Diamante Day (School painting, VBS, Daughters of the King, Ladies' Bible class, Medical Clinic

I'm sorry that yesterday's post was late. The wifi was slow or nonexistent.

I'm sorry this is blurry!

Each morning one of the men or guys leads a devo.  This morning it was Caleb Beggs.  We have already been noticing him because we know his mom Becky.  First of all, he is about 6 '+ tall,  has beautiful blue eyes and a wonderful attitude.  I believe he has quickly become one of everyone's favorites here.  He jumps right in and does whatever he needs to do.  He does it with a smile on his face and no questions.  His devo was about what he has learned on this trip.  I took notes and could tell you word for word and you would enjoy it, but I don't have my notes with me.

The view at the back of the mission house.

(Diane's selfie)

This is Reid.  She is only 6 and this is her third mission trip here.  Her little brother, Carter, came for the first time this year.  Her parents, Brett and Judy, have been coming about 15 years or more!!!

One of the main points that I remember is that Caleb said that Honduras will teach you where you are in your life.  He said that previously he had been "walking" in his Christian life.  1Corinthians 9:24-27  Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it.  When we are in Honduras, we see the need to run in our Christian walk.  There is much work to be done.  We don't want to walk into heaven!!!

Michelle, our interpreter

(medical clinic)

Thursday was our last official work day and these were our work choices.

1. The last house build.  (This was a Western Hills church of Christ house.)  Jo Dawn and her daughter went on this one.  They love building.

El Diamante

2.  Paint the newly built classrooms  (If you remember, this community has gotten chairs, school desks and other furniture that had been donated and shipped from the US.)

3.  Medical clinic

4.  VBS

5.  Ladies' Bible class

6.  Daughters of the King  (We pamper the young girls and ladies by washing their hair, painting their nails and washing their feet.  We do this because women and young girls seem to be looked down on in this culture, at least in the poor communities.  We especially like our young men to take part in this, so they can set an example.)

(These are the sights on the way to the lady's cool pulperia.  Look at the pictures closely!!)

(This is the pulperia and house.)

(Look what she made for her cat.  Notice the leash, if she didn't have that the cat wouldn't last long.  The dogs would probably eat it.)

I chose to help Diane with her ladies' Bible class.  Michelle Castillo was our interpreter.  She is the daughter of the family that runs Didasko.  Also, Catie Sellers, from PA was going to do part of the lesson.  She has been working on speaking in Lads to Leaders.  I guess I was there for crowd control.

We had our class in one of the newly built classrooms.  Right away, I could see that the babies might be noisy.  I started sharing some cookies that I had, but as more ladies came in, I could see I didn't have enough.  I decided to take a hike down to the nearest "pulperia" (a small store many of the locals have in their house).  When I got back Diane was finishing up and starting the final part of her lesson.

As last year, she had purchased nice Spanish Bibles.  She had ladies in her church write a prayer inside.  She took a picture of that lady and taped it inside the Bible.  The Honduran ladies were asked to write a prayer for that lady on a card, then Diane took their picture with an Instamatic camera and put it in the card to take back to the ladies in the US.  Everything went pretty well, but when the word got around that we were handing out Bibles, ladies came out of the woodwork.  In total, we gave over 35 Bibles away.

(see the cookie)

We finished as well as the paint crew and 5:30 came and went.  The busdriver started getting restless and said we need to go.  This little rural community didn't have electricity and he said it was best to not stay any later.  Exactly why, I'm not sure, but these guys know Honduras and they watch out for us.  I guess the clinic was on their last 5 patients  (Many of these people had waited all day.)  So, they finished up and we pulled out around 5:50.  That is very late for us.  I think it is safer if we get back to the Mission House by 4 or 5.

Honduras, Mi Corazon, Proximo Ano!!! (sorry no accent marks)

We had our clinics inside classrooms at the school.  This was a major upgrade from our last clinic.

Today is bittersweet!  It is our last work day in Tegucigalpa.  Even though 9 of us are traveling on to Costa Rica, the rest will be flying home and we’ll have to say good-bye in the airport.  I know that is obvious, but the people I see here are like family. (The bus drivers, the kitchen workers, the laundry ladies & of course my fellow Torchers)  Plus, each year I always make new friends.

 

 

Teri Barber is a hygienist, she worked on patient education and gave out toothpaste and brushes.


 

 

 

 

 

  This year, I particularly enjoyed meeting Jo Dawn and Dave from Sarasota, Florida.  Since tomorrow is a travel day, I probably won’t blog.  We should make it to Costa Rica by late afternoon and I’m assuming the internet situation will be better.

 

I'm sorry this is blurry.  It was the best I could do on an Iphone at night.  These are some of my new and old friends and family here!!!




 

 

 

Today the whole group went to the  Didasko orphanage.  We had one group that was medical, dental, and vision.  Another group would take lunch back to the dump and then meet us at Didasko.  At Didasko, we would have our clinics, have a VBS class and do a “Daughters of the King”. Also, a few of our talented builders added to the children’s playground.  As far as I know, past Torch teams have built that playground.

 

 

Sarah, our nurse, worked in the medical clinic, of course.  Also, Dr. Ponce came out to help us again.  Their team saw about 150 patients. Diane, Jo and I manned the eye glass clinic.  We probably gave a total of 30 eyeglasses a way. 

 

People waiting for the clinic.

 

Didasko is way out  in the country about an hour away from the city.  The grounds are beautiful and the children are well cared for.  Our Torch Team usually works there every summer. The younger Torch members always enjoy playing soccer and hanging out with the kids there.

Teri is educating some of the  the children of the orphanage.

 

 

 

A new pair of glasses and a happy patient



 

 

I know I explain this every year, but “Daughters of the King” is created to show honor, respect and attention to the young girls.  It seems like that girls here don’t seem to be honored in the poor communities here.  Our young men (and ladies) wash the girl’s hair, put in braids and hair bows, and paint finger and toe nails. I usually let the other kids do the Daughters of the King because they enjoy it so much.

This little girl didn't like getting her hair washed!

 

Yes, I know my eyes are closed.  The teachers arranged for the children to dance some traditional Honduran dances.  It was so cute!!!

Well, I need to say good-bye because I’m tired and tomorrow is a travel day.  I know there’ll be many hugs, tears and “Proximo Anos”!!

 

Hasta luega!

PJ  oxox

Rain does NOT cool you off in Choluteca

We finished up our medical clinic on Thursday because both of our doctors had to either go home or had other commitments.  Our medical/eye glass teams saw a total of about 340 patients in two days.

Our bus driver always picks up the ladies and children and lets them "hitch" a ride with us.

 

 

The nurse and doctors mostly gave out medications for parasites (most of the little kids) and antibiotics for upper respiratory system.  There were  only a couple of potentially serious cases.  An elderly lady was taken to the hospital because of her blood pressure and she was admitted and there were some babies with fevers.

Here's some of our medical team.  They have done an amazing job considering we are very short of translators.

 

 

  I worked in the eye glass clinic again today.  We had several older people who had very poor vision and they would just have to try on all of the glasses until one worked.

Donated prescription glasses (These plastic bins later served well for our foot washings.  You get pretty resourceful down here!)

 

Diane had this little old lady who said she had cataracts.  She kept trying them on and would make faces when the glasses didn’t work.  Diane said she tried on almost every pair she had and then finally she found a pair and she started reading the Bible.  She kept reading the Bible as tears were running down her cheeks.  Almost every one of us had similar touching experiences.

I believe this was the lady with cataracts. If you will look closely, we have rigged up boxes and suitcases to make a table for our donated reading glasses.

 

In the afternoon, I helped Diane in the Ladies’ Bible class.  Thursday’s lesson was about baptism.  I had brought some of my earrings and had hoped I would have enough to give to all of the ladies in class, but I didn’t,  so, I decided to mark 5 chairs and give those ladies a pair of earrings. I used an illustration that I got from our preacher to give out the earrings.

 

This is Karen with her children.  She helped us all day inside the church and came to everyone of our Ladies' Bible classes and church services.  She made a special connection with Diane's preacher's wife who came the year before last.  You can see she is wearing the bracelet that I made with the ladies on the first day.

 

 

 

 

I told the ladies that  I had a gift for 5 people.  I held the earrings up and asked if they would like to have them and I just stood there.  Then, I said, “If you want them you must come and get them and receive them.”  I then asked them, if the earrings cost them anything.  I asked them if they earned the earrings and they said, “No, they are free.”

 

 

This is Aaron Erkleman, one of our big guys.  You can see how we can get inventive.  Some of the men worked on a covered area where additional classes can be help outside.

 

 

 

  I asked them if they had to do anything to get the earrings and they realized they had to do what I asked and get up and get them.  I explained that we must obey God by repenting and being baptized for remission of our sins.  It is a free gift that we must receive from God.  We finished the lesson by giving the ladies a sugar scrub, foot washing and a new pair of flip flops thrown in for good measure.

 

While we were having our class, many of the young people had a VBS lesson for the children.  We finished up the evening with a gospel meeting at the church.  Today was a little different because we had a hard rain.  It seemed to cool off everything for about 10 minutes and then it was even more humid.  One more day to work at Choluteca!!

 

 

Hasta luego!!

We start the day and end the day with a devotional to God. Steve Schneider from Mobile, Alabama is leading this one.

 

PJ  xoxo