Torchers EVERYWHERE!!!

How do you keep 65 Torchers busy.....
Today was a day we scattered and accomplished a great amount of work in a day. We had work teams in many places doing several different tasks...Pharaoh (Mark) stretched our team to the limit to accomplish as much as possible. As much as we kid Mark about being a slave driver, we appreciate his energy and desire for the work and deep down we are all glad he pushes us.
After devo and we all decided where God could best use us, we headed out!
Raquel Ayala lead group one to the Hospital Esquela. This is the state run hospital for all those who have no insurance and no money. I don't know if I could really describe what it is like there but it is NOT for the weak of heart or stomach. This is the place most Torchers are challenged the most. It is not a physically demanding place but it will challenge your spirit like never before. The emotions run a gamete of sadness, rage, anger, despair to happiness and joy and hope. The hospital is extremely under funded which means the conditions are deplorable. There is a lack of staff, equipment, food, and supplies. The care is the bare minimum, not because that is what they settle for, but because they are so limited. The equipment is old and outdated but they do the best they can with what they have. IRC/Torch has done much for this hospital, bringing billions of dollars of equipment and meds to progress the care in this hospital but there is so much more to do. The hospital is dirty, although better than it use to be, it is not uncommon to see children in beds on dirty linen and no clothes. It is not uncommon for the smells to over whelm you. There is never enough equipment or medicine to care for those who find themselves in this place. The rooms are institutional and bare. Nothing of comfort to ease the fear and hopelessness of this place. It is not uncommon to find mothers sitting in a straight back chair with a sick child day after day waiting and praying for help, for hope. So this is why we go..To bring hope and smiles to the faces of the children. Daily we send a group of about 8/10 to spend the day at Esquela. We visit every ward that has children on it floors. This includes burn wards, oncology, orthopedic and more. We travel though the hospital, praying and playing!!! Often a simple prayer with a mother is a ray of hope that God can use to bring peace to a hurting mother. This team; saw a little boy David, age 7, who they found so malnourished and sick that they could see his heart as they looked at his very sick body. His mother was there but was needing 500 Limps for tests, money she did not have or have hope of getting on her own. That is about 27 US dollars. Since most Honduran families make less than 5 limps a day you can see how saving that kind of money would be impossible. Several of our group gave her the funds and she ran right down to the admin offices and paid the fee so her child could receive the tests he needed to determine what was wrong with him. They also met a little 13 year old boy, Byran, he had been sent to the hospital from about 3 hours away on bus, alone, because he had been feeling badly for sometime. He ran into our group in the halls where he had stopped to chat and receive a new toy and candy. He had a handful of prescription papers and shared he had been told he had leukemia. It was apparent he had no idea what that meant for him. He was just concerned about bringing his 5 sisters a small gift from the backpacks of our group. He had no money to get home, so our group paid for his bus ride so he would not have to try to "beg" a ride from a bus driver, which could take days and put this boy on the streets until then. This is the only hospital for the treatment of cancer and his family being able to bring him and stay with him is next to impossible, his future is unclear. The team struggled with the emotions of the day and are forever changed by the experienced.
Our first house went up!!! We had one house site today to use as a teaching site. Since we added a wood floor to the design of our house we needed to do some teaching. The house crew built a great house!!! It was for a wonderful family in the village of San Miguel. The site was a little challenging as all the supplies had to be carried up a narrow steep road beyond where the supply truck could go.
The crew was about 15 people and not sure could I name them all... But many are in the photos.
The family was grateful and worked hard along side our team the entire day. The husband, Jose, had been in the air-force at one time and had been injured so he has been limited in his ability to work. While the team was working, another villager came by looking to see if they could receive a house also. Jose told him "to pray and God would provide for their need, just as his need had met his need. He said that a year ago he prayed "once" and told God his need and he knew that in God's own time he would provide." Now that is FAITH, when you have no home, and to have the peace and confidence in God's provision not matter how long it takes, what a lesson for all of us. As the group prayed with the family, the man cried, and said it was the nicest house they had ever had and more than he had hoped for. The family had been paying $30 US dollars for rent....Can you understand what this means for this family to have those funds to live on?! What this means for them is a brighter future!
We were ROCKING at the church site where we are doing an addition for classrooms!!! After the flash flood, we already blogged about, working at the church site was all about ROCKS!!! If we moved one rock we moved 1000!!! The group worked on preparing for pouring concrete and building a rock boundary wall on the property line so when the bulldozer came in to reroute to river the church would not loose any of their property. We moved sand, grave,rock, bags of cement, buckets of water and rebar. We framed a sidewalk up to the church and were able to get 2 footers concreted and when we return we will finish the other two and begin laying block.
Of course where ever we work we attract children, LOTS of children....We had Charla, Melissa, Rachel, Melanie and others fixing hair for HOURS!!!!! We also had some very rousing games of Bingo and Duck Duck, Chicken (we couldn't remember the Spanish word for goose :) )
We also had a group go back to Santa Ana to work more on the plumbing and electrical work on our new property. We also saw our first block made for the buildings. We have hired a man named Dennis to come a work for us who is a block maker by trade and yesterday he made the first block for the property, that was very exciting. The story about Dennis and his family is a wonderful story of how Torch is bettering the lives of the Honduran people,forever! But I best save that for another blog.....
Good things are happening!