Would you walk four hours to a Bible study? (Version française à suivre)

Would you walk four hours to a Bible study?

JULY TO AUGUST, 2013

Visitors from the Children's Home

During a weekend in July we had a visit of three young ladies from the Children’s Home: Kayla, Keylin and Brenda. Kayla, the oldest (centre of picture), is taking “distance” school along with David and Roberto. This means that they do their high school classes on Saturday afternoons and Sunday mornings. The rest of the week they are expected to work, either at the children’s home or at an outside job, for about $5 per day.

They were glad of the time with their “Aunt and Uncle” or “Grandparents” (kind of a mixed relationship).

Men's Retreat

During the last week of July, John attended a Men’s retreat at Bagope, the Baptist Convention’s camp an hour’s drive from Siguatepeque. It was a great time of fellowship with Christian men from all over Honduras. In the second photo, you can see Nery, Carlos and Nahum from our church.

Celebration

We returned to Siguatepeque early Sunday morning on the 31^st, as the church was celebrating its 56^th anniversary of existence. The church rented a park and swimming pool in the city for this purpose, and the Sunday morning service was held in a semi-open roofed area.

After the service, the children were treated to four piñatas, followed by a picnic lunch. Some of the members enjoyed a good swim as well.

Travelling

On August 15^th the leaders of the Convention pastors, Felix Zaldivar (coordinator for ETBIL Centroamerica), and myself met with Dr. Hannibal Muhtar (who flew in to San Pedro Sula) to discuss strategy and cooperation among LeadersFor, ETBIL Centroamerica, and ETBIL Honduras. We then drove back, first to Siguatepeque to leave pastor Hector, and then on to Tegucigalpa, as I was going to accompany Josué Claros (ETBIL coordinator for Honduras) to Alubaren in the south of Francisco Morazan department. About twenty minutes out of Siguatepeque, the car broke down. That is definitely not a good thing to happen at night time out in the country! A young mechanic who happened to live nearby saw our plight and came over and tried to help us. After an hour or so without success, we called pastor Hector, who came out with a church mechanic and some tools and a part, but because of a broken screw, they were not able to repair the problem out on the road. Finally Hector towed us back to the church property in Siguatepeque, to leave the vehicle there. I called a friend who is a taxi driver, who drove us to Comayagua (the department capital, ¾ of an hour drive away), where someone from Tegucigalpa (another hour and a half drive) came to meet us. We got in to Tegucigalpa after midnight, borrowed a vehicle from the Convention president, and slept in the old seminary. It was almost 1:30 before I got to bed, and we had to leave at 5:00 the following morning for Alubaren. The previous night I had also had a very short sleep.

By 8:00 the next morning, after driving along some horrendous mountain roads that really shook us up, we were in Alubaren, meeting with a group of 24 pastors for training in the First Principles course, produced by BILD International. Classes would be from 8:00 am to 5:00 pm on Friday, and from 8:00 am to 3:00 pm on Saturday.  Would you believe some pastors walked for 3-4 hours through the mountains to come to class? It made me ashamed to complain about the rough drive!

The different churches in the region have built a hall specially for theological courses, which we used in the mornings. However in the afternoon we had to meet outside under some trees, due to the excessive heat (around 45º, and humid).  It was great to see the motivation of these pastors. Their level of education, or literacy, is quite varied. All can read, some have completed high school education, but some never completed primary school and can read with difficulty.

Saturday afternoon Josué drove me back to Tegucigalpa, and I took a bus at 10:00 pm back to Siguatepeque.  I had had a persistent cough for quite some time, and the bus had a powerful (and unnecessary) air conditioning. By the time I got home I had a pretty bad cold. I was home at around 1 am, and up for church the next morning.

Monday morning I went to see a doctor and found I had pneumonia. So I have been fairly quiet all week, with antibiotics, trips to the hospital to be “nebulized” (a dose of vapor and oxygen shot into my lungs twice a day). This morning the doctor told me the pneumonia seems to be clearing up but he thinks I have dengue as well. What fun!

Lise's Ministries

Lise, in the meanwhile, has been very busy. She teaches a group in the  church AWANA program, has a Sunday School class; this week she began a weekly Bible study with the older girls at the Children’s Home (Tina, the director, who is presently on furlough in Spain, sent her an email asking her to do this), and Monday will also restart her Bible studies with the personnel of the Home.

Yesterday she went out to buy some water, and on her way back home a large dog dashed out of his yard, across the street and knocked her down to the ground. She says: "I must have had an angel like Daniel in the lion’s den to shut the dog’s mouth, because he didn’t bite me." The owner ran out, very apologetic and concerned, and sent the dog back into the walled in yard. Happily, Lise doesn’t seem to have been hurt from her fall.

Lise has also been helping a young lady named Margarita, who has been ill for many years, without much medical attention. She has taken her to several doctors appointments, and has been following her up on the use of medication. Please pray for restoration of health for Margarita.

Thank you for your prayers for safety, health, energy, unity and wisdom. May the Lord bless you!