Separation by Guest Author Eric Barnes

The fall itself was not one for the ages.  It was one that I have, to my embarrassment, done several times throughout my life and have fully recovered from - usually with a finishing “Ta Da!” remark to stave off the chides of onlookers.  This time the thud I heard was different.  It came from deep inside my shoulder.  As I lay there doing a mental check, I realized that this was not an injury that I would be able to fix without some help.  I hate asking for help!  I hate the reality of needing assistance - especially when it was as a result of something so innocuous as playing with children. 

I looked down as the pain welled up inside.  My shoulder was now in my chest.  That ain’t good.  OOOUUCH!  This pain is not subsiding! 

Wait a minute!  I saw this happen in a movie… What was it?  Mel Gibson…One of those with Danny Glover maybe….  All he did was throw his shoulder against a wall and popped it back in…there is the corner of the brick church….OK, I can do this… and everything will be right again.  OOuuch, I need to do something fast!  OK, up to your feet you stupid juvenile of a man!  One time and everything will be fine.

Wham!!!

Nope…OOOH, that is not good….Let me lie down for a minute. 

As I lay proned out on the sidewalk on the outside of the open church, my projectile vomiting seemed like the death throes of a dying man. 

You know those video games that the kids play where a character goes down and the last thing you see on the screen before it goes black are the feet of people, from his viewpoint, as they walk by the character?  That is what I saw.  Little children running by in oblivion to the problem I was facing. 

Wait, I have to throw up again.  Blahhhhhhhhh! 

Now, you would think that someone would have seen this transpire. But every adult was on the inside of the uncompleted church and I was shielded by a three foot wall, just out of eyesight from them.  I rolled over and looked up and I saw some brown eyes looking at me from the window sill.

 Hey, you…I mean, “Amigo, go get Mr. Carroll.”  “Si!” he responds, and off he runs towards the interior of the church.  Oh good.  Now I can start the long process of getting help.

Back comes the little man.  “Mr. Carroll not come right now! Mr. Carroll says he is busy and will come in a minute!”

This is like a bad dream!

I roll over and, Blahhh!  Wow, that throw up seemed to just leap out of my belly like some alien in a science fiction movie…how bizarre!  OOOOUch, this really hurts!

I roll back over and there is Jennifer, my bride!  My lovely angelic wife with an orphan on her hip.  How providential!  Wait, she is saying something to the young child… “Oh look, what is Mr. Eric doing out there on the ground?  Is he playing with somebody?  He is so funny!”

Oh man!  All those years of clowning around are coming back to haunt me now! 

Well, this is not how I envisioned the mission trip working out.  How am I going to help out with the needs around me?   Instead of being a help, I am now the one in need.

I raise my neck and summon the strength to gasp (like those last dying breaths of a shot-up cowboy in an old western), “Jennifer, put the kid down. I need help!” And I collapse back down on my face. 

Yep, you got it.  It could have been so romantic and chivalrous.  I could have been actually dying after some great battle of the ages between right and wrong.  I could have made one last cry of “Freedom!!” after a lifelong battle with tyranny.  I could have espoused my deep devotion and love to my wife of so many years as I watched the light of eternal bliss fast approach my consciousness.  But no! I stoop in this sad and somber moment to simply cry out in self-serving anguish.  And all of this after a pitiful and utterly childish fall that was every bit of my doing and undoing.  On top of that, I would have to live with the embarrassment, because as painful as it was, I knew that it was not terminal. 

I am told that my beautiful, quiet, soft spoken wife ripped my shirt off of my shoulders like a woman possessed using her teeth and the strength of a she-grizzly bear.  I must pause here and make a mental note to watch myself a little better around her from now on.  After all, the she-grizzly bear is the baddest thing in the forest!

Pain!  That is all I felt as we jostled slowly up the mountainous, pot-holed road and out of the valley.  

On a recent National Geographic show there was a lion in obvious post-fight pain, taking short quick breaths as it recovered from its wounds.  Imagine that picture and then the picture of a woman doing her Lamaze breathing during child birth.  Those are the closest visualizations I can convey in regards to my routine of breathing.  Add in the occasional pathetic and unmanly yelp and you might begin to get the proper picture.

At the top of the mountain the decision had to be made, right to Talanga or left to Tegucigalpa?  “Whoever has Morphine is my friend” is all I am thinking.  Talanga it is.  After all, it is closer and they had a 24 hr clinic.  Or so we thought.

I am told we tried two clinics and a hardware store before we found a doctor who would see me.  I can’t be sure.  Roads in a third-world country are pot luck adventures.   I just saw the dash board while I was leaning over and trying to pass out.

In fact, I would only be able to recognize the clinic, where we finally stopped, if I were to look at the sidewalk going in. 

“Buenos, Buenos, Morphine!” I mutter as we stumble in.  My vocabulary is sad. 

I should spend a little moment here to assure the reader that this poor pitiful soul of a patient had to be helped to these places by four capable angels of mercy in the forms of Sarah Carias, Ashley Capps, Carroll Burley and Lawrence Mims.  I am not a good patient.  I am one of those people who “try men’s souls” when I am hurt.  That phrase is usually saved for moments of crisis, economic disasters or worldwide conflicts—but it is very pertinent here. I look back with humbleness and penitence at the manner in which I performed.  If you know me, I am sad to relay that I did you no service in my association with you and you should venture to separate yourself from me for fear you get blamed by proxy for my failures of manhood.  Had it not been for these helpers from Heaven, I would certainly have been worthy of being shot like a lamed horse and left to the whims of the curious tropical creatures that crawled around the jungle near the orphanage. 

Osman, our orphaned friend who has been so helpful the past two years actually put a leash on a huge grasshopper and was walking it around like a pet.

I am almost positive that long-winded conversations were being had between my angels of mercy and this wonderful doctor.  All I remember though is the doctor first assuring us he could set the shoulder back right and then recoiling with dismay at the sight of the injury.  No, he most assuredly could not help me because the shoulder came out in a way that I would need to be sedated. 

Sedated???  Did he say sedated??  “Yes, yes!!! Doctor!  Si! Si! I want sedation!  Morphine!!  Por Favor!”

Evidently, Morphine is not given out to local clinics in Honduras any more that they are in the United States.  All he can give me is a muscle relaxer.  Well, OK.  Like I have a choice. 

“Gracias,” I say in between the Spanish being relayed by the doctor and our interpreter, Sarah.

“Don’t mention it,” the doctor replies with a sly smile.  He speaks English?  What?!!  Oh, we’ve got jokes now!  Even in my pain, there is a new humbleness I can feel.  Wait, OW! that hurts.  Yes, please give me the muscle relaxer if that will help.  We have to go to Tegucigalpa?  Oh, Lord, please make this muscle relaxer help.  We have to back track to our intersection of decision and then go on to the capital city.

Now, obviously, the dash board can only hold my attention for so long.  As the pain subsides to a dull throbbing from the muscle relaxer, I find myself able to pay more attention to my other senses. 

W h a t   I s   t h a t   s m e l l??  Oh, that is disgusting!  I don’t remember passing by the dump on the way to the orphanage from Tegucigalpa’s airport, but I am fully aware of it now.  It must be right beside the road.  I raise my head ever so slightly. I can’t be sure that the trash alongside of the road is the trash of the dump - or waiting for the dump.  And the people walking around - are they scavengers or workers?  The obvious answer is a graphic reminder of the truths about third-world countries and the public health care challenges they face.

Public health care….wait, what kind of hospital am I going to?  In a city with this type of trash problem!?

A private hospital?  You say it is better?  Are you sure?  OK, like I have a choice. 

This is an old warehouse for a car dealership; this isn’t a hospital!  Are you sure?  Lawrence and Sarah are adamant that this is the place.  The fluorescent lights flicker in the parking garage as we pull up and are waved into a parking spot.

Really, flickering fluorescent lights in a warehouse garage—Did I see this scene in a 007 movie recently?

 I am told to sit in the wheelchair.  It only has one foot stirrup.  I am pushed through a doorway and out onto the other side of the building, back into the sunlight, and down the sidewalk towards the rock paved road.  “Wait, slow down. We are going down a hill.  You are never going to make that turn!!”  I can’t take it.  The thought of crashing head long into the roadway is too much.

…I told you I was a bad patient.  Up and out of the wheelchair I go with the assistant trying to catch up to me. 

Carroll, Lawrence, Sarah and Ashley are trailing behind.  Ashley is pleading, “Eric, please get back in the wheelchair!!”  Where is this place?  Back in the wheelchair I am driven into the next building where there is a room with four emergency beds on the other side of a waiting room. 

I am imagining that all they are thinking is, “Here comes a gringo…Oh my. What is that in his chest?  Is that his shoulder?”

The reality is everyone is there for issues of their own.  Some woman is pacing back and forth in obvious pain as the family waits with anxious thoughts in the waiting room.  I surmise it is fairly serious.  Doctors look up and assess the new arrival, me.  I again am humbled because I know that despite my pain and my incapacitation, I can be fixed relatively easily.  Hospitals are no joke and serious issues are being treated.  And this is a private hospital, the public ones are unimaginable.  It makes my plight and circumstance seem so small.

 I seem so small to the needs about me and my ability to help. 

I am so small to the needs about me and my ability to help.

Well, the first thing is X-rays.  That was a given.  Let’s go.  Wait……. where is Sarah? She is still in the waiting room.   I can’t speak any Spanish with these nurses.  Sarah!!!!

My beautiful nurse asks me how old I am.  I know this because she said something and I heard “anos,” years.

--- I got this----“Well I am quarente’ y siete’ anos,” I say weakly. (My version of Spanish, “47 years of age.”)  The next few moments were pantomimes that effectively translated into: stand up by this box as straight as you can so we can stand behind this lead covered wall and take your x-ray.  I figured out the “as straight as you can” after the first picture wasn’t good enough.  I then proceeded to collapse on the floor in pain and was helped up into the wheelchair by the various people with white shoes.  It could have been Quasimodo for all I know, but all I saw were white shoes. 

By this point, the muscles around my shoulder that was in my chest were contracting into a big ball.  I know this because the doctor said that in order to pop the shoulder back in I needed to be heavily sedated - so that those muscles would relax enough to work it back into place. 

Sedation!?  My ears are perking up and I make a sound that is remarkably like Scooby Doo before he gets a scooby snack.  “Huhmm?  Morphine?  Si! Si!  Put me under?  Si! Si!”

The doctor goes on to say (in Spanish through Sarah) that after he is through, it will feel like night and day.  The pain will instantly go away by comparison. 

I am thinking “Yep, that’s good. Let’s do it. What are we waiting for? No more talking. Morphine, sleep.  I am ready.”

Evidently, there is a shadow program for students in the workplace in Honduras like there is here in the States.  I say this because the doctor introduces his daughter to me and the others.  He then proceeds to instruct her on how to properly stick me with a needle and hook me up to the sleepy stuff.  I figured I better pay her some compliments during this procedure and I think I said she was pretty (“Muy bonita”), but everything went black after that. 

Word is that even under sedation I was kicking so bad that they had to re-medicate me.  When I say “Word is” it really is “words are” as there were multiple English and Spanish speaking witnesses to my self-destructive acts during this medical procedure.  I do not mention the names of the witnesses for fear that I may have done or said something that may come back to haunt me ten years from now and their anonymity would be important to my case.  I do recall trying to apologize for anything I may have said or done that would bring shame to me or my family.  (This was repeated by my wife in the days that followed, unbeknownst to me, for she had the same fears.)  Again, as I have said, I am not a good patient - apparently even when I am heavily sedated. 

Evidently there was some liberty taken to play with my stupefied and sedated state for I awoke to Sarah making fun of me for something I had said or done.  The laughter at my expense was a welcome relief to the pain and suffering of the previous hours.  I then found myself in a van with Jason, our fearless leader, who had arrived in time to head back to the orphanage.  The shoulder sling was wrapped tightly around my middle and I was happy to be pain free by comparison.  The doctor had evidently given me some instructions that Carroll had been wise to listen to; but, I was more pleased to be heading back to the mission.

The days to follow, though, left me humbled and insecure about my role in the mission.  No longer could I be counted on for the heavy lifting.  That self-defined role had permanently changed for the week.  I struggled to find my place among so many willing and able-bodied souls with indomitable spirits.  I am proud of the service we accomplished during the week, and am proud of my association with our mission and our mission team. But I am left with an emptiness and a searching for some meaning in my plight for the week. 

I am comforted though by my knowledge and experience in God’s work in my life in the past.   In the Bible we hear of important men and women who walked in the light of God’s path for their whole lives and were barely mentioned in the pages of antiquity.  Thousands of years of history and billions upon billions of people being born, living their lives and dying in anonymity mark the history of mankind with their Maker.  Yet He knows them all by name even before they are born. 

What I have come away with now is much like what I came away with last year.  It is not about me.  I am small.  The problems are too big for me. It is not about me.  It is about God and His work.  When we see the work through those lenses it is very liberating.  I am hopeful that, though I am no longer in my prime, this broken vessel can be used in some small, but important, way again.

Fervent, Gut-wrenching Prayers

Bertha – The men had nicknamed the temperamental, old-timey concrete mixer. It seems that missionary Ron had the perfect touch – just enough pressure on the engine pull to get her to “turn over” just right. Bertha would hum along contentedly, calmly rotating as the workers poured in heaping shovelfuls of strained dirt and buckets of water. Churning, turning – the mixer worked well – until, all of a sudden, she’d stutter and stop. No amount of coaxing, not the right pressure, overheating, flooding the engine – so many little issues could occur in a matter of seconds – leaving Bertha still and construction halted for what could be minutes or hours or days, God forbid. It only takes a few tries at hand-mixing concrete for workers to realize the true importance of Bertha being active at work. So, yes, Bertha’s positive momentum became prevalent in all our minds.

          Frustrated efforts on the men’s part began that first full workday. It seemed the minute Ron would slip away to get other business accomplished - no sooner than he’d exit - ol’ Bertha would sneeze, shudder and die. Men – of course, those independent men we brought – not wanting to disturb Ron – would mimic what they’d seen him do, to no avail. Several times, with heat beating on their backs and sweat beading on their brows, the men would circle around Bertha and lift a prayer of helplessness – knowing other recourses were not really available. Shortly thereafter, she’d rally back. A cheer would echo from the site and work could continue.

          Once, Maria came through the gathering room above the school where sorting of school supplies, sweeping of floors and translating of Bible stories for the Missionettes were ongoing. “Bertha’s down again. We’ve got to pray!” Exasperated sighs, shaking heads, huddling up and holding hands, we lifted our cries to Jesus. “God, you know we can’t do this without You. We’re miles and hours away from any store. We can’t even speak Spanish. We are helpless. Show Your power and get that Bertha rolling again!” We opened our eyes with tears and sighed, knowing we’d left our prayer at the feet of the Only One who could do anything anyway. Smiling, we returned to the tasks at hand. The next time someone opened that second floor door, we heard the roaring of Bertha’s engine. Another cheer.

          Fervent petitions of all kinds were lifted to God from the beginning of the trip to the end. On the very first day, my gung-ho husband had been taken to a nearby village, searching for clinics to pop his dislocated shoulder back in place. Several hours later, a phone call actually came through. Although they had stopped four times (at a closing clinic, at a bolted and locked clinic, at a hardware store - ?!? – and at a clinic that just wouldn’t treat him when they saw the extent of the injury) they were backtracking to the capital city to a hospital there. Although I remember praying for a clinic to be open earlier, God knew what Eric needed most was a hospital visit.

          What did I need? So many problems ran through my mind – not knowing the language, seeking hospital care for my husband who was being sedated (twice) in a third-world country, not knowing when I’d see him again, being literally hours away should anything major go wrong… I began rethinking what I should have done. God knows, I needed prayers. He needed prayers. We all needed prayers.

          So, as became our custom from then on, we huddled up, held hands, and gut-wrenchingly cried out to God.  Prayer needs multiplied – health, Jason's arrival, concrete mixers, power outages, chicken pox, the missionaries and children, several pairs of new tennis shoes (for children whose feet had grown more quickly than expected), trucks to run, the 100 homes who received food at the feeding brigade, a pair of size 11 men's work boots, the team, the whole mission itself. These issues, we came to realize that we had absolutely no control over. But, thank God, we serve the One who does! Time and again – we’d huddle up, hold hands and pray, knowing we were totally dependent on the Holy of Holies. …And He answered – clearly and abundantly – giving us greater things than we ever imagined or dreamed – every single time.

“God can do anything, you know – far more than you could ever imagine or guess or request in your wildest dreams. He does it not by pushing us around but by working within us, His Spirit deeply and gently within us.” Ephesians 3:20 (The Message)

“Now to Him who is able to do exceeding abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us, to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen.” Ephesians 3:20-21 (New American Standard)

Our Older Readers

One evening after the large reading party on the porch, I noticed Osman to the side. “Hey, Osman! Don’t you want to read, too? What kind of book do you like?” I knew that our librarian Jennifer Burley had worked hard to ensure all types of books were available for younger and older readers alike. 


Just the evening before, our missionary kid, Maicah, had spent two hours engaged with the new collection:  browsing through all the new titles, spot-reading the summaries, gently picking the texts up, leafing through the pages, getting caught up on National Geographic Kids magazines, just eating up the whole library. Maicah, it seems, is an avid reader.  He, in fact, reads books in English and in Spanish – often even the same titles. Although he was currently in the midst of The Chronicles of Narnia, he  still was missing books 4 and 6. When Jennifer showed him the new Spanish version and how it included all the books in the entire series, his whole face broke into a grin. His decision was settled – he took that enormous version with him when he left the house that night. Who dreamed how much pleasure the books would give the missionaries themselves? 



Osman, however, shook his head when I asked him what books he liked. Syllables of Spanish gibberish flowed into my confused ears. His words sounded somewhat like “… Russian…” 


I shook my head, questioningly. “Osman, I can’t understand…” 


He thought deeply and then rephrased for me, “You know… you know the kinds where you read each day? You read what it says in the Bible each day? THAT is what I want to read!”  

Our Osman - who desires  most to read a devotion book!

“Oh, Osman – a devotion? You want a devotional book to read each night!?!” My heart broke – this teenager was so in love with Jesu Cristo that he only wanted to spend his time in the Word. I told him that I would check into it. 


Later, when I had the chance, I approached missionary Ron and volunteer Lawrence to ask if there were perhaps some devotion books somewhere already on campus – letting them know that was Osman’s request. How thrilled I was to hear Lawrence say that his wife, who was coming down the following week, had already acquired one and would be bringing it with her! 


Even later that evening, when the nightly reading club was occurring, our friend Osman wandered up to me with an inquisitive look on his face, “Well? Jen-ne-fur?” 


I smiled, gratefully, and was able to tell him that Lawrence’s wife was bringing one with her – just for him. Osman’s whole face lit up! “Thank you, Jen-ne-fur.” 


“No, Osman, thank Lawrence – and his wife – and Jesus.” What perfect timing! I imagine even now, a week after that encounter, Osman is probably awakening each day at 5:00 a.m. eager to jump into God’s Word in that new devotion book from Lawrence’s wife. 


And Maicah?  I imagine he is quickly working his way through The Chronicles of Narnia and has probably already borrowed another one or two from the new library. 

Clothes and Linens and Shoes

By Guest Author Jennifer Burley

Before

People have been so generous to New Life Children’s Home.  Mission teams have left their sheets, towels and pillows.  They have brought shoes and shirts and pants and sweaters and coats of all sizes.  Many of them were still in boxes and plastic bags when we arrived.  We determined that organizing the supply room would be one of the priorities of our week.

After many, many minutes of turning around and around and shrugging and asking, “Where do we begin?”, we decided to start with the linens since they were clean and easy to identify.  We designated some available plastic bins for sheets and others for towels.  Pillows we put in two big stacks.  We threw away one that was in such bad condition that no one would ever have wanted to put their head on it!

Fortunately, someone had begun to organize the children’s clothes.  With shelves on opposite sides of the room for boys’ and for girls’ clothing, we had a starting point.  Pants and shirts were in separate sections and there was a shelf for each size – small, medium and large.

Because the room had no windows, we brought in our battery-operated fans and set them at our face level.  Then the fun began!  It is amazing what people will donate just to get it out of their own home.  We tossed out bikini bathing suits, old worn out size 3X t-shirts (I don’t think there is anyone that size in that area of Honduras!), used undergarments (clean and not-so-clean), an inflatable kid’s swimming pool raft, stained shirts and pants, some girls’ blouses and shorts that would have raised eyebrows even in the U.S.

In packing for our trip, we had used large lawn trash bags to protect our suitcase contents in case of rain.  We gathered some of those bags and eventually filled three with unusable items from the clothing room.

Our team had brought 100 new pairs of crew socks so we were able to replace the old worn out ones.  We put some clearly labeled bins of not frequently needed items (jackets, blankets, infant clothes) on top of the shelves and were able to store a crib mattress on top of them. It had been taking up way too much space in that small room!

Then there were the shoes – so many shoes!  Boxes, bins, bags and piles of them on a shoe rack that reached to the ceiling. Our team members tied matching shoes together, sorted them by size and style and organized them on the rack.  It was beautiful!  Besides the full shoe rack, there was one tall, round bin full of crocs and flip-flops.  Because our team was able to take a new pair of shoes for each child, these other used ones will be replacements later.

As we moved some boxes, we discovered a sewing machine that appeared to be in good condition.  One of the goals of New Life is to teach the children life skills, including sewing.  We don’t know how long the sewing machine has been in that room, but it might still be hidden if God had not laid that organizing project on our hearts.

It is such a wonderful feeling to know that now the missionaries can easily find the right size clothes they need as they serve these precious children.

After

For the Love of Books

By Guest Author Jennifer Burley

In late fall of 2010, I felt God calling me to establish a library for the children at New Life Children’s Home in Jalaca, Honduras.  I recruited help from church members, fellow librarians, relatives and friends to raise the funds necessary.  I asked my Facebook friends to tell me what books they felt every child should have an opportunity to read or to have read to them.  That is how we happened to take Go, Dog, Go and The Cat in the Hat and Goodnight Moon and The Very Hungry Caterpillar, among other childhood favorites. My goal was to take 100 Spanish books for those children on our trip in Summer 2011 and we did. We also took a few board books, just because we found them in Spanish.  At the time there were only two preschoolers at New Life.

When we left Honduras in 2011, I promised to return in 2012 with 100 books for the older children.  Through an Adopt-a-Book campaign at our church and donations from friends and relatives, over $1300 was raised for the book project.    With those funds we purchased such titles as The Chronicles of Narnia,  Little House on the Prairie,  The Mouse and the Motorcycle,  Sherlock Holmes,  Stuart Little,  Gulliver’s Travels and many other children’s novels – all in Spanish.  We also ordered individual Bible stories (David and Goliath, Noah, Jonah, Daniel, Esther, Moses and others).  Some of these could only be purchased in sets of six copies, but we bought them anyway.  At the time, only God knew why we needed multiple copies!

In addition, there was what we call the “amazon.com” miracle.  Most of the books were purchased in batches, using my personal account and then having the church reimburse me.  About a week after the last books arrived in November, a shipment of the same titles arrived again.  Not being a frequent online shopper, I assumed I had double-clicked somewhere and would need to pay the difference. A few weeks later, I received a message from amazon.com saying that my recent order had been duplicated due to an error on their website.  They would be crediting my account (Whew! - $350 on my personal Discover Card!), but we did not need to return the books!  Again, only God knew that we would need duplicates.

With some additional funds we received shortly before our departure, we purchased about thirty board books, suitable for preschoolers, even though at the time we thought there were only two four-year-olds living at New Life.

By the time we arrived in Honduras this summer, 16 more children had joined the family at New Life Children’s Home.  Now the number of preschoolers had grown from two to nine.  Most of these children had never seen a book.  The first time someone read to the group, they sat enthralled for over an hour.  If you know anything about four-year-olds, you know that their attention span is usually about 20 minutes.  Members of our team looked at books one-on-one with the children and pointed out things in the pictures and read the names of colors and shapes and counted with the numbers, doing all those things that we had done with our own children at home during their formative years.

During one reading session, little Christian Daniel spouted off at another child in Spanish (which we could not understand.)  The interpreter with our group said that he was saying, “If you don’t hurry up with that book, I won’t get to read it today!”  Oh, the joy of wanting to read!


We watched little Sandra Lucia, a book in her hand, following her tia (caretaker) who was hanging out clothes on the fence.  She wanted her to read with her.

In the evenings, we watched children sitting all around the porch area, reading.  An intern shared a couple of chapters of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory with two boys every night after supper.

And those duplicate books?  An older brother sat with his little sister, each of them with the same book.  He read to her and turned her pages so she could follow along.  That’s how the best reading teachers teach!



One night there were 14 children reading on the porch.  When they were called to dinner, not one of them stopped reading!  A second and third call finally moved them to stop long enough to eat.

Seeing the joy that these books have brought to these children has filled my heart to overflowing.  I am so thankful that God gave me this mission for my retirement years.  I have already started a list of books for the next team to take.  Yes, I do believe that God will inspire another team to go back to Honduras to continue His work there.

Honduran Reunion

“… We had read the statistics before… and they were staggering. Millions of orphans in Africa, a number that is rising dramatically as a result of the AIDS crisis that is currently taking the lives of moms and dads across the sub-Saharan plain. Millions of orphans in Asia, many if not most of whom are destined for lives in crimes and prostitution if they are not adopted. Millions of orphans in Europe, Latin America, and the United States.

As overwhelming as these numbers were to us, I have to admit they were still just numbers to us before we traveled… It’s not that we didn’t care… But the numbers still seemed distant, removed from our daily life…

But everything changed when we made our first trip to the orphanage… We saw children playing outside. We walked past their rooms inside. Suddenly those numbers on a page came alive in our hearts.

We realized that it was Christian and Jeffri who were sleeping in one of those cribs, and it was Alison and Osman who were included in those numbers. All at once the numbers became real and personal.

We learned that orphans are easier to ignore before you know their names. They are easier to ignore before you see their faces.

It is easier to pretend they’re not real before you hold them in your arms. But once you do, everything changes.”
(Direct quotation from David Platt’s Radical, with Honduran children’s names substituted)


Everything changed. Indeed, it did. This time last year, we believed we were finishing our work at the New Life Children’s Home in Jalaca, Honduras. When we returned to Columbia, South Carolina, we were different people. Those orphans’ eyes gazed into our dreams; those sweet voices captured our hearts. 

Yet, the mission continued. Just last week, we returned. 
Twenty-six men, women, teenagers and children traveled from Spring Valley Baptist Church last Saturday morning at 2:00 a.m. to catch a plane to one of the most extreme airports in the world. We navigated through customs, praying that our limited Spanglish would suffice, before taking suitcase upon suitcase to the children’s home. Over 150 new Spanish reading books for the library, more new Spanish Bibles to distribute, hairbrushes and shampoos, toothbrushes and toothpaste, school supplies, birthday gifts, shower curtains and socks, diapers and medicines, hair clips and sports equipment, even brand-new shoes for every single child! God miraculously worked throughout Columbia and our church members those last few days – and He abundantly provided! The focus of our mission this year involved major work projects around the complex (among them - building another house for the girls), Bible stories and experiences with the children themselves, and the feeding brigade. We could not wait to get our arms around those precious children we so lovingly remembered – as well as those sixteen new children who had joined the family. Ten of the new ones were preschool age – and brought along their older brothers and sisters. What an amazing family God has created at the New Life Children’s Home.

Once again, we were the recipients and witnesses of miracle upon miracle. One more time. And, once again, you can expect to read about our miracles in the days and weeks to come…

The Book Miracle Continues... By Guest Author Jennifer Burley

As we were leaving New Life Children’s Home in Jalaca, Honduras, I promised to return when I had collected 100 more books for the library we started there.  The need was so great and God just laid that on my heart in a way that I could not ignore.

I selected 100 books that I felt would be appropriate and began a campaign in our church.  I prepared a chart with each of the titles on a little cut-out book.  People were encouraged to adopt a book for $10 and place the money and the little cutout in an envelope we provided.  That money was then given to the church as a designated donation to the Honduras Book Project.  Through this project and some individual donations, we raised $1305.

I placed a book order for 50 books with amazon.com (using my own credit card account) and soon the books began to arrive, a small box or two every week. I placed orders in increments of 50 items and when I had spent about $950, I turned in receipts to the church for reimbursement. A check was mailed to me, but it never arrived!  When I called the financial secretary after a reasonable time to check on it, neither of us had a clue concerning where it might be.  She canceled payment, wrote another check and I went to the church to pick it up. (Not taking a chance on losing another one!)

Because I wanted the financial secretary to be able to close out that account at the end of December, I placed a final book order with the remaining $350.  The books began to arrive and the shelves in my guest room began to fill up.  Just when I thought all the books were in place, another shipment arrived – duplicates!  Because I am not a frequent online shopper, I assumed that I had made a mistake.  Having already spent all the money collected through the church campaign, I resigned myself to absorbing this extra cost and considering it a donation to the New Life Children’s Home library.  I must admit, a part of me was a little bit excited because some of the teachers on our mission team had talked about how great it would be to have duplicates so that two children could read the same book at the same time and talk about it.  However, December was not the best time to absorb an extra expense.

On December 15, I received an email from amazon.com telling me that, due to a web site error, they had duplicated my recent order.  I was asked to respond to the email so they could credit my account for the duplicate charges.  In addition, the duplicate items do not need to be returned!  That means an additional 37 books are headed to Honduras with the next Spring Valley Baptist Church mission team in July 2012!

When God puts His hand on something, no one can predict the outcome!