Visits to Teo and El Venado (The Deer)

This was the longest road trip of the week up the mountain to Teo and El Venado. 

 Here we are in the village of Teo (Texoxingales).

In an effort to strengthen the Christian education in the outlying community, HAF has begun providing curriculum to ages preschool through adolescence.  Above is the transfer of these materials in Teo.  We will be excited to learn about feed back, in April, when the evangelism chair meets with the teachers. 

Here we are arriving in El Venado.  Our purpose was to do medical activities and VBS.  Unfortunately, we did not accomplish this task because of a miscommunication -- the school was locked and the teacher was gone.

Dan and Allen examined the bridge at El Venado, at the request of the construction committee, for possible future work.

Vilma, the wife of the Teo Patronato, provided lunch to us, at the last minute, and we are enjoying a meal in their home.

We bagged rice and beans last night and distributed it to people in El Venado and along the road to Teo.

A picture of our team, translators, and 2 AP helpers at Martha's

3 little miracles that occurred today:

1 & 2.  We forgot to bring our lunch along, as well as the children's snack for VBS.  VBS did not happen and lunch was generously provided by Vilma.  Later we realized we had also forgotten the CD player  - music would have been very difficult.

3.     A gentleman, who was a leader among the local coffee growers, came along while the men were inspecting the bridge and shared with them that the Honduran coffee growers association out of San Pedro Sula was going to build a better river level vehicle crossing ("Plancha" in Spanish) that would make the bridge unnecessary.

Our Day at El Pinal

Today we drove about a half hour out of Quimistan up a very rough road to the village of El Pinal.  HAF has worked in this village before and funded the construction of one of the school classrooms.

                                                        

Entering the village of El Pinal.



Starting VBS.





The music workshop underway with Sam joining in..

The art class at work. 

Relay races with Father John as the turn-around post!.

Maynor explaining The Fruit of the Spirit-patience, after playing a game. 

The children getting their snack and activity bags at the end of the session.

Little children observing.

Special moment---one of our team members, who was in this village 4 years ago and bonded with a child, was able to reunite with him again.

Final note - the VBS material (which was a tremendous effort) is excellent.  We have had to tweak the materials around a bit, but each day we have gotten better with the presentation.  Today, we were all quite pleased.

Sunday in Honduras' Quimistan Valley

 

The above photos show: the team cutting out parts for the Fruits of the Spirit tree (VBS), attending Martha's Sunday School class at Tranquilidad (a surprise to the team), the blessing water being poured around the perimeter of the property, back at Martha's site and the continuation of class, feeding the children, Vilma teaching AP class in Quimistan, and feeding our AP children.

Special moments:  meeting with the AP students and noting how they have grown, distributing the gifts from their sponsors, and the friendliness and love shared by the Honduran people.

Delivering VBS in Banderas

This is a one room school (1st through 6th grade) in Banderas where we did our activities today:  Vacation Bible School, eyeglasses, hand washing, deworming, tooth brushing, and fluoride treatment.  Note that HAF provided electricity to the school several years ago. 

The children are listening intently to the lesson.

Stanley is helping out.

The relay races.

The art activity----coloring the "Fruits of the Spirit" tree.

One young child is enjoying some of the items in her "take home bag". 

Tonight at dinner, a birthday celebration for Maynor was enjoyed by all, including his wife Jessy. 

Special moments: Seeing the happiness on the faces of the folks when we were finally able to fit them with the correct glasses, watching the children enjoy the activities,  and attendance of many mothers and their interest in what their children were doing.  It appeared to be an entire town function.  We thought we might possibly have 40 children attend, but had over 60. We were tired, but VERY gratified when it was all done!!

Tejeras Treatments and Vacation Bible School

On Thursday night after dinner, under the direction of Sandra, several AP boys did a dramatic presentation of passages from Samuel.  Following the play, AP girls did a wonderful candlelight creative dance to music.  Thank you Sandra and the children.

Friday turned out to be a long, tiring but rewarding day.  We spent the morning and afternoon at the Tejeras school.  It started with eyeglass measuring using the focometer and then fitting adults with glasses.  The new storage system for dispensing eyeglasses worked very well.  While this was going on, the children went through the handwashing, deworming, tooth brushing and fluoride treatment stations.

After lunch, we did vacation bible school using the new curriculum.  All the children attended the main lesson on the theme "Fruits of the Spirit" at the beginning.  Here, AP students Estilla and Ingrid helped lead the teaching and did a wonderful job.  Stanley also spoke about the fruits while Sam helped the kids get tall enough to stick them on our tree. Afterwards, the children divided into groups and did music, art, drama, and sports.  At the end the children were fed an evening meal.

After finishing at the school, we went over to the Tejeras community along the road and fed the smaller children.  We also helped hand out some of the 25 dresses we had given to Pastor Wilmer for distribution.  These beautiful dresses were handmade and donated by a lady in Aiken.  It was a joy (one of the Furits of the Spirit) to see the little girls' faces light up when they received their dresses.  What a wonderful gift for them!

At the end of the day, we reflected on how wonderful it had been.  God was using our heads, hands and feet  to spread the gospel and help the people of Honduras.  Praise the Lord!

Organizing Day

We spent the morning going over Vacation Bible School materials and getting individual assignments from Roxanne, who is leading us in this effort. Above, you see us packaging little items, that support the lesson, to go home with each child. We then went into a handwashing, de-worming, tooth brushing, and fluoride update.

In the afternoon we re-organized glasses. Dan has come up with a new system to store the glasses to make it easier for distribution - we are anxious to try out it out tomorrow.

Most of the team (save for Dan, who met with Dr. Tino) then drove to Santa Clara to visit the White Dove school run by A and S.  We are chatting in front of one of the classrooms.  They have done an amazing job of setting up this school.  They are ready to begin instruction tomorrow for pre-K clear through 4th grade.  Each year they are attempting to add an additional grade.

A gave Allen a tour of the road drainage problems near the White Dove School that HAF funded to improve.

After dinner we were entertained by children from Sandra's church.  They did a very inspiring drama to a musical passage, based on Samuel.  Afterwards, some older girls did a lovely creative musical dance by candlelight. We were all moved and impressed with how well these children performed.  A great deal of effort went into the costumes.

We Made It

Here we are in San Pedro Sula.  We were a bit late getting here, but all went smoothly.  We were thrilled to see Maynor and Daniel waiting for us.  After loading our luggage, we made the trip to Quimistan, met up with Roxanne and Sam, and settled in.  Gloria had a lovely meal of fried chicken, french fries, and fresh salad waiting for us.  Then, we were off to Tejeras to feed the children.  Upon arrival Sandra was just finishing up her bible study.  We proceeded to feed the children and watched the happiness in their faces as they were being served.  We noted the little boy who got severly burned, earlier, and he seems to have adjusted quite well. Please note, below, Gloria serving, 2 AP students that are helping out, as well as Pastor Wilmer. 

We all gathered in the early meeting and Dan informed us of how the week would go and what our responsibilites would be.  Tomorrow will be our organizational day.