2011 "It's a God Thing" Mission Trip to Belaire

We are back home, safe and sound, from our mission trip to La Ceiba and Belaire Honduras. We traveled with a 23 person team fairly equally split between members of Livingston Chapel UMC in Crane Hill, AL and Hunter’s Chapel Church of Christ in Jasper, AL. Of course, there were a few Baptists plus Mary and me along one other from the Church of the Highlands in Birmingham.  We have gone with this team for the last four years. The team’s name is “It’s a God Thing” and it is led by Larry “Bucket” Guthrie from Livingston Chapel.

Our Bus Ride was HOT!

We flew down on Saturday, June 4, and traveled in an old school bus to La Ceiba, Honduras. La Ceiba is the home for our host church, Cruzadas del Evangelio. Sunday morning, we worshipped at one of the local Cruzadas churches and then we loaded the bus and went to the Clinica de Los Angeles in Belaire where we set up our pharmacy, medical clinic and eye glass clinic. We began our four days of clinic the next morning early and ran over late in an attempt to see the many, many people who came to the clinics. Belaire is a small village that is centrally located amidst several villages and at the base of a small mountain range where the “cloud forest” people live. Many of our patients walked several hours to arrive at the clinic, only to wait several more hours (or even over night) to see our staff.

The pattern for our days was pretty consistent. We would meet each morning at 6:00AM at our hotel for morning devotional, load the bus and go to the clinic at 7:00AM, eat a quick breakfast and begin clinics before 8:00AM. We’d break for a quick lunch at mid day and then start trying to close the clinics by 5:15 – 5:30 PM. Somewhere during this time, a small portion of the medical team would travel into the cloud forest to tend those who could not, or would not, come to the clinic. We’d try to eat supper by 6:00PM back at our hotel and then have evening devotionals. Most everyone would be exhausted from the day and would be in bed trying to sleep by 8:30 – 9:00PM.  

A Beautiful Morning

I took this picture one morning while walking on the beach of our hotel at sunrise. It is a load of Garifuna fishermen setting out for a day’s fishing from the nearby village of Sambo Creek.

Brad does his Thing.

Mary and I have been involved with more than twenty mission events in Honduras and this was the best experience that we have ever had. Our medical team saw around 800 patients. We saw about 160 people in the eye clinic. Every visitor to our eye glass clinic is examined for cataracts, pterygia, and several other problems that are common place within this population. In addition everyone’s near and far vision acuity is checked. At times, the crowds were so heavy that we ran double lanes for both the near and far vision exams.  One of our examiners was Brad Hyche. He and his new bride, Alicia, gave up their honeymoon to join our team.

This picture shows Brad testing a patient while holding her sleeping child.   (Note: the use of the symbols chart indicates that this patient could not read and did not know her numbers. Unfortunately this is all too common for this area.)

Sixteen Lovely Ladies.

The children’s ministry team met with and taught 200 or so kids each day. But the real success, the primary reason for our going to Honduras, is the number of people who came to Christ upon profession of their faith. Both the medical clinic and the eye glass clinic had prayer teams stationed at the exit points of the two clinics. Here, each patient is offered an opportunity to have our prayer partners pray with them regarding any need or problem that they may have. When appropriate (if the person professes not to know Jesus) the partners offer to lead the person through a five or six step approach to confession and salvation. During our four days at the Clinica de Los Angeles, our prayer teams had 36 salvations, either through first time professions or rededications. We are often asked why we spend so much of our time in our second home of Honduras -- This is the reason that we go.

When we completed our clinics at Belarie, the team loaded up our equipment and returned back to La Ceiba to begin our interactive/relationship building portion of our mission. We spent considerable time visiting with the girls of Shalom at the Cruzadas compound. This is a dormitory styled group home for sixteen “at risk” young women who come to La Ceiba for protection, education and Christian training. This is always a special time for Mary and me. 

guf, Maribel and Mary

We get to visit with Maribel, the young lady that we sponsor. Maribel is one of the older members of Shalom. She is an accomplished artist and is currently pursuing a degree in graphic design at the University in La Ceiba.   

There are many difficult things that we do in Honduras. For Mary one of the most troublesome of these is our visit to the feeding kitchen at the La Ceiba dump. All over Latin American, and elsewhere in the two-thirds world, you will find pockets of people who live adjacent to the large municipal dumps and landfills. Their survival depends upon what they can scavenge from the mountains of trash that are disposed of almost daily at these dump sites. In one sense, it is the ultimate recycling program but it comes at considerable human costs. The dump children rarely go to school and many look forward to a lifetime of living off the trash of others. Many of the AHMEN teams participate in the feeding program that is administered through the Cruzadas Church that serves these people. 

Lining up for Chow

Here the children line up to go into a serving area to claim a bowl of spaghetti and a cup of milk. They bring their own bowl and cup (most often a bottle or jug that was found in the trash, with the top cut off to form a bowl or cup). We are amazed at the number of kids who do not eat their meager meals at the feeding site, but instead carry it home to share with others in their huts and shanties.   

For unknown reasons, we had only about 200 kids come to our feeding kitchen this day. And I suspect that I was wondering why (on busy days, the counts can go nearer 400). But as anyone who has done mission work knows, God had a Divine Appointment in store for our team. After most of the kids had gone through the line, one of our interpreters introduced a fifteen year old girl who was sitting waiting on her younger brothers and sisters. She was dirty, poorly dressed and wearing a baseball cap that was drawn tightly down on her head. As it turns out, she had had a tumor removed from her brain and the surgery had left a terrible scar over half of her head. When I asked if she was doing ok now (I’d expected some response about how wonderful it was to have survived) the girl teared up and said she wished she had her hair back. When we left, the team had arranged for the girl to be taken in to be fitted for a wig and for some new clothes.

Yoemany and guf

Over the course of Friday and Saturday, we were in and out of the Cruzadas compound several times. We got to visit with many of the dorm girls, the staff of Cruzadas and other friends from past mission trips. Always a favorite for me, was my chance to catch up with Yoemany Yamileth Ulloa Maldonado. Yoemany was part of the adopted family of the late Jane Cox. We went on several of Jane’s mission team to Limon and Plan de Flores. It was here that I met Yoemany and it was my privilege to negotiate Yoemany’s move to Shalom on Jane’s behalf. In addition to Yoemany, Mary and I visited with both Mario Ortiz and Maria Suyapa Turcios Sanchez. Mario is an old friend who has taken Mary and me into some of the most remote areas of Honduras. He pastors a Cruzadas church in the La Ceiba area and we hope that he will be coming to Alabama this year to attend the SIFAT International Student Practicum in Lineville. Suyapa is the dorm mother at Shalom and also hopes to come to the SIFAT Practicum this year. We look forward to having both Mario and Suyapa as guests in our home.

Other highlights of our stay in La Ceiba included a visit to the Casa Cielo Orphanage.

Guard Parrots

Joy

The picture is of one of the five or six pet parrots that guard the property. This is the children’s home where Mama and Papa Jones of the ROC Ministry care for 24 unadoptable wards of the government as their own children. Mama and Papa are ably assisted by their daughter Jennie and her husband Del and their eleven year old daughter, Joy. As a matter of fact, on the day we visited, Marie (Mama Jones) was stateside tending her mother and Leonard (Papa Jones) was gone with the boys for haircuts.  So Joy led the tour of the orphanage, school and the property where they hope to build a new facility. It was clear that Joy is as accomplished and as involved in the ministry as either Mama or Papa. She is a wonderful young lady.
 

Dramatic Skit

On Friday evening the team attended worship at the Cruzadas church at the compound. The message, delivered by our own spiritual leader, Dale Hyche, and the special singing by several of our team’s members for Dale’s church in Jasper, was wonderful and inspiring, but the real highlight was a dramatic skit performed by the young men of the church.

The drama began with the devil and a band of his demons (each labeled with a different vice or transgression) as they capture, chain and torment a poor soul. Then a Christ Figure comes forward and banishes the devil and his demons and is worshipped by his new Christian Disciple. The whole program was awesome and a blessing for everyone.

Outbreak

Then on Saturday evening, we returned to the compound church to join in the evening service of a two day youth rally that was in full swing. Anyone who has witness a service in a Spirit driven congregation in the Latin community knows that the pace and depth of the service is exciting and unique. Add to this mix the enthusiasm and sheer energy of several hundred young people and you have an experience worth the trip. The first hour of praise was punctuated with numerous specials (mini dramas, skits and musicals) that were prepared and presented by the numerous youth groups that came to the rally. Then, in what appeared to be a spontaneous eruption, most of the kids got up danced in front, in aisles and then began dragging our team into the fray. Before we knew it most of our team was up and amongst them and their vacated chairs were swept up and stacked out of the way. After a while the teens and gringos returned to their seating and the service continued.   

One of our younger team members, Kayla Carden gave her wonderful testimony and the message was delivered by our own team leader, Bucket Guthrie. In closing, Bucket and the assembled youth leaders called for those who wanted to dedicate their lives to Christ to come forward. By the time the evening was over, three rally attendees had accepted Christ for the first time.  

UPDATE (June 16, 2011) from Janet Coons:

“Hi Guf, here's an update on the girl with the hair loss. Marlene took her and bought her a wig and 2 new outfits, and had her picture taken with them on. She is a different person! God was truly at work there!”