Dia Quatro – A Day of Children

Our Sunday was rather relaxed, and dominated by the joy of being around children most of the day.  In the morning, we visited the Sunday School Class of Martha Scarlett.  There were over 100 present, including about 85 kids.  They were very attentive to the lesson, and were given paper and pencils, as well as a small lunch at its conclusion.

We then attended the 11:30 feeding of the Tejeras community.  This is the weekly meal funded by HAF, but prepared by mothers in the community.  We were again impressed by the patience of the children and their concern for each other, as evidenced by the following pictures:

In the afternoon, we went to the Agape Promises Bible study in Quimistan.  The younger children gathered indoors, while the older AP kids had their class in the yard. Following the study time, they all came inside to enjoy a hot lunch.

On a more personal note, Dane and I were able to meet Arlinton, the boy sponsored by our Trinity UMC Men’s group.  It was fun getting to know this quiet, but very smart boy.

Also, I was able to enjoy catching up on things in the Santos family.  Our sponsored girl, Sonia, just turned 13, and her younger sister Stefanny, is about to be 6.  Holding 1-year-old Valeria was certainly the highlight of my day!

I hope your day was as blessed as ours has been today.  May we strive to be as child-like in our faith as these beautiful children with which we have been privileged to share this Holy Day.

Tommy

A Meeting With Tejeras’ Leaders

Dane and George met with Omar and the other Tejeras community leaders.  We first thanked them for this opportunity to meet with them, which taught us some interesting history of the community.  People have lived along the highway for over 40 years.  None of the families own the property they live on; all are squatters.  Most of the school-age children attend either Valley of the Light school or Francisco Bogram school in town.  The HAF-funded feeding of 2 meals per week and the deworming medicines have improved the overall health of the children of Tejeras.

The greatest need of the community is a reliable water supply.  Almost everyone in the community gets their water from the river.  City water is not the answer because the system does not have sufficient pressure to supply water up the hill.  They would like a well that could supply the entire community.

Most of the women of the community would like a Justa stove.  They will provide us with a priority list of potential recipients.

Many families use the public health clinic in town, but since the clinic has few medicines, many are not helped, as they cannot afford to buy the medicines they need.

George

Dia Tres – A Wet Day in La Montanita

On this pleasantly cool, drizzly day, Dane, Lee, and Tommy visited the village of La Montanita. One of the problems this community has is an inadequate delivery system for their water, which comes from a spring over a mile away. A new 2-inch supply line is planned to supplement the existing 1.5-inch line. From today’s discussions with the town leaders, they are ready, willing, and able to provide the labor for installation, once we supply the funding. They have organized 7 teams of 10 people, with a coordinator for each team. The teams will each work one day of the week, and rotate until the job is complete. Maynor will arrange the purchases and oversee the work, which should begin in a week or two.

Justa stoves are another success story for this community. Following the first 3 installations, the local builders have learned to do them on their own. 

Of the 8 additional stoves recently approved, supplies for 6 of them have already been purchased and delivered.  The first of those 6 stoves was completed today. In fact, as Dane soon discovered, it was still wet! This stove was even modified to include an oven where the fire for her original stove had been built. (Note the hole in it’s side.) We were impressed by their ingenuity, as well as their hard work!

While visiting one of the other homes hosting a new stove, we were treated to home grown and ground Honduran coffee.  It was muy excelente!  As you can see, Lee is hard at work, as usual. 

In the mean time, Tommy was playing with bubbles, using the kids as an excuse to get them out. Dane was forced to take pictures and not allowed to play with the other kids.

We then went up to see Reyna and her “sewing circle”. She had eight or so ladies working with her as well as others working from home. She had 25 tortilla mats completed, and we bought her entire stock. As a gift, we brought her some more yarn, and she promised that by the next trip she would have more mats and also some tote bags.

Thanks to Dane’s excellent driving, we made it up and down the slick, muddy, winding road with no problem.  All in all, it was a very successful and rewarding trip.

Dane and Tommy

A Special Tejeras Feeding

We visited the highway community of Tejeras for the Friday evening feeding session.  There were about 50-60 children and a few mothers there.  As usual, the children were all seated and waiting patiently to be served.  Their meal consisted of tortillas with beans and meat, and a glass of juice.  Each started with 2 tortillas, and I saw several children put half their meal aside to take home for someone else or for later consumption.  Many came back to get a third tortilla.  It was all very organized and orderly.

   

One of the girls who led the prayer and served many of the children was Delcia, a recent addition to the Agape Promises program.  I am her new sponsor, and this was our first opportunity to meet.  She is a lovely young lady, and appeared to be very shy when we were introduced.  I hope to get to know her better during the remainder of this trip.

 

George

Dia Duo – A Visit to Santa Clara

Following breakfast, the four of us headed out for Santa Clara. Our first stop was the new “White Dove School” for 3-year-olds, pre-k, kindergarten, and first grade. Suyapa and 4 other locals have trained in San Pedro Sula to become certified to teach. The classrooms can be seen behind the rising brick building, which is to be the new church.

The first-graders use the classroom on the right. They greeted us collectively with “Good morning”, and individually with “My name is ___”, all in English.

We caught the younger children mostly outside playing a game. They are all housed together in the other building, originally intended as a kitchen.

We visited with a family living in the dilapidated home shown below. The kids I talked to were glad that their new brick home was nearing completion.

We visited several other homes and verified once again the effectiveness of the Justa stoves and the Bio-Sand filters, which have already made an improvement in the health of the community. One especially impressive home was that of Guillermo, who is the brother of Lencho (the builder).

 

We concluded our visit by spending some quality time with some of the kids, playing ball and blowing bubbles, which for me is  the most fun part of the trip.  After all, it really is about the kids, isn't it?

Tommy

Dia Uno – Arrival and Planning

 The first contingent of the February team, George D., Lee, Dane, and Tommy, is here in Quimistan safe and sound once again, thanks be to God!  Thanks also to Allen B. for sacrificing a half night’s sleep and several hours of pre-dawn driving to get us to Atlanta.  Later, Maynor and Daniel met us at the San Pedro airport and drove us on to Q’town.

 It’s certainly a lot warmer here than Aiken!  Was somewhere in the high 80’s today.  No need yet for the blankets we brought!

After a good meal, we had a planning session with Maynor, so that he can make the required contacts and set up our planned events for the next few days.  That was followed by a quick executive meeting at Shirley’s to cap off a tiring day. 

We plan to head to Santa Clara in the morning.  For now, we are all ready for a good night’s rest.

Connection is slow tonight.  Hope to have some good pictures tomorrow.

Buenos noches,

Tommy

HAND-CRAFT MICRO-ECONOMIC PROJECT

Lorraine, Carol, and Catherine worked with about 15 women in La Montanita to determine if the women could use their craft and sewing skills to make items for sale. The women are very adept with hand crafts and thus very artistic and proficient with hand sewing. The first day was spent trying to understand their capabilities, what materials were available, and their interests in such a project.

No one in the village knew how to knit and only one woman knew how to crochet a few stitches. Catherine spent the next day with 6-8 teenage girls to teach them how to crochet using needles and yarn that she had taken. One of the girls learned fast and completed a baby cap by the end of the second day. Now, this group is capable of crocheting baby caps and blankets. We will be sending them new and different crochet patterns in Spanish for the group to make additional items to be sold in Honduras.

The women already design and make tortilla cloths. Each person draws a pattern of their own design on the cloth before they start the embroidering. They were looking for ways to use these skills to make other hand-crafted items. They were very excited to show us these cloths and several of them went back home to get some. On the second day as the conversation progressed to the idea that they could sell these items, they told Lorraine that they only made them as a hobby and for personal use. They seemed to have little interest in selling these cloths at first. Then, Lorraine suggested that they could organize a group to make the tortilla covers to sell to earn money to buy school items for their children, or other things that would benefit all of the children in the community. When the women realized that the money could be used to improve the lives of their children, the interest in the proposed project came alive. I guess mothers are the same world wide!! Then, a leader emerged from the group and she quickly began organizing them and getting their individual commitments.

Before the meeting was over, Lorraine agreed to ask the next mission team to bring 20 of these tortilla covers back to Aiken to determine if they will sell. Also, one of our group members ordered 15 of them for gifts. The women were promised that they would be paid $4 for each tortilla cloth picked up by the next group. The La Montanita women will then have $140 to buy more materials to make additional cloths. Also, if the cloths sell for more that $4, all of the extra money will be sent back to this group. On the bus ride back to the airport, several of our team members brainstormed ideas on other uses of the tortilla cloths and how to start marketing and selling them. Bruce even had two good ideas here!!

While all of the crocheting and tortilla cloth activities were happening with Catherine and Lorraine, Carol intended to teach a group how to make paper flowers to decorate their church. This had been requested the previous day. Before she could really get started on the flower making, she was overwhelmed by a large group of village children who wanted to color and draw. So, that’s how Carol spent her day. None of these items could be sold, but the children left happy.

During all of these activities, children comfortably moved in and out of whatever was going on. It seems that the children just naturally integrate themselves into anything that is happening. Jim and Bruce had mentioned that several young boys had helped the adults assemble the school desks and benches the previous day. This just seems to be the way that things are in Honduras.

Lorraine, Carol, & Catherine