Count Your Blessings

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The first day there was the hardest. It was like stepping back in time. The poverty was unbelievable. The material they used to build the shacks that most of the people were living in was whatever they could find. There was garbage everywhere, the people just threw it out wherever they were. There was no garbage collection or landfills as we are acustomed to. 

When we got to the orphanage, the boys came running out to meet us. They all had smiling faces and open arms to find out what our names were and to make us welcome. We were all very surprised with the welcome. In the States most kids that age are standoffish. They grabbed our luggage and took it to the room where we were going to stay. 

The boys were living on very little food. Part of their diet came from what they gathered from the jungle. The main staple was beans and rice. 

When we got there, they were making something that looked like pancakes. There was no one to fix the meals. The only furniture in the orphanage was two broken down chairs, and a cot for each boy. There were about twenty-five boys when we got there. Ten of them ran off during the night. 

The caretakers of the orphanage live in a small building by the orphanage. It had no windows and a dirt floor. They have two children of their own. We were told that they made about forty US dollars a month to run the orphanage. 

Oviedo (not sure of the spelling) was a good Christian man. He read the Bible and did great devotionals with the boys. They seem to respond to the Word. However, it was very obvious that a lot of the boys had been influenced by the gangs. 

The work on the new building was hard. We are so spoiled with all the modern tools and materials we have. When they were not available we had to regroup and change our way of thinking. But once we came up with a plan everything went smoothly. 

I have never seen boys that age work as hard as they did. They are very strong and not afraid to work. The boys were moving sand and gravel up to the building site. You had to be there to appreciate how much work they did. Along with that they were carrying 90# bags of cement. Some of the boys didn’t weight that much. 

On Sunday we all went to church in Puerto Cortez. The church was a little building stuck in between two apartment buildings. A lot of the songs they sang are the same songs we use, but in Spanish. The services were great. It was good but different hearing God being praised in a different language. They do know how to praise God. 

The second group from Washington State arrived Sunday night. 

On Monday within an hour all of us were working together as if we had worked together for a long time. By the time we left for home, we had built forms, moved tons of rocks and mixed 50 yards of concrete by hand. There were men and women from all walks of life doing the same kind of work without any trouble or bad attitudes. The medical team treated more than 2000 people. 

We take so many things for granted, the houses we live in, the cars we drive, no lack of food to eat, and still we want more. It made me stop and think of how blessed I really am. How blessed this country is. 

I don’t think we should go into places like Honduras and give them everything they need, instead we need to give them the tools to do it for themselves. The first tool is hope, and the only way to get that is through Jesus Christ. I pray they saw the love of Jesus through us. 

Team Members: Nathan May, Kurt Fulford, Scott Goodson, Pastor Martin Davis, Jessica Davis, DeAnna Davis, Ashley Kwasney, Jill White, Rhonda Ottosen, Don Bissell, Gordon Durham.