Almost October

Can you believe that tomorrow will be October? Time is flying by. We have been busy with my cousin, Amy Lofton Hartford, and her husband's visit with us last week. They took their vacation to spend a week with us. We showed them all the projects going on early in the week and then went to Roatan for the last half of the week. They left yesterday. We thoroughly enjoyed them being with us for the week. It is awesome to have family (and friends) around you sharing in what you love to do. Thank you Amy and Sam for your visit and come back really soon!

Roatan was great. It is the Caribbean island off the shore of Honduras. It is the biggest revenue producer for Honduras since it is totally geared toward tourism. They have 3 or 4 Carnival cruise ships dock on the island for the day which produces major money for the country. They have been voted the top 5 dive sites in the world. The weather was HOT and the water was crystal clear. Sam and I spent one morning snorkeling and seeing the beauty of God's creature below the surface. What a sight!

I began Amy and Sam's visit with a bad cold. I had a 102 degree fever, cough, headache, pains in my body for 2 days when they first arrived. I was not very fun to be around. I still have my cough right now but it is getting much better. I am on medicine and think that all will go away by the first of the week.

We are gearing up for my mom and grandmother's visit this Wednesday. They will be here for 5 days and we cannot wait for them to see all the projects. We will have to put some incriminating photos of them on the blog for everyone to see while they are here.

It is a sunny day here and we are catching up on rest and computer work today. Enjoy your day and let us here from you soon!

Chad

Update

We have been extremely busy lately with day to day activities that I have not had the chance to actually sit down and update our blog. I do want you to know that we moved our children into the new house last Friday and it was a day I will never forget. Their faces expressed every emotion I could ever imagine them having. Just to give you one little hint of what it was like...we played in the sinks for an hour with the HOT water. They were amazed. Their showers will never be the same. What a blessing!

I am putting together a full report to send nationwide with pictures and such but wanted those who read our blog to actually know that the children are in their new house thanks to the work of our skilled laborers on the ranch and our home congregation, Berry's Chapel. I cannot wait until the next one if finished so we can experience that great day all over again with some new children. Maple Hill is building that one and are ready to work.

We also celebrated Independence Day in Honduras last Saturday in the new house (it is the biggest house out of all the missionaries). We invited Doris Corrales, our Director, and her family who have a rich history in the San Marcos area and the ranch itself. We had a spread: tacos, pasta salad, beans, tortillas, brownies, cookies, coke...the works. It was awesome! The kids enjoyed the leftovers on Sunday also.

I am sorry that I do not have pictures to post but Shelly has the camera in Choluteca today. I am working here in San Marcos. I will be sending a massive email out soon with all the details of the new house and the children. Thanks for your prayers in our start-up and making this dream become a reality. Talk to you soon.

Chad

Children's Day

We celebrated "Children's Day" in our schools on Monday, September 10th. The entire country celebrates this day every September 10th to honor the children. It is such an exciting day for the children. The mayor's office and the bank in Choluteca even donated pinatas and candy for us to use. There were 20 pinatas, 456 packs of cookies, 500 lollipops, and no telling how many pieces of candy that just the children in the Early Childhood Development Centers enjoyed. There is no telling how many tons of sugar the children in the entire country consumed in this one day.

One mother donated her time to make these yummy cupcakes for the children.

There were games planned for all ages.

And, even the smallest of the children had a great day!

This day was the highlight of my week. Although I was unbelievably tired when it was all over, it was absolutely wonderful and fun. It was discussed numerous times during the day that in the United States "Children's Day" is not celebrated or really even thought of because really every day in the US is children's day. We take for granted parties, celebrations, candy, and treats that these children only see once a year. I cannot imagine attending another party without thinking of the faces of these children when they were celebrating their special day. Thank you to those who donated money or materials for us to use for this special day!!

Shelly

A night at the theater

Yesterday was a big day for Mission Lazarus Refuge. 4 representatives of IHNFA, Honduran child protective services, visited our homes to inspect them and see if we are ready to open. WE PASSED ALL INSPECTIONS! They were thrilled with our new house and were excited for the children that will move there. We also took them to visit a brother of the Beltrands who wants to move with them. He chose not to move last year. He is 16 years old and very quiet. It will be the beginning of a new life for him. We then ate lunch together and then visited the Beltrand children in their house. They were pleased to see the difference in them.

Last night we went with some of our friends (Doris Corrales and her family and Sabastiana, our social worker for the home) to a theater in Choluteca to support a children's home there who was selling tickets. It was a one man play about drug addiction. It lasted about an hour. The actor did a good job by himself. But only in Honduras do you visit the theater and see people eating corn on the cob while they enjoy the show and pull out their flashlights when the lights go out to continue the play. Near the end of the show, the electricity went out and there was a pause for about a minute and then 4 or 5 flashlights were brought out to continue the show. It will be a memory forever.

All in all, yesterday was a great day! It was intense but great to spend time with some representatives from IHNFA who we are becoming friends with. We are looking to move the children next week into the new house. What a day that will be.

Chad

Back to Business

We are back to business here in Honduras. The storm has passed and is a thing of the past. Truthfully, nothing happened besides about 30 minutes of extreme rain. No flooding here, no damage. We will wait for the next one though. It is that time of year.

Today our Mission Lazarus doctor visited San Marcos to check up on the children in the nutrition program and as an outreach of the church. We took all our children to him for a check up because with that many children, somebody is always sick with something. They all checked out pretty well. We need to have some other exams done on two of them but they will be fine.

I did meet some of the cutest children today. We are helping another family who has a sick mother and 6 children. 2 more do not live with them since they are a little older and can take care of themselves. I told this family last night that I would be at their house around 7:30 this morning to go to the doctor so everyone needed to be ready to go at that time. When I pulled up this morning, all the girls were dressed to their best in their cute dresses and had smiles that are some of the most beautiful I have ever seen. They loved riding in the car. Remember, they went to see the doctor and they were THRILLED. They were able to get treatment also and take home some medicine to feel even better.

There is something about this family that makes me want to help them. They were first brought to our attention because we were told that the mom was dying and that they had nowhere to go when that occurred. We finally found them (which is more difficult here) to interview the mom and see what the situation was. It was not as bad as we had heard but still needed our attention. The mom is sick and is very poor. They live in a shack which does not even have complete walls. She is a good mom though. She tries her best, she is just poor. It is not a situation where the kids are mistreated or anything like that. They are a neat family and we are going to continue to help them in any way we can. It may be building them a new house or just supplementing their food. The mom has a doctor's appointment in Choluteca at the hospital on Sept 15 to find out specifically what is wrong with her. That will give us an avenue as to what to do next with her.

The sad thing is, we are bombarded every week with situations like this. We want to help all of them but we just simply can't. But for those who think the church of Christ is not doing anything in this world, know that the church here in San Marcos de Colon, Honduras is making a difference in the lives of the poor. The mom has never been to church but had a huge smile on her face when I dropped them off (after getting cookies and coke for everyone because they behaved so well) and said, "Everyone today was so kind to us. Thank you."

My challenge to you is to go out and be kind to someone before the day ends. You never know what kind of impact that will be on them.

Chad

Update on Felix

We are safe! We stayed in a hotel in Choluteca last night very safe and secure. It was a concrete building with a generator so we had power all night even when the electricity went out. It rained extremely hard for about 30 minutes last night and then gently rained the rest of the night. No damage was done but we are still trying to find out exactly where it is now. There are conflicting reports on the internet and television of where it is exactly and what it is doing. The sun is trying to pop out here in Choluteca right now.

Thanks for all your prayers and concerns. It was a stressful night but we made the most out of it. All of us ended up watching Evan Almighty last night since it seemed appropriate due to the amount of water coming our way. We are back in the office this morning working. Talk to you again later when we hear more.

Chad

Hurricane Update #2

Hello to Everyone!
It is 5:18 p.m. on Tuesday evening. We wanted to let you know that we are safe and sound in our hotel. It is a concrete building and we are away from the river. It is raining pretty hard here right now and the wind has picked up quite a bit. Just wanted to let those of you who are checking the blog that we are o.k. Please continue to pray for our safety.

We'll write more in the morning.

Blessings!
Shelly

Hurricane Update

As of 12:55 pm (Mountain Standard Time) we are safe and preparing for Hurricane Felix to come in. The southern part of Honduras is directly in front of the storm which should pass over tonight or early tomorrow morning.

It has just begun to rain here. Shelly, Jarrod Brown, Alli Brown, Meredith Jones and I (our missionary family) are moving to a hotel in nearby Choluteca (1 hour away) to be close to one another and closer to the capital (2 hours away). This will allow us to keep track on what is going on closer to our offices in case there is a need for a relief effort.

Everything is calm right now. No major wind, just rain. I anticipate the rain to pick up over the next few hours before tonight. The bad thing is that with a few days of rain mudslides will occur which effect those in the mountains who are extremely poor. Please pray for their safety as it is extremely difficult for them to leave.

Thank you for all your emails asking about us and we ask that you pray for this country and the people living here. This storm is bringing up bad memories of Hurricane Mitch in 1998 for many of them. We will keep you posted on this blog with what is going on as long as we have internet connection and a cell phone signal.

Chad