Last week was spent in San Pedro Sula celebrating the tenth anniversary of our H.I.M. church. The weather was hot and steamy but the fellowship and the nightly services were refreshing.
The pastor of the church, Roger Ortiz, took us along with the Abel Rodriquez, (the special speaker) to a museum. It was a recap of Honduras history especially focusing on the history of San Pedro Sula. I thought it was very intersting to note that some of the ancient indian tribes that inhabited the area used to decorate their teeth with jade.

I thought how hard it must have been for the conquistadors to walk in their metal shoes and armour. They must have boiled in that stuff.

The church also held a baptismal service. It was a beautiful park with a crystal clear stream bubbling over the rocks. A perfect place. There were four candidates for baptism. Praise God for these new believers!!

I thought I would share with you a recent dish that Hannah cooked for our visitors. It's a jordanian dish called wudugdawaly. There is an art to making this delicasy. First you use grape leaves and fill it with rice and then you roll the leaves into little rice wraps. You layer a large pan with these wraps and on the top you cover them with a layer of meat. It is very tasty!

Wednesday, August 27 was a major milestone in our ministry. In that Wednesday night service, H.I.M. president Sidney Grant along with national church president Roger Ortiz, dedicated our church. It was a wonderful service. Several people shared testimonies as to how the church has impacted their life, I shared the story of how God guided us to Honduras, and Brother Grant gave a wonderful message. Our church is now officially open, praise God! Part of the ceremony involved Brother Ortiz symbolically handing me the keys to the church to use this place to preach and teach the gospel of Christ. This milestone has been reached in large part because you our supporters and friends have joined with us in prayer and fasting! We are seeing the results of those labours. Thank you!

I love church planting, there is nothing like it in the world!! You never know what God is going to do next. About three or so weeks ago, Jose (pictured here) came to my house and said he wanted to talk, he had read a report on the internet of seven young men who supposedly had a vision of Hell and he wanted to know if the details were true. So we talked about it, he told me some of the report, it seemed a little strange to me, but he was troubled. He invited me to his house for a small Bible study and to continue talking about the report. He began to open up and said he hadn't attended church in 15 years! Basically his daughters had grown up without a church background. He said he couldn't sleep at night, he had a lot of fear and sorrow, he knew he wasn't living right.

After that Bible study he and his family began to attend the church faithfully. He owns an internet shop close to our house and every time I would go to make a phone call or something we would talk about the things of God.

Yesterday afternoon he stopped by my house again and said, he wanted to pray to be saved! He was under conviction! We went back to the church and we knelt together and he poured out his heart to God. God is soo good!! Keep praying for Jose and his family. This is just the beginning!

Sunday morning we had a wonderful service. There was a strong sense of God's presence and we had a good number turn out. After this picture was taken one or two more came. I think there was close to sixteen with several missing.
In the afternoon we went to a baby shower. Pastor Jose Fuentes was here for the weekend so he joined us and we sang and played while the ladies had their baby shower. Roberto (the young man at the piano) has been attending our church, he is a very talented musician, pray for him. He seems to be seeking the Lord but there are still a few hold backs in his life.
After the baby shower we made a two hour trip to take Jose home and came back the same night. They gave Joseph a toy tiger, they both rode together and kept each other company.

I want to teach our church to give and think of others less fortunate. So last Sunday I took up a special offering to buy toothpaste, tooth brushes, and soap to hand out to those in the hospital.

On Tuesday one of the ladies of the church went with us to find the supplies and on Wednesday after our Bible study several ladies helped to wrap up our little packs.

This morning, many of the people couldn't go with us but we took the gifts and cupcakes that Hannah made and went to a nursing home. The people were so happy. Joseph helped to hand out the packages and those ladies just smiled and wanted to squeeze him, he brightened many hearts today! I felt that this little project was good for both the people who received and our church who gave.

Sunday was a special day. I was honored to have our first baby dedication in the church. This couple just recently started attending along with her parents. They dedicated little Cristopher to the Lord. Edwin and Sherlee are not Christians, but they have made it clear that they want to serve God and grow in grace. Help us pray for this young family!

It seems like Joseph has hit a new level of destruction and terror. You never know what he is going to do next. In the first picture he found a pair of girls shoes that were left over from the garage sale, so he decided to try them on, he liked the clop clop sound of the shoes.

These are his car shoes. His aunt Sarah sent them down to him.

The other morning started out with a horrendous boom!! We came running to find a bottle of coke spilled all over the floor, before we had a chance to clean it up, he found my shaving cream and had it all over his face. The whole day was like this, one thing after another.

The most recent spill and thrill was just tonight before going off to bed. Jsoeph snuck out to the fridge and was rooting around when all of a sudden he pulled out the carton of eggs. Splat!! what a mess!!

Tegucigalpa is surrounded by beautiful mountains. The city sits down in the mountains like a bowl.

Somebody spray painted this message that said, "don't be a terrorist".

A man taking in the view of the city.

At night the bright neon lights welcomes customers to enjoy typical plate of chicken, rice and beans.

Baudilio invited me to go on a "fishing" trip for what they call shrimp. Where I come from we call them crayfish. I said yeah I would love to go. So yesterday he along with his two sons and another friend went out into the mountains to catch some juicy crayfish. We first had to drive about 45 minutes outside of the city to a little pueblo. From there it was probably about a two mile hike down to the bottom of a ravine out in the middle of nowhere. It's just a small stream with lots of rocks and boulders, a perfect place for crayfish and crabs to hide. These guys have it down to an art. They sneak along the water looking for any kind of movement. When they spot a crayfish they just reach in with their bare hands and scoop them up. I was shooting pictures most of the time but I did manage to catch two of them myself. It was so much fun. I have never seen crayfish so big in all my life. They were huge. They plan to fry them and also make soup out of them. Sometime today Baudilio is going to bring a bowl of crayfish soup for me to try. I have never eaten crayfish before so this should be interesting.
By the end of the day, these guys had a huge bag of crayfish and crabs. It was then another hike back to the car. I'm telling you hiking out of that ravine was rough. I had so much sweat running off my eyelids I could hardly see where I was going. When we got back to the car we were all zonked. But what a fun day!

A spider web I spotted when we first reached the stream.

Look how big these crayfish are, they are huge!

There were butterflies everywhere. They were so pretty.

Hunting down the crayfish.

A little lizard who was hunting bugs.

The stream and woods reminded me of my childhood in Pennsylvania.

This crab was a fiesty little guy. He tried to pinch everything and everybody.

Some of the best of the catch.