The Work Begins

Today, I welcome a mother and son guest blogger team, Debi and Jason Fiegle. Debi is the Deacon for Global Mission at St. Andrews and has been on every trip we’ve had. This is Jason’s first trip. The internet service on the ranch is very slow, so I will forgo uploading photos until I get into better internet service. Probably in Tegucigalpa on our last night. Also, the group had an opening worship service last night led by Father Roy and me. We sang, prayed, had some ice breaker questions to talk about together, heard the story from John 6 of the young boy who brought to Jesus what he had to feed hungry people, and then had communion ourselves led by Father Roy and me. And now, news of today from the Fiegles...

This morning we woke up excited and ready to visit our new and old friends at the village of el Mico.  Breakfast was at 6:15 am which consisted of eggs, ham, beans, bananas and watermelon, so we received our protein to help give us energy for the day.  We met at the cross at 7:00 am to have a short worship service with the HOI ranch staff and the other two teams at the ranch.  This is always a beautiful service and a wonderful way to start the first day.

The drive to the village seemed shorter than usual and we were very warmly welcomed by the villagers.  The children were outside the school and we all got hugs from them and the adults before we started our introductions.  I was fortunate enough to see many of the children and adults that became my friends from last year.  Returning to a village you have visited before is awesome!  There is a different comfort level and an immediate feeling of returning home.  I really enjoy seeing my Honduran families again.  The students welcomed us with songs, we sang two songs to them, we weren’t as good as they were, but we got it done.  Pastor John gave a short Spanish introduction before we introduced ourselves to the village.  Many of us were remembered, not all by name, but by sight.  The pastor of the village spoke and the Godcidence that occurred was he spoke about having a positive attitude, which we were just talking about during devotionals last night.  I think this is our theme for the week.  As Brad Byers says, PMA, positive mental attitude.  We are all going to have a positive mental attitude this week and when Jesus is your focus, how can you go wrong?

We had seven work teams and one school team.  We were working on latrines and pilas (outdoor laundry) today.  The VBS team had a great morning with the kids and in the afternoon we had a clinic with 27 adults and 10 kids attending.  The latrine I was working on was totally complete by the end of the day.  We had a great group working with us at Sophia and Jose Sanchez’s house.  The newbies are initiated into mission work and have done well.  The end of the day everyone is relaxing in hammocks and sharing tmi, (too much information), which is always what happens on a mission trip.  We mean this in a good way.

Jason’s thoughts: 

The whole trip has met my expectations from what I have been told and have seen from pictures.  At the village I met a kid whose name was pronounced just like mine, except it was spelled Yeison.  I had a pretty good conversation with the kids.  My Spanish teacher would be proud.  I guess four years of Spanish has helped a bit.  There was a lot of standing, bending and lifting while building a latrine, which was completely expected.  I did not expect one of the Hondurans to trip and almost fall into the pit for the latrine, which was probably 10 feet deep.  I grabbed his leg and Jen Byers took the blow by grabbing him under the arms, but we saved him from falling.  My favorite experience today was playing with the kids and pumping up their soccer balls, which is extremely important in Honduras.  I had a crowd of kids around me while I was pumping the soccer balls.

As I (Debi) reflect on the day, I must say that Honduras is as beautiful as ever and the people are loving and friendly.  Our team has quickly bonded, we all are full of agape love and are so excited to do God’s work tomorrow.  God is so good!