Saturday, January 27

All of our flights were on time today. We left St. Louis at 0545, arrived in rainy Houston at 0800 where we met Joanna and Kermie, then on to Tegucigalpa where we arrived safely after the always exciting landing!

Only 2 of 34 of our medical trunks arrived, so we are counting on the Luggage Angel again this year to deliver our trunks in time for Monday´s first medical brigade.

It´s 815 p.m. and only about half of us are still awake, while the other half are looking for their beds! We´ll have more to tell you tomorrow after we get a good night´s sleep tonight. Things should go a little

smoother tomorrow night when uploading pictures….tonight the entire browser was in Spanish so we learned a few more words!

God´s blessings to all who read this. We´ll keep you posted.

Love, Alyssa and Debbie, aka ´The Webmasters´

Sunday, January 28

After an early bedtime Saturday night, we were ready to start with a beautiful Sunday morning. Devotions were at 7:30 with hymn singing accompanied by Debbie Rathert on keyboard and Dr. Wolff on recorder and song leader Lyndon. We sounded quite professional. We ended with a prayer of thanks for our safe arrival and asked for protection in the days ahead. Breakfast consisted of hot or cold cereal, bananas, watermelon, cantelope, and fresh orange juice.

We had a choice of attending English or Spanish church services. When most of the kids got off the bus first to go to the Spanish church, a comment was made that a bundle of energy just left and it was

suddenly quiet. Everyone agreed that both services were very good, although long by our standards. With church services over, we once more boarded the bus with our trusty driver Marcos, who maneuvered the streets of Tegucigalpa like a pro though we noticed none of the gauges on the dash to be working and showed the speed to be a constant 3mph.

La Florida Restaurant was ready for us and served a great meal. Most of our group enjoyed grilled chicken breast, mixed veggies, fries, and a choice of beverage. A side dish of refried beans and mozzarella cheese served with fresh tortilla chips tested our dexterity to reach out mouths without a trail of cheese.

We took a few pictures and were on our way to go shopping for Honduran treasures.

Tonight we will have evangelism training and prepare for our first brigade. Using the strength of our young people, our supplies will be loaded onto the bus, including medicine, eye glasses, and lice treatments.

Sending Love from Honduras, Edna and Bev

Monday, January 29

Today was certainly an exciting day to discover our purpose for being here in Honduras. Our fist moment of excitement was the half mile up a dirt, rut-filled road. It was followed by 113 concrete steps that felt like they were going straight up. Matt and I were afraid that dad wouldn´t make it. Our day was a mixture of dental, optometry, and pharmacy. All three areas quickly illustrated the tremendous level of poverty and need here. As a first timer, I certainly realized the reason I came after all the gratefulness and love that came from complete strangers. With only a few words in common, both their lives and ours were changed. Matt, after delivering over 50 pair of glasses and eye medicines, discovered that he could communicate with an interpreter that didn´t speak English. We saw many bad eye problems today

as we many times do--young people with advanced cataracts and scars on their eyes as well as those with 20-1000 vision and not having glasses until today.

The Honduran kids melted our hearts as we left the mission site waving goodbye and waiting to see us tomorrow. We are still looking forward to our trunks that have not yet arrived. We are hoping for tomorrow afternoon but are doing the best we can for now. Our group is bonding together as a strong team, and we are all looking forward to another exciting day tomorrow. Much love to Mom, Mikey, Meagan, and Mike. We miss you all and look forward to sharing many more stories when we return home.

Michelle, Matt, and Gary
'The Meiers´

Tuesday, January 30

What Beautiful Brown Eyes We Have Seen

Eyes of all the children swarming around Claire as she passed out stickers.

Eyes of the children getting their hair washed.

Eyes of a teenage girl who believes in Jesus Christ but is afraid to go to church because her father opposes it.

Eyes of Marielesa, a young girl, that attached herself to Claire, Jaime, Melissa, and Naomi and wrote them a note so they wouldn´t forget her.

Eyes of all the people standing outside the bathroom laughing at Naomi who got scared by the spiders and struggled to push the door open.

Eyes of all the beautiful babies, especially the one that smiled and laughed even though he had sores all over.

Eyes of the women whose tooth I got to pull in dentistry.

Eyes of the staff and team doing the Conga line on the second day of the brigade.

Eyes of the little girl who was missing from her family but was eventually returned to her sister.

Eyes of Sean after dinner sharing a discussion of our evangelism experiences.

Eyes of the airport employees that we pray will deliver our trunks today.

Love from Honduras,

Jan and Claire

Wednesday, January 31

The trunks are here! They joined us at 2240 on Tuesday. We are no longer short of supplies. Wow! What an experience so far, filled with so many things to take in. One of my first observations is the way people drive here. Traffic is quite different in a place where stop signs are merely a suggestion.

Today we took a break from the brigades and visited Rancho Ebenezer and the new school. It is amazing to see God´s hand working in the lives of the people, shaping young lives and leading them with Christian examples. We all have fallen in love with so many children and would like to bring them home with us. Seeing what they have (or rather what they don´t have) has really made me appreciate more things in my life.

After the Ranch, we went to visit the Bridge House, where the older children learn to live independently, integrating into city life and attending college or vocational school. Before heading back for naps and food, we stopped by the site of the new mission house.

It is absolutely correct to say that WGO is truly an amazing organization.

Much love to Jack, Daniel, Carmen, Joe, James, Lauren, Peg, and Sarah, Dr. Jason, and all of our prayer warriors from Maria and Naomi.
Shout out and hugs to Erin, Ryan, Danny, James, Sis, and all her friends in Chicago from Naomi.

Thursday, February 1

Greetings from Kermit the Frog, A.K.A. la Rana Rene. This is my second trip here to Honduras with Joanna, who works at the hospital where I live. Since she is a nurse, I spend most of my time helping her with her duties. Occasionally, Don or one of the other team members needs my assistance.

We went to a new brigade site today. After setting up for the day, we all gathered in the sanctuary for opening greetings, prayers, songs, and a Happy Birthday greeting to Jeff. (Wish you had been here Tyler, so we could sing to you too!!)

I spent the morning in medical seeing patients. I enjoy playing with the young children, while Joanna talks to

the mothers. After eating lunch,I took a short nap with Obed, one of the translators. I spent the afternoon helping in pharmacy. I am good at keeping the children entertained while their mothers get their medicines from Valeska, who is in charge of the pharmacy.

Is has been a great week meeting new people, helping out at all of the different areas. It´s amazing to be able to share the word of Christ and pray with fellow Christians.

I´m sad that this week is almost over. Hello to my friends on 4 south and Joanna´s parents and Christa, Carl, and Lee.

Love,

Kermie

Friday, February 2

It is 815 pm and some people are on the deck talking, there is a hot game of Phase 10 in the dining hall, and many people are packing for the trip home in the morning.

During the week, Sean Herberts led us in Bible study in reflection. Our theme for the week was Fruits of the Spirit. We began the week discussing love, joy, and peace. Our assignment was to witness and observe these gifts in our team, WGO, and the Honduran people at the brigade sites.

Karen, Jamie, and I witnessed love in the faces of hundreds of children we cared for and were blessed by at the brigades each day. Joy and peace was seen by our team over and over as glasses brought new faces to site, and members shared and saw acceptance on the faces of people as they opened their hearts to Jesus for the first time. Patience was seen thousands of times as people stood in line for hours in the sun to get inside the clinic to be treated.

The cooks at the mission house were so kind…always smiling at our clumsy attempts to communicate and in working long hours to prepare our meals. Many team members felt the kindness of the Honduran church workers, diligently toiling with us and offering us their own coffee and food. We were impressed by the faithfulness exhibited by the thirty-plus missionaries of WGO. Most wear multiple ¨hats´ of service worn with humility and grace. Their selflessness was exemplary to all of us. We witnessed gentleness in the children´s ministry as each child was loved, hugged, and cared for while they had their hair washed, de-liced, and “beautified” as the Hondurans say. The gift of self-control belongs hands-down to our bus drive, Marcos (Mark Anthony, as he likes to be called.) His driving skills in driving through Tegucigalpa in the narrow streets were navigated with care and such self-control. In a country which used the horn to express everything from present position to intended direction to expressions of anger, Marcos was amazing.

Needless to say, we observed many more examples of the Fruits of the Spirit. There were many revelations of the Holy Spirit´s presence this week, especially those of the team members who strived to enlarge God´s kingdom. What a gift! What a joy! What a week!

Paul and Jamie Darr and Karen (soon to be Darr) Trompeter

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