New House, new life!!!



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Today is Wednesday and we have several projects planned for the day.

This is very typical of where we built today.


 

This is the hardest part, getting the house square.  We also had lots of rocks to get through.  This is my friend Pat, a multi-talented, old pro and Caesar, one of our local Honduran guys who works with Torch.  In the background you see a man with a gray shirt and a little girl with a navy blue dress, they are part of the family who will live here.








 

 

 

One small group would be helping me build my second house.  This house would also be built in honor of my friend Kariny’s  husband, Scott Sander.

 

 

 

Another group was going to the hospital to visit the new mothers and give them the gift bags we prepared.  My roommates Diane and Jo Dawn were  on this team.  They went to a hospital that we had never gone to before called San Felipe.  My friends said that most of the babies had nothing on and most of the mothers put the new clothes on that we gave them. I was very glad to hear that the bags were needed and much appreciated. 

 

 

He asked me to take a picture of him.

 

this little boy was itching to hammer, so I let him take my place.  He was strong.  The little boys asked us for "carros" and I'm pretty sure they asked for our shoes.  We didn't have toy cars and Torch doesn't want us to give away things at the build site because we could become bombarded with the villagers.


 

 

 

This is one of our young people from Mobile, Alabama.  He worked hard all day!

 

 

 

After this group finished at the hospital, they went back to Diamante to help prepare the land.  10 acres have been donated to build a church on.  We have heard that people had been walking miles to get to the Los Pinos church of Christ, so a church is to be built in Diamante.  Diane and Jo Dawn said that helped moved some gigantic rocks and many of the locals came out and helped clear the land.

 

This is the mother that will live in the house. She was very beautiful and when she stood up you could tell she was about 7 months pregnant.

 

 

 

 

A third group broke down huge quantities of food (rice, beans, sugar, flour, coffee, spaghetti) into smaller food bags.  These were taken out to area out past Villa Gracia where we stay.  My other roommate Sarah helped do this.  She said they had some long hikes to get to all of the houses.

 

I had another great team for my house build.  I was told we were going close to the dump and probably the family worked there.  The area was very poor, but it wasn’t so close to the dump that we could smell it. (I’ve been that close before.)  The father was so nice and worked side by side with us all day.  As always, it is a wonderful experience and very touching.  I hope the pictures tell the story because I’m very tired tonight and I have an amazing story to tell you.

 

Kathryn Steffy, who now lives in Philly, is doing finish work for the floor.  We have to fill in any gaps we have left.




Friends, the little girl on the left will live in this house.




 

 

 Here you can see what was left of the house that they lived in before.

 

Tonight we had our usual evening devotional.  At the end, Jeremy Myers, a youth minister from Arkansas, told us that, Luke, a young man wanted to be baptized and become a Christian.  Some of us knew that Jeremy and some of the other men had been studying with him.  Let me tell you a little about Luke.

Across the valley and over on the mountain, if you look carefully, you can see the Jesus statue.  Jesus watched over us all day!!

 

Luke was born in Honduras and was adopted by Americans from an orphanage when he was 1 year old.  He had never been back to Honduras and this year he wanted to come.  He Googled Honduran missions and Torch missions was the third on the list.  He called the contact number and spoke to our local contact.  When Luke told him the dates that he could come, the contact person gave him the information about Terry Reeves’ trip.  We all celebrated Luke’s new birth has he was baptized in a beautiful decorative fountain on the property.  There wasn’t a dry eye there!!!  God works in mysterious ways !!!

We love you Luke!!!!

 

Hasta luego!!!

 

PJ  xoxo