Women's Retreat

For several years now I've (Hannah) been wanting to take our ladies to a women's retreat that is hosted by the Emanuel churches (EFM) here in Honduras, but we were never able to make the 6 hr. trip to San Luis. This year the Lord worked it out for us and we were able to go. The ladies and church people got together some stuff to have a yard sale  to raise funds for our trip and the Lord blessed us in a wonderful way.

Tuesday morning, seven of us ladies and Daniel, piled up in our 4Runner and headed down the road to San Luis. I have never driven for such a long distance alone here in Honduras and Eric was a little nervous to see us go, but he had enough faith in me that, with the help of God, I could do it. Half way on our trip we were able to stop at "Lago de Yoja" for a lunch of fried fish.

 

Six great ladies with Daniel getting ready to eat some fish

 

Yummy fried fish and fried green bananas

Three beautiful young ladies.

 

Most of the road to San Luis is paved and nice; however, the last 1 and 1/2 hours of the drive the road is all dirt and full of pot holes.  It had rained for 8 days so it was pretty muddy.  As we inched our way up a steep and very muddy spot in the road our car just started to slide. I knew that I couldn't go too fast, but I also knew if I slowed down then we would get stuck. And that is what happened, for the motor did not have enough energy to get us up. Now this was a spot similar to what you see in the picture above except it was at least 5 times worse. The road was much steeper, muddier and smaller, and there were no houses around to ask for help. On one side was a big drop off. (We didn't think to take picture while going through our ordeal.) I thought to myself  "I'll just try to back it up and gas it so that I can get enough energy to make it up".  That's what I did, but then we got stuck even more. I told the ladies to start praying. I got out of the car to see how bad the situation was, it was like walking on a sheet of ice. The mud was almost half way up the tires. I got back in the car and one of the ladies told me to call someone. Eric was 5 hr. away and brother Daniel Melton was 1 1/2 hrs. away. I called Eric to see what I should do, his response was "I knew something like this was going to happen".  He told me that he would call Daniel, but I asked him to give me a few minutes and if I'm not out I'll call him back. At this point 2 little boys come walking down the mountain, they must have heard the car.  I asked them if there was another road, they said there was but it was worse than this one. I knew at this point the only thing for me to do is to try and back it up some more and try to gun it up the hill. I told the ladies my plans and they started to pray even harder.  As I turned the engine back on and started up the hill, we could literally feel like someone was lifting the car up and moving it out of the mud just enough for us to get some traction and inch our way out. God is so good. Although this experience was a  scary one for our ladies, it strengthened their faith. So every time we came across a bad patch they would just start praying until we got through it and then I would hear them giving thanks. I think we had revival before we even got to the retreat. 

I believe that there were close to 50 churches represented at the retreat. Each church represented came with a banner with the name of their church. It was neat for our ladies to see that we are not the only holiness church here in Honduras. 

Then all the ladies sang the retreat theme song together about the "Godly women"

 

Young people singing in service. At the retreat they also had young people service. The three young ladies that went with our group received so much help one of them said, "I am a changed person". Thank the Lord.

One of the interesting things that I learned on this trip is that even Hondurans can have culture shock in their own country. All of my ladies are "city girls". The people of the mountains eat and live differently. The ladies got tired of eating beans and eggs 2 meals a day and wanted stronger coffee, so we set out in search of a place to eat. Here Rita is waiting for her coffee.

The "coffee shack" also served tacos, chicken, rice, beans and baleadas. Here is what a real taco looks like. The food was so good. 

On Friday afternoon they had a really nice meal for all the women for "Women's Day". 

 Yummy food

 Nice gift they gave all of us women

Fellowship with new friends

After the meal they had a time of games and a piñata. It was a lot of fun

 Daniel made a lot of friends as well

 

God really helped us during the week. We all received help and are planning on going back next year. 

  The Lord kept his hands on us on our return trip.  On the way home the brakes got hot and I lost control and nearly hit a bus while we were going down a steep hill. I pushed on the brakes but they didn't catch.  God gave me the wisdom to pump the brakes and put the car in a lower gear. He certainly kept his angels around us and we were able to avoid a tragic accident. Thank you all for praying for us. This was certainly a learning and life-changing experience.