Today was a special day for the children of Tejeres, as well as for our team.  Two of our Agape Promise students, Ibeth (on the left here with the glasses) and Daisy (far right), had volunteered to do the teaching this morning.  We picked up the two girls and their AP teacher at the HAF office on the way to the Tejeres community along the highway right of way.  Both girls are in the 9th grade in school.  Ibeth has been in the AP program for four years and Daisy for five.

The lesson today was from Genesis, the story about how God created everything.  The girls taught as a team, and asked members of our team to help them with the visual aids they had prepared.  They did a really nice job as they captured and held the attention of the kids.

After the teaching and a question & answer quiz that many of the children participated in enthusiastically, the girls passed out coloring sheets and crayons.  It was very interesting to see how carefully and artistically the children colored the sheets with the few varied colors they had available.

 The students were proud of their coloring, and chose the team members they wanted to present with their masterpieces.  Of course when the camera came out, everybody wanted to be photographed and to see themselves on the view screen of the camera.

  First we encouraged them to show their work, but it wasn’t long before we just captured the children in little groups.  Kay seemed to attract the greatest number of niños.

The final event, as always at Tejeres, was the meal.  The team members assisted in the distribution of the meal that was prepared by the minister’s wife.  Every child who wanted a second serving received one, and many of the children filled their plastic containers with food to take home.

Then as we were about ready to leave, a young man on a bicycle showed up with a snake that had been run over on the highway but was not yet dead.  The snake was about six feet long–a nice looking nonpoisonous snake.  After all the oohs and aaahs diminished, Lourdes carried away the snake by the tail, followed by about ten kids.  Someone mentioned that she and her family will have snake to eat.  This is Tejeres, one of the little communities alongside the highway outside of Quimistan.  You get your protein however you can.

Allen

A little clarification is in order regarding Kay’s injury yesterday.  Kay would like us all to recognize that she was merely protecting the children from a huge green bird with a slashing beak that was descending on a group of defenseless children while the men ran for cover and the women stood paralyzed with fear.  The mighty warrior princess Kay swung into action–she stood eye to eye with the huge bird, staring into its fiery red eyes.  The screech the bird emitted would make your hair stand on end.  The children cheered as the bird flew away with Kay clutched in its talons.  Only by her sheer bravery was she able to escape from his evil clutches with nothing more than a superficial wound to her finger.

The Admiring Team 

We have now been here in Honduras for seven days.  And even God rested on the seventh day.  So we filled our day of rest with the following;

• Going to downtown Quimistan,
• Going to the bank,
• Riding in the moto-taxi,
• Shopping at their version of WalMart buying hot sauce, coffee, and even a school uniform for a 3 year-old back in South Carolina,
• Visiting three homes in Tejeres which is a squatter village alongside the busy highway,
• Visiting the boyhood home of Miguel Paz Barahona who was President in the 20’s and sort of a local-boy-made-good (I guess like Sam Turnipseed in Aiken),
• Buying artwork from the local whistling artist (you had to have been there),
• Visiting a local corn grinding business and tasting raw cocoa,
• Then we got up close and personal with a couple of parrots–one of whom seemed not to like Methodists–and Kay ended up with a mean chunk taken out of her hand,
• Of course then we had to console Kay with some really great vanilla flavored ice cream covered with chocolate,
• Finally we visited the future site of Sandra’s new home.

So there you have it…  Just a quiet day of rest here in Quimistan.  Tomorrow is Sunday and who knows how much MORE restful we can be.  We still see God’s blessing in every turn of the road.

Paul

We don’t claim to be healing the blind.  But it’s hard sometimes to keep from being excited about how close it seems we come.  Today in Santa Clara we did our third session of the week as vision testers and fitters of eyeglasses.  Exuberance abounds when someone sits down to try on possibly several eyeglasses, each time saying, “No, this isn’t right,” and then suddenly comes alive with a big grin and “I can read it now!”

Today was even more special when Daniel, one of our translators, was working with us to help us sharpen up our technique with the Focometer and the eyeglass fitting.  “”These make me dizzy,”  “This doesn’t really help much,” and then “WOW!  I thought I could see pretty well, but this is GREAT!  Now I can read those little letters on the bottom of the chart!”  It doesn’t take too much of that to cause you to turn your head so no one can see, and wipe that little moisture from your eyes.

Allen

Yesterday several of us went to visit Martha’s after-school program.  The children go to school from 7:30 until 12:00.  Her program starts at 2:00 and goes until 4:00.  They handle children from kinders to 6th grade.  They work with math and reading skills, get a snack, and then enjoy some playtime.  She employs two qualified teachers who are aware of students with learning problems and who give some of the additional help needed in that area.   The program is growing.  The younger students meet in a storage room at the present time, but Martha has BIG dreams and has recently bought the 4 acres next to the meeting area.

During the morning we revisited the village of La Montanita.  The ladies there have invested some profits from their tortilla cloth microenterprise to open a little community bakery.  The women of our team joined in the dough-kneading.  What they really got into with great gusto was slamming down the dough ball on the table.  Frustration and tension seemed to evaporate in the process!  And we found out that Becky Lakey can make a mean cookie!  Of course the men were busy doing man things–watching the bread-making process, watching the man start the fire in the oven and stoke it with wood, watching the children play, and meeting under the shade tree to discuss “important” things.

Soon Jose Santos’ wife showed up with four freshly picked pineapples.  Out came a very sharp machete, wielded with great skill to trim and slice the delicious, sweet and juicy fruit for everyone to enjoy.  By the time the pineapples were devoured, the banana bread, garlic bread, milk bread, and cupcakes were baked for our enjoyment.  We didn’t have any room for our PB&J sandwiches, so they were all distributed to the locals.

While all this was underway, the men were not really disengaged.  We met with Vilma C., the pastor’s wife who brought back information to us about the membership in each of the churches in the community, and how many Bibles they would need for everybody who can read but doesn’t have a Bible.  We left her with a good supply of crayons for the students she has been teaching Bible stories.  We also met with Manuel Lopez and got a confirmation of the number of latrines to be constructed in the main village and its suburb across the ravine.  As we were leaving the village, we spotted a truck coming into the village that appeared to be carrying the piping, concrete, and other materials required for doing those jobs.

Dee-Dee and Allen

There are great debates in Presbyterian Theologian circles about whether God sends the equipped or equips the sent.  Of course there are Biblical examples and modern day examples of both.  I have to say that I have never been on a Church Project before where I have had such an overwhelming feeling that this team was specifically constituted AND equipped for a “purpose” by God.

How by chance could we humans have put together the calm organizational skills of Allen; the group play skills of Larry, Dee-Dee, and Kay; the bubble and tattoo skills of Pat, Lorraine, and Betsy; the glasses fitting skills in the midst of uncertainty of Paul, Russell, and Francoise; and the behind the scenes exuberance of Sam?  This team was uniquely constituted to do a specific mission to the country and mountain villages of Honduras… And we are doing just what God expected.

What a blessing to all of us to be a part of such a uniquely constituted team, and to be given an opportunity to play a part in God’s great plan.  This did not happen by chance.  It could never have.  The odds are too great for such a convolution of people, talents, and needs.  The only answer I can see is that God , personally, has called us who are equipped AND equipped us who are called.  What fun it is to see “a plan come together.”

These things come to mind as I think back over the last few days:

• Juan Jose greeting us with a big smile when we pulled up to the school in Teo Monday morning.
• The Church of God in Teo that built new walls around the old church and awaits some help for a new roof so they can knock down the old walls and worship in a bigger place.
• Pat sitting on the step of the La Montanita school surrounded by kids as she reads a book to them in Spanish.
• Kay and Pat and Dee-Dee and Larry playing with the kids after Martha’s Sunday School session.
• Becky sitting in a dark classroom at La Montanita wearing sunglassses as she and Pat worked with a woman seeking a pair of glasses so she could see clearly–and with Sonia, the teacher in Nueva Esperanza, watching their antics.
• Sam working with Kathryn to screen the people coming for eye testing.
• Daniel hustling back and forth from one eyeglass fitting table to another, interpreting what the people were saying as they tried various prescriptions.
• Maynor explaining to a group of kids how they DON’T SWALLOW IT!, but SWISH, SWISH, SWISH in your mouth for 30 seconds before you SPIT the foul-tasting fluoride rinse.
• Francoise smiling as she watches a satisfied customer leave with new glasses and a smile.
• Russell holding the paper in front of a customer’s one eye while the other eye looks through the focometer, trying to find the pattern on the wall to focus on.
• Paul hustling to arrange all the eyeglass boxes systematically, set up the three eyeglass fitting stations, and train us neophytes in the fine art of how to satisfy the customer.
• Juana DuBon as she presented us with a big serving of coffee and pineapple pastries from the La Montanita bakery.
• Paul saying “I’ve been all over the world, but I don’t think I’ve ever been as far out in the boondocks.”
• The kids in the family of the overseer of Martha and Gary’s property, getting real pleasure out of being able to say “Hello” and “Bye-bye” and getting us to respond.
• The comments around the dinner table at the team meeting as we reviewed the day and what we learned.
• Lorraine talking about how we might be able to help a little disabled girl to enjoy her attraction to music.
• The heartwarming joy we all received as we cut our PB&J sandwiches in half to feed the kids in La Montanita, then realized we needed to cut them into quarters, then got the apples and sliced them up, then got all the peanut butter crackers and distributed them, and then had enough to have a couple of crackers for ourselves.  We didn’t have quite twelve baskets left over, but it seemed just as miraculous.  
• The way the school teachers can get kids and parents to line up, stay in line, and be quiet.  It’s truly amazing.
• Vilma Cartagena talking about how she is trying interactive Bible story teaching in her church.  She mentioned that the previous week she had taught about Jesus feeding the five thousand, which just happened to be the example literature we had marked in one of the books we brought.
• Standing on top of the hill at Buenas Aires enjoying the afternoon breeze and looking over the whole valley below–Pinalejo first, then Quimistan, San Francisco, San Marcos all laid out in the river valley with the mountains just behind.
• But most of all, I continue to be amazed by the way God brings together people who are of just the right mix to be God’s People where He puts us.

Allen

Yesterday we made a special delivery to Siomara Zamora, the kindergarten teacher in La Montanita.  We all gathered in the school room around her as we invited her to unlock and open the trunk that had been personalized with her name on it.

As Siomara opened that trunk and began to see all the school supplies that had been collected especially for her and her students, this young, shy teacher dropped her head, with a little smile slowly spreading across her face.  She was obviously overwhelmed by the thought that the group who had been there only a few weeks earlier had outdone themselves for her.  The trunk contained innumerable things any kindergarten teacher would long for, but which few or none in this country could ever hope to have for her students.

What had initially seemed so incredible to her eventually became reality.  She raised her head and gently spoke the words of grateful, heartfelt appreciation, “muchas gracias.”

Someone then said, “Did you tell her the trunk is for her to keep?”  Another smile, another muchas gracias, and she then locked her new trunk of goodies so they would be preserved for the beginning of the new school year next week.

What a marvelous way to start the day!

Allen