A Nice Family Day

My schedule has been really hectic lately. We hadn't spent a whole day together as a family for quite awhile and I felt it was about time we did so we went and had a picnic at a park. They offer horse rides where we went, Joseph had never ridden a horse so I figured today was as good as any for a first ride. It was a lot of fun! It was like being a real cowboy!

Hi oh Silver, away!!!

Hey guys look at me!!

Howdy ya'll, welcome to the pond!

Somebody is all grown up and mature now.

There is nothing like a good bath to finish out the day!

Casting the Net

Last Saturday after doing some work on the Delicias church a few of us guys went out to this pond to do some net fishing. Now I love to fish and it had been a long time since I got the chance so I was pretty excited to go with them. The only thing was is that they were going to net fish since they don't have rods and reels. That was a whole new experience but a lot of fun. I only got one small fish after a few tosses so I left them handle the nets and I carried the fish. haha.

One method was to set up a trap with the nets while another guy comes along smacking and splashing the water to scare the fish into the nets. This was the least successful method.

The bottom border of the net is weighted down to make it sink quicker into the water. The most successful method was walking through the pond casting the net. They pulled out some real whoppers!! I couldn't help but think of Jesus when He said, "follow me and I will make you fishers of men". Thinking about the different ways they tried to fish I can't help but relate it to ministry. Setting up traps and trying to scare people into repentance just is not a very effective method of reaching people. But with the solid preaching of the gospel and with lots of love we can usually see some real trophies of grace won to Christ.

We took home about 20lbs. of fish that day and oh man were they delicious!!!!

A Review of the Last Month

Wow, the last month and a half has gone by like a whirlwind. I'm not even sure where to start recounting the events. Going back to January we had Hannah's cousin, Dr. Tony Robbins come and stay with us for a week. He is a pastor in Ohio and came down with a work team to Honduras. After the team went home, he came and visited with us and helped out in a lot of ways. We really enjoyed having him here.

One of the first things we did while Tony was here was head to Las Delicias to work some more on the adobe church. The old walls had been covered in plastic and when we tore the plastic off there were about twenty scorpions laying on top of the wall!! One of the workers got stung by one.

I was so excited to be able to lay the corner adobe to begin work on the church.

Trying to keep cool on a hot work day.

The guys worked hard all day, hauling dirt, water and laying adobes.

A job well done!!

While he was here he treated us to some of his awesome Chet Atkins style guitar pickin'. He also preached in several of the services. He was a real blessing!!

We couldn't let him leave without trying some good Honduran fried fish. He really enjoyed it!!

We enjoyed a trip to Amapala, Honduras. An island on the Pacific side of the country. The sunset on the way home was awesome!

Three days after Tony left I boarded a plane and headed to Hobe Sound, Florida to be part of the Spanish camp and the 25th anniversary celebration of Spanish Ministries. There were over 600 Hispanics at the camp. God's presence blessed the meetings as Glen Reiff, Sidney Grant and G.R. French spoke during the services.

The H.I.M. Spanish pastors who were present at the camp. They each received a certificate of appreciation for their service.

It was great to catch up with Guillermo and Violet Camposeco. When I was 13 years old she was teaching Spanish at Penn View where I was attending school. God had called me to be a missionary but I still wasn't clear as to what country He wanted me to go to. During a chapel service at school Violet stood and testified and with tears pouring down her face she asked us to pray for her people in Honduras. God used her testimony to make it clear to me that Honduras was where he wanted me to go!!

I was glad to see my conference president Harry Plank. 

My brother Steve and his family drove down from Tampa. I really enjoyed spending time with them and catching up on all the news.

When I flew home from Florida I had some visitors waiting for me. Doug and Sarah Rine and family!! Doug and I have been best of friends, we grew up together and we have done everything together. What a blast to have them come for two weeks!!

I put Doug to work at Las Delicias. If he isn't busy he is a handful. hahaha. 

I also got him to help me fix our stove outlet. It had burned up.

Here we are singing a duet in Spanish at Las Delicias. 

Something really fun we did while they were here was to spend a night at some cabins near a waterfall. We actually got a guide to take us in behind the falls to some caves. Talk about a wild experience, it was awesome. We then jumped off a thirty foot cliff into the river below.

We went zip lining right over the waterfalls!! Soooo much fun.

The day they left Maria invited us all over for seafood soup. It was delicious!! We really enjoyed having Doug and Sarah and Chloe and Caiden. We hope they come back soon!!!!

Graft, greed, mayhem turn Honduras into murder capital of world - Americas - MiamiHerald.com

Graft, greed, mayhem turn Honduras into murder capital of world - Americas - MiamiHerald.com

This is why we constantly need your prayers for protection. A very interesting article and right on the money.

How To Build A Church From Scratch

Lord, hear our prayer

God has been blessing in some wonderful ways lately. Just Sunday night a young man who recently started attending our church gave his heart to Christ. We have sensed a special presence of the Lord helping us and guiding us. Since about November we have seen a steady influx of new people coming to our Tiloarque church. It's exciting to watch God work. I had to buy more chairs because our little church was filling up. Now we are running out of room. There is no where else to go with chairs. Our prayer request to the Lord this year is that he would help us find a new place where we can either remodel or build a church. Land is very expensive where we are located and we don't have that kind of cash to go out and buy something. But we serve a great big and wonderful God. Will you help us pray that the Lord will supply this need and give us a permanent place where we can expand and grow the ministry. I don't know how or when but I know He is going to answer this prayer in a marvelous way to bring glory and honor to His name. Thank you for your prayers.

Christmas Still Lingers in the Air

Hannah's cousin arrived in Tegucigalpa yesterday on a work team from the Nazarene Church. They are building a parsonage this week and after the team leaves he plans to stay with us for a week. So I went and met him at the airport and he gave us this suitcase full of goodies from Hannah's mom. It was Christmas all over again!!! haha. We just can't stop having Christmas.

An art set for Joseph.

Daniel got some toys, stuffed animals and new clothes.

Some of the goodies were, Cincinnati chili mix, cookies, chocolates, clothes and toys. Thank you pappy and grammy for all the presents. We love them!!!

In the pits!

Saturday was a big work day in Las Delicias. Our goal for the day was to make 200 adobes! I made a big appeal to the people on Thursday night at our service to help us out. I brought four of my guys from Tegucigalpa and headed out at 5:30 a.m.

We had an awesome turn-out! There were about six guys from Delicias plus us five from Tegucigalpa. After a word of prayer we hit the mud pit and things began to happen. These guys had a mind to work.

This was Pablo's first time to make adobes. He seemed to really enjoy it but by the end of the day his back was really hurting.

I kept thinking of the Israelites and their captivity in Egypt. They must have worked something like this.

We set a record and made 360 adobes!!!! We have a total now of 550. I think we will soon start laying block on the church. I can't wait to see this thing finished!

  This was my snack before heading home. They made me fried mustard greens with eggs. Everyone was saying how awesome mustard greens were, I told them I had never tried it. Well, I tried it. You know what? It was actually pretty good. It tasted like spinach.

Christmas in January!!!!!!!

 

 The Beavertown God's Missionary Church, our home church in Pennsylvania sent us two big boxes full of Christmas gifts. Maureen Slavens is the missionary director at the church and organized this special show of love. We had so much fun opening up our gifts it was like having Christmas all over again.

Joseph was so excited he could hardly wait to open up the gifts!

A fire truck for Daniel. He loved it!!

 Joseph got a lot of nice gifts too. Books, clothes, matchbox cars, coloring books etc.

What a blessing!! A few of the things that we received were jumper cables, a clock, candles, slippers, pans, doilies, home decor, a calendar, monthly planner, music cd's, Bible stickers, and much more. THANK YOU BEAVERTOWN GOD'S MISSIONARY CHURCH!!!!! WE appreciate it sooo much!