Countdown to Honduras ...

Hola Friends!!

Well, here we are ... how quickly time goes by ... just about to go on our third mission trip to Honduras and it's T-minus 18 days.  

As the day of our departure gets closer, we think an update is well overdue so here's what we've been doing and what we've still yet to do!  

First of all, we'd like to share our thanks to the LORD as He has brought us to this point. We were a little "touch and go" for a while there and pretty anxious here and there but we are officially a fully funded team and we've been blessed to collect and/or obtain ALL of the supplies we intended for.  As a matter of fact, we have a surplus of many items! Now, isn't that just like GOD??

"Give, and you will receive. You will be given much. Pressed down, shaken together, and running over, it will spill into your lap. The way you give to others is the way God will give to you.” ~Luke 6:38 NCV

So, for a recap of our team, we have 25 members consisting of 12 males and 13 females, ranging in age from 9 to 65 years.  Our destination is Rancho Ebenezer in San Matias, Honduras, which is about 99km east of Tegucigalpa, the capital of Honduras.  Tegucigalpa is in Francisco Morazan district and San Matias is in the district of El Paraiso.  

Rancho Ebenezer's 90-acre campus serves as home to abandoned, orphaned and displaced children from birth to 18 years of age. It provides caring homes, a vital bilingual education and vocational training to our young at-risk population. There, children experience a loving family life under the guidance of attentive caregivers and mentor house parents who look to their physical and spiritual needs daily, teaching them to trust Jesus Christ with their lives.  

Ranch Serve Teams can be involved in a variety of ways from construction projects to children’s outreach.  The focus of the work is to show the Hondurans the love of Christ and to improve their physical environment.  Projects could include helping fix a roof of a family in the community that doesn’t have the means to do it themselves, or giving a concrete floor to a family that desperately wants to keep their children healthier and safe from parasites.  Additionally, activities are planned to serve and interact with the children who reside under the care of Ebenezer Ranch.

Here is a photo of some of the children and staff from Rancho Ebenezer.

We are pretty excited to meet the children and the staff at the Ranch and about the work we will do when we are there.  We will be leading the church service on our Sunday there and we will also lead several of the daily devotions that are done at the Ranch.  We will have a couple soccer games with the kids, who will probably crush us in the sport.  Perhaps we will have to suggest having kids and team members TOGETHER on teams - haha, yes, that should even out the playing field!!  We also are bringing a DVD projector because we have a movie night planned - and no, we won't forget the corn for popping!!  On our last night there, we will get to have a bonfire and we're bringing the makings for S'mores!!  How fun it will be!!  Besides all the fun we plan to have on the Ranch, we will also be doing some hard work including painting a house, de-molding another, organizing and cleaning out flower beds, gutters and school rooms and doing some other odd jobs as well.  We will be busy, busy, busy!

We are also bringing with us what we are calling Community Family Care Packages and we will give these to each of the families that we will be serving in the community near Rancho Ebenezer.  Based on our experience from the last two trips to Honduras, we set a goal of bringing typical needs of the people such as vitamins, medicines for cough/cold, headache, fever, first aid items such as band-aids and antibiotic ointment and hygiene packets including shampoo, soap, washcloths, toothbrushes and toothpaste.  We will also give each family the gift of a new soccer ball and pump as the sport is very popular in Honduras.

There are many missionaries who live and serve at Rancho Ebenezer and so our team set out to show them we care too by collecting items for Missionary Care Packages!  So in addition to some of the same items mentioned above, we also asked what items the missionaries long for, miss from home or basic items that they would enjoy.  Well, would you believe that the majority of these families long for hard-to-get food items such as Velveeta, tomato soup and canned pumpkin?  Oh, we are NOT kidding!!  Apparently, Velveeta is like GOLD to these families!  Can anyone say with me "Ewwwwwe!!"  Also, to provide us with some comic relief (or additional stress, however you prefer to look at it) we will likely be stopped when we arrive in Honduras and our trunks are scanned by Customs/Immigration.  The denseness of Velveeta is likely going to raise a red flag and upon the request to open our trunk (we will pack ALL Velveeta in one to eliminate potential additional delays) we will do our best to convince the security agent that Velveeta is N-O-T not explosive material (on second thought maybe it is :-), but that it is rather delicioso comida (delicious food)!!!  Oh boy - pray for us, will you???

And then besides all that, we are bringing clothing and loads of school supplies for the children who live at the Ranch.  

  We were just given the profiles of the six families that we will serve when we are there and we really appreciated receiving this information.  It makes what we're about to do so much more REAL and personal and now we can pray specifically about each family member whose lives our service will hopefully touch in a positive way.  In each family/home, we will provide them with a concrete floor.

Here is some information on just a couple of the families that we will serve:

One family consists of a two sisters, age 55 and 60 who live with one of the sons and his wife. They have 2 grandsons that live with them. 

The son works in construction projects when he can. 

Another family consists of a single mother who has four children ages 8, 5, 2, and a 1 month old son. She is not employed, but receives some help from her mother occasionally. 

As you can see from the photos, the need is great and we will do our best to make them feel loved.

Our Team Shirts have arrived and we are very pleased with them!!  One of our team members, Barb, (Yay, Barb!!) created the design and then the shirts were printed by a great family-owned business in Milwaukee called Caribe Ink and Thread.  Javier Arce has done a great job with our t-shirt needs the this trip and the one we went on in 2013.  

This is the men's shirt - in "natural".

This is the women's shirt - see ladies, v-neck just for you!!

Oh, can you just feel the love??

The ladies shirt is "neon lemon".

What do you think of the shirt??

Oh, and guess what else??  We had a bunch of these cool cups left over from our Chili Cook-Off fundraiser so we're bringing these to Honduras as well full of sweet treats to share with everyone we meet!

A HUGE Thank-You goes out to ALL the people who have prayed for us, contributed money and donated items for us to be able to bring with us!!  We could never do all of this on our own and we are so blessed by all of the support we've had!!  Truly, THANK-YOU!!! 

Please pray for us to stay healthy and for safe travels.
Please pray for the families and children who we will meet and serve in Honduras.
Please pray for the team to be strong and bold for Christ, yet gentle and humble in sharing His heart for the poor.

God bless you all!!