December 2006 Report

We have been on the mission field for 4 months now learning Spanish and working with Mission Lazarus and it has been challenging yet rewarding at the same time. We left our comfortable jobs where we knew how everything worked and moved to a country where organization does not exist and started from scratch on learning the ends and outs of Mission Lazarus and the work being done here. It is an honor to be one of God’s servants and help make a difference in Honduras even if it is simply by providing a poor village man a job for a day to provide food for his family that night.

Since this is our first report, we want to start off by thanking each person who is praying for us, giving financially for our support, or writing us an email or personal card. You have allowed us to do this work without wondering what will happen next because we know that God will take care of us. Thank you for supporting us! We want to make sure you are aware of what we are doing since you are investing in us. Even though we cannot put everything in this report, we will make sure to inform you of our specific areas of responsibility.

Shelly has been working closely with Mission Lazarus’ Early Childhood Development Center (ECDC) in San Marcos closing the year out and getting prepared for next year. The children are out of school from December until February for “summer break.” There will be a new Director of the school in San Marcos next year which excites Shelly as they both work together on new ideas and strategies to make sure those children are given a quality, Christian education. She has also been sorting through hundreds of boxes of donated school supplies which are desperately needed in all the ECDCs. There has been a resource room established at the Mission Lazarus office in Choluteca and the organization of it has begun to be better utilized next year. Thanks to the cows on Las Palmas Ranch, all the children are receiving at least a glass of milk a day which provides needed protein to their slim diets. What a blessing that has been to those children!

We have given more identification to the Mission Lazarus Children’s Home. We have named it Mission Lazarus Refuge at Las Palmas and I continue to work on our paperwork for IHNFA, the Honduran Child Protective Services, for approval. So far, it is a 22-page packet of information which consists of an overall plan, budget, discipline plan for children and workers, credentials of those who will be working with the children, and much formal information needed for approval. IHNFA is extremely excited about Mission Lazarus Refuge and look forward to allowing us to open the doors as soon as possible. We are in the process of interviewing a lady from San Marcos to be our Honduran Director as she is well qualified for that position. We have put together a list of people within Mission Lazarus who will be working with the children on a regular basis and I am excited about what that holds for each of those children in providing for their spiritual, educational, and medical needs.

As far as the physical home itself, since Honduras has begun the non-rainy season, we have taken off the room of the middle part of the “big house” which existed when Mission Lazarus purchased the land and the roof of the back of the house which allows us to raise the walls to make more headroom for the bunkroom upstairs. We are looking to finish this project in the coming months with a new roof, new bunkroom upstairs, new bathrooms, new staircases, new kitchen and new dining room for the children to move into. What a blessing this house will be for the children! We are eagerly awaiting a group from Berry’s Chapel church of Christ in Franklin, Tennessee to come down in February to build our second home in the location where the rest of the homes will be located. We have an engineer coming the end of December to help us lay out the homes in the field to better utilize our space.

There is so much going on around Southern Honduras that Mission Lazarus is working hard to make a difference in. From building a Children’s Home from scratch, attending the medical needs of Hondurans in Las Pitas, vaccinating cows on Las Palmas Ranch, teaching children the Bible through school to helping Jose, a homeless man on the side of the road near San Marcos, we are thankful to be God’s servants and have an opportunity to be a part of the work of Mission Lazarus. We encourage you to research all the areas of Mission Lazarus by surfing the website at www.missionlazarus.org. Please continue to pray for Mission Lazarus and the team of missionaries (including Ally and Jarrod Brown and Jake Tincher) here as we try to make a difference in Honduras. You are helping us do just that. God bless you!

Chad