That Thursday Tired Kind Of Feeling

We are tired after four days of hard work, but we have something to show for our labors. Today we finished repairing and improving the screened-in porches at Casa Luz and Casa Paciencia, two of the homes that the children stay in here at Rancho Ebenezer. As you can see from some of the photos, there were some gymnastics involved. Also, Martin was not really laying down on the job as it might appear from the one photo. But, in fact, he was trying to find a new way to smash his thumb since he had tried all the usual ways on Wednesday to great effect.

Doreen spent the second day in a row in the bathroom. Fortunately, it was time spent painting the bathrooms and not taking up residence there.

Having completed our primary tasks, we moved on to weeding the vegetable garden. We could probably have spent the whole week in the garden since it's pretty large and the weeds have done wonderfully. As it is, we will spend tomorrow doing battle with nature in the garden. WGO would like to get the garden ready to plant by the time the coffee harvest is done.

Terry is leading our devotion tonight. We've enjoyed a wide variety of spiritual conversations in the evening. It's a good way to end the day after serving Jesus through our labor during the day.

We hope you are all recovering from the polar blast. Don't worry, we are bringing warmer weather back home with us on Saturday.

Benciciones,

The Team

Wednesday at the Ranch

Yesterday (Tuesday) our team welcomed Janice Brauer to the ranch, who will be at the Ranch and Mission House through next Friday, as she provides "member care" to the staff at both places. (She picked up cookies on the way, so we were especially happy to see her!)

Today most of the team concentrated on finishing up the work on Paciencia. Everything takes more time than we expect, but the end result looks good.  Notice the three horizontal boards in the finished porch, designed to protect the screens from boys who want to play soccer whenever possible!

Doreen spent most of the day painting a bathroom in one of the homes - it's nice to see it fresh and clean, and imagine the children who will find a warm home here at the ranch.


Today was extra special because it's Terri Bagley's birthday!  We celebrated the gift of Terri together here in Honduras, and send birthday greetings to her twin sister Kathy back home!



The weather continues beautiful. Today started out cloudy, but the sun burst through and sunscreen was definitely called for.  To all of you in the frigid zone, please stay warm and safe!

Tuesday at Rancho Ebenezer

Greetings all,

Last night was a beautiful clear night and the stars were spectacular. We know because the power went out so there was no light pollution to compete with the stars. The power came on after awhile and we had a nice visit with Holly Tompkins at Casa Grande. Like many missionaries, she has an amazing life story with God showing his care for her in very interesting ways.

This morning started out with a completely clear sky and then it clouded up through the day. We've been hearing about the cold back home and we aren't sorry that we are missing it. It was a little hot, so the lemonade that Martin made from our lemon harvest came in quite handy.

We continued our work projects today and made good progress on the two screened in porches. We now have the woven wire mesh and wood pieces that we need to kid-proof the screens. Doreen and Terry took turns sanding the wood. Tom, Martin and our guests Doug and Donna all worked on demo and hanging new screens. Karen also got all the screens replaced in Casa Paciencia before joining the rest of us working on the porch.

After a dinner of papusas and salad we all got cleaned up and will have our evening devotional time as soon as this blog posting is done. Who knows, we might even do something wild and crazy like play some dominos.

Here are a few pictures of our day:

Update from the Ranch Team

After Tom blogged on Sunday, the team enjoyed some fellowship time with Caleb and Reagan, who came separately to the Ranch as missionaries, fell in love, and married last fall! Hearing their story was an affirmation of how God weaves together our lives in truly wondrous ways.

Monday's been a full day, as Ken laid out the projects we might tackle throughout the week. The priority is to replace the screens on the back porch of two of the homes. The porches are raised quite high off the ground, since it's very hilly terrain here. So ladders, crowbars and hammers were essential for the demolition that starts most projects at the ranch! While that was going on, another projects was building screens for the various windows inside of several homes. It's a privilege to know we can make the kids' home more pleasant places for them :)

The Ranch team has been blessed to be joined by Doug and Donna Griffith of Joplin, Missouri, who have done short-term missions in another part of Honduras. That organization has closed its project, so they're exploring where God may send them next. They're spending some time at the school and with the Ranch staff, and also helping out with some of our work projects.  It's great to have two extra hands from time to time!

A full and busy day!

Off to Rancho Ebenezer

The Peace Lutheran Rancho Ebenezer Serve Team has arrived at the World Gospel Outreach childrens home just outside Tegucigalpa Honduras. The team includes Karen Mitchell, Doreen Grass, Terry Bagley, Martin Koster and Tom Brauer. Karen and Doreen just arrived in country on Saturday and Terry, Martin and Tom were part of last week's medical team.

Saturday was a travel day and included an opening orientation given by Ken Avila, WGO's Serve Team coordinator from the Ranch. After settling in, we had a light dinner and then enjoyed some friendly conversation and a chance to interact with Michelle, one of the teachers from the school at the Ranch. But since some of the team had an early arrival we called it a night pretty early.

On Sunday we had an informal church service at Casa Grande followed by lunch in the Capilla. We decided to hike up to the lagoon which is located at the top of the property. We also walked through the banana grove and picked some lemons from the trees in the grove. It was a good way to work off lunch. It was a beautiful day and we enjoyed the recreation and relaxation. Tomorrow we go to work on the projects that WGO has lined up for us. More on that later.

Home At Last

Although there were some pretty late arrivals, everyone from the 2019 Peace Lutheran Medical Serve Team made it home safe and sound. Thank you to all our team members for their service throughout the week. And thank you to everyone who has been following the blog. We appreciate your support. Make sure to ask your team members about their week. They all have lots of interesting stories to tell.

This ends the blog entries for the medical team. Additional blog entries will be posted for the Peace Lutheran team at WGO's Rancho Ebenezer this coming week.

Bendiciones to all!

Blessings from Honduras on our final day

Friday January 25, 2019

It was a beautiful day in the city.  This was the final full day of our mission trip here in Tegucigalpa.  Both Team A & B returned to the same site they were at Thursday for another full day of serving the communities of the surrounding churches hosting us.  After a wonderful morning devotion and hearty breakfast we were sent out to serve the lord hoping to impact as many lives as we could in a positive way. 

The streets were lined with people when our buses arrived and we quickly set up for the day breaking only to pray with our host church volunteers.  The mood was festive and we could tell that many people were ready to receive much needed medical and other services that they so desperately need. 

The day was long and the lines were long but the lord gave us the strength and encouragement to serve every Honduran who visited our sites today.  The blessings received by the power of the holy spirit working within us was powerful and was so clearly evident on every person's face.  We were able to impact so many lives and encourage folks to accept Jesus Christ as their lord and savior.  It truly was a special day and and great way to end a wonderful week.

We wrapped up the day thanking our host churches and volunteers for all their efforts and recounted how many lives we impacted in the two days serving that community.  We returned back to the mission house to cleanup and prepare for traveling home on Saturday.  We ended our day with a wonderful pizza dinner, shared stories of our days events and watched the video of our weeks mission trip here in Honduras.

The week was emotional, powerful and we all made many new friends.    The life long memories we leave with is a testament to the power of Jesus Christ.  Blessings on this wonderful mission trip and blessings to all the families we impacted.  We pray for safe travels, success for the next mission team, and that every Honduran would come to have a relationship with Jesus Christ.

God Bless.

A Slow Start and a Strong Finish

It was back to work at the Serve Team sites today. Thursday is always the tired day of the week. Everyone is a little puffy-eyed at morning devotions but we gain steam during breakfast and by the time we arrive at the churches we are ready to go.

That's a good thing because Team A had long lines of people waiting for them when they arrived at the Iglesia Jehovah Nissi. Thankfully the bus ride wasn't as long as the Monday-Tuesday one.  The weather was great and today's church was in the valley instead of atop the mountains so we enjoyed a beautiful warm and sunny day. (Sorry, but we just had to rub it in for all of you who are experiencing something quite different.)

Team B served at the Iglesia Linaje de Abraham, which is one of the places where we served 5 years ago. Some of the church workers even remembered us. But, when we arrived there were hardly any people, which was strange for such a large church. So, after we got organized and had our opening of songs and prayer, we opened the clinic and then some of us walked through the neighborhood with translators to invite people to the clinic. The personal invitation worked and we ended up having a very busy day.

In our evening sharing time many stories were shared about interesting interactions between us and the people we served. In fact, some of the biggest impacts were the ones made on us by the people we served. Who knew that we weren't just going to the mission field, we are the mission field too.

On Friday we will do it all over. Please pray that we finish well. Thank you for your prayer support throughout this week.

The comraderie that has built up throughout the week has made it fun to serve together. Even though we came from many different churches we are most definitely one team at this point. Friday comes fast and the week ends too quickly, so it will be sad to say our goodbyes on Saturday.

Here are some photos of today's experiences.