months for travelling around. Our lawyer told me the same thing. However, when I got to the border, I learned that my paper was only good for Honduras, that according to the surrounding countries, El Salvador included, my entry was last March, and that my permit had run out in May! So I had to take a bus back home to Siguatepeque. I had been travelling since 6:00 am, and got back as far as San Pedro Sula a little after 8:00 pm. Too late to travel by bus to Siguatepeque, I had to stay overnight in a hotel, .  I had my first meal of the day at about 9:30 pm. Got home by noon the next day. It seemed to be a tremendous waste of time and money. Also, I had had to cancel Monday night’s Homiletics class in order to go to El Salvador.  We believe God has a purpose in everything – we just aren’t always sure what His purpose is! It wasn’t even “tribulation” enough to “work patience!” (Romans 5). But then again, I can be thankful for that!

New opportunities

I had been concerned for some time about the lack of serious Biblical content in the preaching in one of the mission points. Not because of a lack of willingness on the part of the man preaching, but more on the lack of ability.  After coming to know the Lord, he went to night school and worked his way up to a third grade education).  I broached the subject of a course on Homiletics that I could offer, and then approached the pastor of the church to see if he felt it would be good to offer some of the people in the church. He agreed enthusiastically. I expected to have from two to four students. Fifteen enrolled, and thirteen of those have stayed the course. It is a course on expository preaching. During that course I have sought to bring some to sense their need to learn how to study the Bible. I may soon be offering a course I prepared on “Inductive Study of Colossians”, a “how-to” course which I prepared, modelled to a great extent on the SEMBEQ courses on Inductive Study of Mark and Inductive Study of Romans.  Others have shown interest in the Homiletics course, and I may be taking a second group.
I’ve also been team teaching the BILD Acts course with pastor Hector every second Saturday morn-ing. The students are pastors from the surrounding region, with a very varied understanding of the concepts.
Lise was asked to give a weekly Bible study to the ladies who work at the Children’s Home. She began last week and was encouraged by the reception.

Weather

The “Rainy season” has finally got “rainy”!  Every afternoon and evening, it seems to rain unceasingly. However this doesn’t seem to affect the temperature much, which is warmer than usual for this season.

Outside interests

Like most Quebecers, we are closely watching the election there, and praying that the outcome will be the best for all. It would be quite a challenge to decide who to vote for if we were there!  As well, it is quite interesting to follow the political process in the USA. It looks as though it will be a hard fought election, and if we are to believe the two sides, the outcome will make a big difference one way or another.  And here in Honduras, they different political parties are in process of primaries, preparing to choose their next president. An election I know even less about! I imagine as the day approaches there will be a good deal of excitement in the air. Right now what we notice is mostly cynicism.