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…