Armor of Hope Ministries

I decided it was important for me to write and let you know of the situation here in Honduras.  Many of you have been watching the news and see things from your side of the fence.  I thought I would try to give you my point of view from what I am seeing here.  There is a good deal of unrest here due to president Zaleya being taken to Costa Rica.  There have been conflicting reports as to whether he left voluntarily or was forced in some way.  It seems to me he was in some way forced to leave and plans to return today if the reports I am hearing are correct.  The country is under military rule for the moment.  Many business are closed.  Yesterday a curfew was enacted (9 pm).  There were demonstrations in the center of San Pedro Sula yesterday and our vehicle was not permitted to pass.  I also had a man refuse to take money from me when I wanted to purchase gas.  I guess he doesn't like Presidents Obamas stance on this issue.  Eventually he did sell me gas when Victor told him I would be paying in Limpira.  The people seem really split on this issues involved depending on who you talk to.  The US, Nicaragua, Cuba and Venezuela have sided with Zaleyas.  If the acting president Michelteti (president of the national congress) does not step down they have threatened to intervene.  this could be a nasty situation.  Please keep us in your prayers.  I'm staying close to El Sauce as the mountains are relatively safe.  Things for the most part however seem to be going on as usual.

Yul Brinner's brother Marlin is now staying with Yul's family while he recovers.  Last thursday I made a plaster splint for his leg.  The hospital never read his x-ray before they sent him out.  They simply wired his jaw closed and sent him out to the parking lot to wait for someone to come for him.  I looked at his x-ray when he came to Sauce.  He has a hairline fracture in his tibia.  It was well aligned so I made a plaster splint and gave him some crutches.

This has been a crazy week.  On top of casting Marlin I also stitched up a kids head who was hit over the head with a branch, splinted a broken thumb and am presently treating a 3 yr. old boy who has a nasty tropical ulcer.  Two nights ago I took a woman to the hospital who had come to me complaining of her health.  After hearing her complaints I took a blood glucose reading.  Her glucose was over 500.  I decided to take her to the doctor.  He gave her an order to go to the hospital for two day where they would treat her with IV insulin and get her regulated.  This was 11:30 at night.  We went to San Pedro Sula where the nurses decided she did not need to stay and simply gave her some IV fluids for 1 hours which contained insulin.  They never took another glucose reading.  They just sent her out.
Before returning home we stopped at a pharmacy and bought insulin.  On returning to El Sauce I checked her glucose reading, it was still very high.  We have started a schedule of insulin injections and glucose testings twice a day.  Today for the first time her glucose was below 200.  I think we're making progress.

I had a meeting with the men and women of influence in the village this past week to discuss the situation of the clinic.  We all agree we need to take another route in bring health care to El Sauce.  After and hours of discussing possible solutions, we have decide to sell the land that Armor of Hope now has, and purchase a piece of property closer to the village.  The villagers have also decided that they needed to take on a more active role if they want to have health care in El Sauce.  They are making plans also to be part of the purchasing process for the land.  thay are offering financial help with this.  Their help will not make a huge difference financially but it will give them more of a sense of ownership.  Keep us in prayer as we continue in this process.

The church in El Sauce seems to be the gathering place for the youth of this community.  We are very pleased about this as we know spiritual change is more sustainable when lessons are instilled at a young age.  I reported some time ago on a young man by the name of Jafet.  Jafet is 10 years old and in the past was quite a terror.  He is being raised by his aged grandparents.  His grandmother is blind and his grandfather seems oblivious to most things around him.  Jafet is dirty and is left to his own.  He has come so far however.  He visits me daily.  Generally Jafet is the one who wakes me in the morning when he taps on my window at 6:00 a.m. and in a sing song voice says "Buenos Dias Hermana Laura" (Good morning sister Laura).  He often leaves beautiful tropical bouquets of flowers on my window sill or brings them in when he eats breakfast with me.  He says he likes my gringa food.  He always seems so hungry.  Jafet is a handsome boy with the most contagious smile.  His smile simply lights up my soul.  He greets me with the biggest and tightest hugs you can imagine.  He is so starved for attention and for me its easy to give this young one all he wants. 

The youth are meeting every Saturday evening in my home.  I look forward to this time every week.  They are an energetic group who love to sing.  They sing at the very top of their lungs.  Brian who is 11 sings so "hard" that his little face is all crunched up and his eyes are closed tight.  His voice rings with deep soul felt music.  I love just watching him praise God so openly and unrestrained.  We adults could learn a little about worship from Brian.  This past Saturday morning very early I heard voices outside my home whispering. After a few minutes I decided to open my window and see who all was out there chattering away in whispers.  To my joyful surprise there was my lovely youth group cleaning and raking my yard.  boys had machetes chopping away any weeds and the girls had brooms and rakes cleaning up leaves and other debris.  Their little brown faces gleamed with smiles when they saw my face poke out of the window.  As if they had rehearsed as a chorus they simultaneously yelled "Buenos dias hermana!"  This group brings me so much joy.

I've spent much of the past week trapsing around the village measuring water tanks and checking the condition of the tanks and the springs that serve the community.  There is a possibility of Sauce receiveing help to upgrade the water system to bring a cleaner supply and hopefully a more reliable supply of water to the village.  One of the springs is a good bit off the beaten path.  Poor Yul Brinner had to help drag me up the mountain to reach the spring.  It is a bit of a hike.  The springs and tanks that serve the village for the most part are in bad condition.  We are excited that this possibility for help has been made known.

I built a solar oven from cardboard, aluminum foil, black paint, and a piece of glass. After I constructed the oven I put some potatoes in it to see if it would work.  I had a few skeptics to say the least.  An oven that didn't need wood and didn't make smoke was unheard of here where they cook on clay ovens with wood.  As people passed the oven in my yard they would stop and take a look.  There were a few kids who hung out with the stove because they seemed to enjoy telling folks what it was and how it worked.  It was interesting to see the expressions on folks faces when they were told what it was.  There was everything from surprise to "she must be crazy" looks.  After a few hours of sunlight we had baked potatoes.  Yul Brinner, Maria and I eat baked potatoes and mantaquilla.  YUMMY.  The following day I made BBQ chicken...delicious.  I'm going to make one of these when I return to the states.  A few folks from the community have asked me if I will teach them to make an oven.  This was the idea in making my oven so visible...to create interest.  I will have a class soon so folks who want to can construct an oven.

Thank you to all of you who have been praying for rain.  We desperately need it.  It seems to rain all around us but skips us.  We have had three good rains however so God has shown us his favor.  We need more rain so please petition God to continue his blessing of rain for us.  Thank you for your continued prayers.  I'd love to hear from you as its always good to hear from home.  Love you all--Laura

Last evening (Thursday) members of the church in El Sauce piled into the bed of the truck to travel up further into the mountains to the village of La Laguna for the first worship to be held in the village.  According to team member Yul Brinner there were 10 adults and many kids from Laguna who joined the Christians from El Sauce for the first service.  Yul said that the people watched the service without much participation simply because this is all new to them.  Afterward the Christians mingled with the people of Laguna with the hopes of beginning relationship building.  Pray the hearts of the people can be reached as we proceed with this evangelistic effort in La Laguna.

Also I learned only this morning that the recent earthquake did in fact do some damage in El Sauce.  The only damage reported however is to my house.  Because the church meets mainly on the porch and in the back yard (only the small children meet inside the house), no one had noticed that the center supporting wall had cracked completely down the middle.  Yul assues me that he and the landlord have plans to have the repairs made before I arrive on Wednesday.  I spoke to both Yul and Victor and they reported that they were not aware of any damage to structures in the village.  They felt Suace escaped unscathed.  Well better an empty house be damaged than one that had people in it. 

Please pray for my upcoming trip to Honduras.  I am scheduled to leave June 10th and return August 12th.  There is a high priority on evangelism and relationship building for this trip. 

  On May 28th at about 2:30 a.m. an earthquake which measured 7.1 occurred of the north shore of Honduras.  The quake was felt by neighboring countries.  There have been 6 reported deaths, some homes have collapsed and some cracks in buildings have been reported in San Pedro Sula.  Most reported damage in Honduras was on the Northern part of the country.  The damage however is considered minimal for a quake of this magnitude.  Please be in prayer for those who have been affected by this quake.  The village of El Sauce reported houses shaking and things falling off shelves but no damage or injury.

Trip Dates, Plans and what Living in an Adobe House is Like (visit our website at www.armorofhope.org)

My next trip to Honduras will be from June 10th through August 12th.  I suspect there will be some special challenges in dealing with the local politicians as we remove ourselves from the clinic and re-establish our presence in a different context.  I will be serving the people of El Sauce using the small adobe house as our ministry base.  Since this house is only rented I will need to be conscious of how it is used.  The landlord has given me permission to allow the church to meet there for the time being.  I do not know at this time how much money the church has raised toward the purchase of a plot of land but I am eager to find out once I am back. 

I wanted to take a moment to describe the little house I am renting.  Let me preface this by saying I like my little village home and am comfortable.  I'll also say its not for everyone.  I now believe God was preparing me for my time in the village when, as a teenager, I participated in many survival camp outs and survival training courses.  I have always had a rather unusual interest in learning new survival skills, trying to "invent" ways of meeting my needs without much technology, and making due with the basics.  That being said, I know most folks don't share that interest and therefore would not see my little adobe house as "homey".

My house is made of adobe (fancy word for mud blocks).  The blocks are covered with a final layer of what the villagers call "white dirt".  It truly is a very white dirt that when applied gives the house an almost painted look.  Beware however the white comes off just like any other dirt whenever you touch it our lean against it. 

My house has two rooms separated by a screen door with a rough wood frame.  There is no running water in the house and no bathroom.  That's right no sinks, toilets, tubs or showers.  I do have a water line run to the back yard that fills a 55 gallon drum on the days my side of the village receives water (every third day).  I won't go into how I have made it without a toilet (sometimes I used the clinic toilet) since I don't want to leave any scars from mental pictures my words would create.  After putting a spigot on the end of the water line I covered the valve with a homemade filter made of a cloth coffee filter filled with cotton and then wrapped around the spigot and secured with a rubber band.  Of course this only cleans the big particles of dirt out of the water but its clean enough to bathe in and clean house.  I still buy bottled water for drinking and cooking.  I haul dishes outside to wash them and haul water inside for cleaning and other chores. 

This trip promises to be a little easier as far as bathroom facilities.  I have a portable potty that I am carrying down in my suitcase, a camp shower and I've devised a way to make a running water sink.  I have also fashioned a hand-powered washing machine from a toilet plunger, garbage can, and some tubing and a clamp.  I'm eager to try it all out.

The electric in my house is very sub-standard.  In one room the electric doesn't even work.  The wall sockets all hang from the ceilings into the middle of the rooms.  I've used nails put into the walls to wrap the wires around to get them out of the way.  I have plenty of candles and flashlights for those times when we don't have electric.  A power outage can last anywhere form a couple hours to a week or more.  These outages no longer bother me since I'm well prepared now.

I have a very sweet front porch that extends across the entire front of the house.  This is where the church meets as a whole.  The area of the house I have designated as a living room is where the children's classes meet and the teens meet in the back yard for classes.  Its very crowded and I look forward to a time when we can have a bigger space.  I also use the front porch to show an occasional movie free to whoever comes.  Using our projector and a sheet stretched across the front of the house I have a fairly decent set up for movie showing.

This next trip will focus extensively in evangelism training and follow-up for church members.  Our church is young and so often members have no idea how to follow-up with visitors or folks who show interest in spiritual things.  Of course this will take time, but I'm excited that we have folks who want to learn how to reach out into the village.  I will also visit the village of Le Laguna and touch base with the village leader whose 12 year old daughter was kidnapped.  I hope we can develop a relationship that will not only show him we care about what is happening to him and his daughter, but that will also allow us to get into the community and teach the gospel.

Thank you for all your prayers and encouragement.  God bless you.

You can visit our website at www.armorofhope.org

Trouble in El Sauce--May 19, 2009

Over the past 12 months we have faced many difficult and unexpected challenges.  One of these challenges involves the local government and local politicians.  Last week after months of rumors and threats, I received notice that the local health department, with the encouragement and support of the mayor of Villanueva, has taken over control of the health center and all its contents.  This takeover was politically motivated after certain villagers stood against the present mayor during a political campaign that took place in El Sauce last spring.  Comments made on camera by people in the village discredited the mayor who tried to take credit for the existence of the clinic.   Since that time, even though we were not part of this incident, we have been under attack.  The clinic has been seized, the church no longer has use of the school, and efforts have been made to discredit our work.  

 Another part of this problem is the minister of the other church in the village.  He has openly said that because Armor of Hope did not offer to help pay for and help build the church  where he preaches in El Sauce, he would do nothing to make things easy for us.  In fact he has been on a crusade to make things difficult.  His wife works for the mayor of Villanueva (the same one who is politically motivated against us).  Because of his efforts and complaints I can no longer live in the clinic when I am in El Sauce, even though I had received the permission of the village president.

I have encouraged the church and team members to remain strong and remember they are on stage right now.  We are being watched very closely and their response to this may have eternal influence on those watching.  I have instructed our team and the church not to resist in any way, but to keep peace and show the love of Christ.

These challenges have brought us to a pivotal time in this ministry.  It is important for me to go to Honduras this summer.  A plane ticket has been donated to me so that I might make this trip, but because of the economic climate funding has been much lower than in past years.  We are presently looking for ways to increase funding.  One of those ways is to ask our supporters to help us with funding.  I leave in 3 weeks and at this time have no funding for this trip.  If you are able to help with funding please view our website for information on where to donate online or where to send donations.  Our website address is: armorofhope@gmail.com

Please pray for our strength and endurance during these struggles.  Please consider the possibility of how we can work together and possibly redefine our relationship.  If possible please consider a way you might help us obtain grants that require church sponsorship.  I realize I have laid a good deal at your feet.  I ask that you prayerfully consider the possibilities of how we might work more closely together.