Hey Everyone,
Thanks for your prayers for me the past week. I have been in Jocon and a few other villages this past week to check on some of the children that are to come to live with us at Destino del Reino next month.
The trip there was pretty eventful as always — hard dirt roads and little space on the buses, etc. I stood on the entire first leg of the trip to La Barca and could barely keep my balance with all the people standing in the aisles. Then when I got to Yoro, the bus driver was the same drunk man that spent two hours one time trying to convince me to marry him. Thankfully he was sober as he was the driver of the bus this time and hopefully, he forgot about our last discussion while he was drunk — ha.
It is hard to believe that I actually get so homesick for that little shack we live in at Jocon but I do and the people are so precious to me there. I had asked many of you to be praying for me to hear from the Lord about who was to live in our home in March. I believe He is clearly answering those prayers.
I went to see Reyna first. She lives in Esperanza and has told me for over a year that she wants her 3 year old boy, Melvin, and 2 year old daughter, Lissy, to live with me. When I got to her house to confirm that, she smiled and said just a moment, and went in the house and brought out a 3-month old baby girl, named Christina, that she wants to send with me also. I couldn’t believe she had had another one since I saw her last. I hope she doesn’t intend to fill up the houses for me!! So we have 3 kids for sure.
Then, the next morning I talked to Gladis and she is willing to send her two youngest ones but her husband is still thinking about it and I won’t know about them until March.
We have an older woman that works at our house every day, Tila. She came to work early on Wednesday morning saying that her grandbaby was dying. She said it so complacently and I couldn’t understand why she wasn’t more concerned. Fernando was very worried and told me that when Tila’s daughter was 2 years old, she had been very sick and kept her up all night with the crying and finally Tila went out and took a big stick with deep spines on it and beat her daughter to death. She said she was dying anyway and knew God would forgive her. So Fernando told me we needed to go check on the grandbaby. She is 2 years old and very malnourished but was just sick and was sitting up on her own and crying — Tila’s son is in prison in Yoro for attempted murder and there is no one to get food for the little one and her sister (4 years old). Their mother is not right in the head and is pregnant again after visiting her husband in the prison. Tila didn’t want to send them to me before but now she is considering it and has written her son in prison to give permission for us to take the two girls. It was so amazing to me the way Tila kept telling me to just let the little one die and take the bigger one to live at Destino. Amazing!! So anyway, please be praying for the little one’s health (Maria) and that the son will give us permission to take her to Destino to live as well as her sister (Lydia) — also that Tila will not hurt her before we can get her moved out of there.
The thing that struck me so strongly this time was the total lack of value they place on life in the mountain villages. I had known that in a way with all the murder and very little mourning over the teen suicides, etc. but it was more obvious to me this time than ever. People would prefer to just let children die in their hopelessness rather than send them to a future so bright. I believe the children that do come out of those mountain villages and grow up at Destino and are changed dramatically will be a window of hope to all of the others who cannot even see out of their hopelessness to even imagine a life that is different from their despair. It is amazing how many just sit there and let their children starve to death day after day.
I also went to see Tito Alexander in Alta Cruz. His mother, Juana is just 14 years old and Tito is 2 years old. Juana wants us to take Tito to live with us, but he is staying with an aunt right now and she said that Juana had left a week before and she didn’t know when she would return and the aunt can’t even feed him but doesn’t want to let him go. We know that Juana will sign the papers to let us take Tito though if we find her when I return in March so PLLLEEAASSEE be praying hard about that!! Thanks.
We went to see a family on Wednesday afternoon that live in Macora next to the school where Rosy teaches. The man has two families — 16 children in all. He wants to send the smallest two to live with us (one boy, 3 (Kevin) and a boy 5 (Eddy). We couldn’t talk to the man that day as he was working elsewhere but Rosy will get the information to him about when I will be returning for the children. While we were talking to the children, another teacher came over with a woman that had just come up from another village and she had a daughter (deaf mute) who had 3 little children. She wants help with the grandchildren and after we talked, she agreed to send the 5 year old (Maria) to live with us in March.
We have another little boy from Teguc coming to live with us soon. He is the brother of Eddie (who lives with Rosy and Fernando in Jocon) so we will bring him to live with us and then when Rosy’s family moves here, the two brothers can live together.
Marinita moved back with me already this week and her father, Fernando, was out of work so we have made him the night watchman and a worker during the day. He is grateful to have work and we are thankful to have him here. He is soooo good at growing trees and all kinds of plants and I know Holly will learn some from him as well as him being able to learn from her education. We are starting the gardens this next week after we get the fence up to keep the chickens out.
I will be starting to teach Marinita kindergarten this next week and also have English class for her every day. She is very smart and will learn quickly. Pray for her though because she is not used to having to obey anyone. She is usually really easy to manage anyway, but has a little bit of stubborness that has never been harnessed before. Challenge!!
I also brought Marta back to live this week. She is the helper. She has never been to junior high and is really wanting to be a nurse one day. She turned 20 in December and we brought her to start 7th grade this month. She is very excited about it and will work hard. We have to go buy her uniforms and notebooks, etc. tomorrow and pick up her photos she had made at a shop today. Marinita is very at home with Marta and I as she has spent more of her life with Marta and I than she has with her own mother, since she was teaching in another mountain village school.
I am so exhausted but feeling so good about how much we have accomplished this week. I am amazed at God’s protection over me continually. I found out that one of the reasons that I have been so safe in such a dangerous part of Honduras is because the family that I have lived among are a lot of murderers and most of the villages are afraid of some of them. I guess it was like I was in the mafia and didn’t know it. THe ones I actually lived with (most of the time) are very safe but the uncles that have been so protective over me have killed many many people up in those hills and I just didn’t know about it before. God has amazing ways of taking care of me. I still love them all and they just need to know Jesus!
We had quite a trip coming back. Fernando drove his “Car”?? He has an old beat up car that he had to rig to start it and has all the wires hanging out. When we went up hills, it smoked up the inside of the car and sometimes we were going slower than the bicycles on the road and it was soooo hot, but we made it finally. I told him at one point when he was talking fast in Spanish and asking me questions, that I cannot concentrate when I am this tired and sweaty and hungry and thirsty so please don’t ask me questions, and he laughed. He is so sweet and I know he understands how hard I have to concentrate to understand people sometimes — even on good days.
We spent our first night at Destino del Reino last night. It was quite an adventure. We had forgotten to buy matches and someone had stolen my lighters I brought from the States so it was pitch black here. We got everyone in the beds and then turned off the generator but if someone would have needed something in the night, we would have been lost. We are fine now though and God has protected, as always. Please keep praying for protection — I still found spiders and a scorpion yesterdday and they already fumigated the house this week — of course, I didn’t see them do it, so I’m trusting they really did what they were paid to do!! Anyway, God will take care of us and we are safe in Him.
I thank all of you for your many prayers for me and please continue to pray for all these situations and that we will be able to arrange for the children of God’s choice to move in with us in March.
Please pray for our first church service on Saturday night here at Destino for all the neighbors. People from my church in town are coming out to help us and Pastor Cesar will preach each Saturday night too. God is blessing us all so much.
There is much more to share right now but I am very tired as we are now busy with lots of manual labor that I am not accustomed to — washing clothes by hand and cooking over fires, etc. Also, I need to go out and turn off the generator so the neighbors can have a quiet night on this mountain side.
I love all of you and praise God for putting such a team of prayer partners together for me. Keep it up.
Love in His GRACE
Rhonda
