Making Dreams Come True

Today part of our team left us :( 15 team members headed back to the states..Norman and Lisa, Rick and Lisa, Nicki, Melissa, Bob and Norma, Elizabeth, Adam, Tony, Sayffia, John, Darrel and Susie. We will miss all these folks. They were an important part of the awesome team we have the year. Everyone worked so hard and contributed so much to the work that was accomplished.
We made a quick stop at the pewter store and in 45 mins this crew did some power shopping. I had to keep reminding them they were getting on a plane..and they had a weight limit. They are coming home with some awesome things...Maybe you will be a lucky recipient!

It is hard to imagine that with the abundance of food we live with daily that there are families, babies, children that do not eat every day. How that must break a mother's heart to know her children are hungry and have no way to feed them. This am a small group stayed back at the mission house to pack food for 200 more families. Next week we will be brining the food to the community of San Miguel. The package each family receives will feed a family for about 4 weeks. For most homes the cabinets will be bare when we arrive and this food will be an answer to prayer. Providing food even for a short time is so important because for 1 month mothers, fathers, children will know they will eat each day. "Give us our daily bread" The families here truly live that prayer, day to day.

Early in the trip I blogged about our work in Santa Ana at the new property. Today we continued some work on the property. There is so much work to be done to prepare for the ministry that will begin soon in Santa Ana. Rachel Fowler did physical work today!!!!!! It may be days before she recovers we are watching her closely! She was quickly reminded of why she plays with kids and has no plans of picking up another tool!!! Jr Prine has devoted much time to re-wiring the building that will soon be a clinic. Today Jr and David and their team continued this big job. Jr was using his excellent Spanish skills to communicate with some local workers. He is really good at making tool sounds to tell them what to do....Like "dos, vroom vroom :) His new favorite word is poopas. Shhhh, that is actually Papusas!!! We finished putting up a new ceiling in one of the clinic rooms, shoveled and moved gravel for the brick maker. (Dennis will be making all the brick for all our buildings.) We also worked on digging the footers for the first two duplexs for housing(these houses will be given free to the needy), moved rock to line the banks of a creek, to help contain the water. New BUFF TRUCKS where awarded today to Melanie J, Elise and Melissa W for moving rocks half their body weight!! You go girls!!!!
Although the work here is very different than being on a mountain in a community it is so important to the big picture of help Torch provides. The ministries here will provide long term assistance to many and become home to orphaned children and needy families.

I mentioned Dennis our block maker and I would like to tell you the amazing "Torch" story of this family. A couple of years ago a Torch group built Dennis, Marta, Dennis Jr., and Christian a Torch house. That summer while our group was working in their village of Union E Frueza Marta met two of our Torchers Ryan Hernandez and Carly Hopkin (my daughter and niece). They began talking and became fast friends, they fell in love with Marta. We found that Marta and her family were still living in their old house behind the new one that was little bigger than an outhouse. It was falling down around them. We of course we inquired about why they were not living in their new house. Marta told us that her new house was full of mosquitoes because the floor would not dry out, and it was not healthy for her boys. Marta's house is near a creek. They were trying to save the money for the for supplies to put in a concrete floor. So Ryan and Carly, David Blackwell and a few others laid a concrete floor for them and they have been living in their Torch house ever since and have been very happy. Because Marta became so close to my daughter and niece of course she became very special to me. You see Marta has no parents,her father murdered her mother when Marta was 5 and Marta, witnessed the event and was on the streets at the age of 6. She lived a life of survival and abuse most of her life. When she met her husband her life began to change. God was always close to her.
Over the past years Marta and her family have become family to Mark and I and loved by many who know them through the work of Torch. Now Dennis is now employed by Torch and they will be receiving one of the new houses that are being built on the property, and worked on by our group. Santa Ana will be a wonderful place to raise their boys. Marta told Rachel that "they would be living like stars" and she most excited about having a real kitchen. Today Marta and the boys helped us work on the footers to their new home. It was a joy to have them around. When I think of where we found Marta and where she is now I am reminded of the lives that are being changed forever through the mission work here in Honduras. Marta and Dennnis are living God's promise of "all you can ask or imagine"
Good things are happening!

OHHHH HAVE I mentioned MUD today!!!!