The Shepherd's Journal
The Good Shepherd Children's Home in Honduras is a place where orphaned, abandoned, or neglected children are living, learning, and growing in God.
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More liked postsThe Boiling Frog
I cannot tell you what a blessing it is to have our pastor, Abner Mejia, here on a full-time basis. While talking about the process of change last night, he told me the famous story about the “boiling frog.” The allegorical moral is that if you put a frog into hot water it will hop out, but if you heat the water slowly it will never take alarm and you can boil it.
Kelly and I are very excited about having Pastor Abner Mejia and his wife, Alisson, on board. They are not only going to help us with the spiritual needs of the children, but they are going to help in so many other ways.
Please pray for the GSCH.
The Yulee Baptist Church team came to the GSCH for the purpose of conducting activities with the children during Semana Santa (Holy Week). They conducted VBS each day, played, evangelized, conducted devotions in the casitas, and showed evangelistic-type movies at night.
They always had an alter call after their activities. This resulted in a lot of decisions to accept Christ. It was Yami who initiated conversations about being baptized. Soon afterward, several children were asking about being baptized. By the end of the week, the baptism list had grown from 1 to 25. After intensive counseling with the pastor and us, a couple of younger children were removed from the list based upon their lack of understanding.
On the final night, instead of a typical going away event, we opted for a brief service so that we could have a baptism. An unusually strong storm hit at the same time we were in church. It hardly ever rains during this time of year, yet alone storm. We were trapped inside the church with high winds, strong rain, and no electricity. We rode out the storm and canceled the baptism service.
The next morning, before the team left, we conducted the baptism service where 22 of our children and Leigh Holland, a member of the team, were baptized.
Praise God that the revival has started folks!!! Please keep praying that others will continue to BELIEVE and FOLLOW Christ!
Bible Verses
After having spoken to a BMDMI team on their bus last year, a woman, whom I do not know, felt led to give me a set of handwritten Bible verses that she used while she was in the country with the medical team.
I put the index cards aside and didn’t do anything with them until a few months ago. At the end of one of my exhausting days, I decided to start memorizing the verses. This was something that I once was not able to do.
The Bible is full of inspiring words from God. What has taken me so long to dig deeper?
“but those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.” Isaiah 40:31
“pero los que esperan a Jehová tendrán nuevas fuerzas; levantarán alas como las águilas; correrán, y no se cansarán; caminarán, y no se fatigarán.” Isaias 40:31
Kelly, Hector, Yolanda, and I just left the city dump where we handed out bread and water to about 500 homeless people. Nearly 2000 people eat, live, and survive on trash. The majority of these people live here because their homes were destroyed by Hurricane Mitch in 1998. They were not able to rebuild and have been homeless ever since. I have never in my life seen anything like this. The people would take only a split second to accept a bag of water and a piece of bread because time is money to them. They basically scavenge for food to eat and recyclable products that they can sell to make a little money.
The Good Shepherd Christian Academy (GSCA) is back in session. Our children returned to school for a half day on Friday, February 10, 2012 to receive their uniform shoes, jeans, and to receive orientation. The members of the Getwell Methodist Church team escorted the children to school and surrounded them in prayer.
This is a landmark year as the first graders will be receiving 100% of their classes in English! Please pray for the children, the teachers, the tías, and Laurie Johnson, the director of the GSCA.
I am so excited about our new meat vendor, Cargill, and the policies and procedures that we now have in place for purchasing and receiving.
I met representatives of Cargill, the meat vendor, at the United Way event in September of last year. Cargill is now supplying us with a great variety of quality meats delivered to us on a weekly basis. The meat comes to us frozen and we don’t even have to pay a delivery fee. Each casita receives now receives the following on a weekly basis: ground beef, whole chickens, marinated beef, beef for grilling, pork chops, bologna, hot dogs, and little sausages.
Maria Mejia is the bomb! She is pictured with Moices, our guard, and the Cargill employee. They are reviewing and documenting the shipment that we received today.
How much do you think it costs to buy meat to feed 105 children and the live-in tías? Roughly $500 per week.
Esau said at the lunch table in English, “it’s a big family.” Those four words have been resonating in my mind ever since he said them. We raised our two children and did not have one clue that the Lord would one day send us to live in Honduras where we are helping to raise more children.
Pictured left to right are Esau is the son of tía Teresa; Cristian John, who to the best of our knowledge, does not have any biological family; Kirsy is the daughter of Greg and Eva; Samuel is the son of tía Ana; and Josue is the son of tía Carmen.
All of the kids in this pic, except Cristian John, live with us because they are over the age of 18 and have not yet graduated from college. For this reason, they are living with us and we get to be part of their lives. Our house is always full of activity and laughter. Even though these kids aren’t officially ours, we consider them to be part of our family and we love them very much.
The hardest thing I’ve ever done!
Do you know how hard it is to dismiss an employee that hasn’t done anything wrong and desperately needs the work?
Due to financial reasons, we are having to make some very hard decisions to reduce the deficit at the home. We gave notices to three employees in October and two more today. There will be at least one more next week. These women desperately need their jobs. They need the money to take care of their families. More than anything, these employees need the opportunity for their young children to live in a safe environment.
Geraldina just left my office in tears. She asked if she could begin searching for a job right away in Tegucigalpa b/c the factories will likely be hiring now. If she finds a job, she and her children will likely live in a crowded apartment in a dangerous neighborhood. Her young children likely won’t be able to go to school nor go outside to play.
I offered Geraldina an opportunity to stay and work as a permanent tía, but she wanted time to think.
I am just sick to my stomach!!! Please pray for these women and their families.
Tonight we attended a New Year’s Eve service planned by and attended by youth and children of the Good Shepherd Children’s Home in Honduras. We sang songs and played games. At the conclusion of the service, to our surprise, we were called forward and everyone extended their hands and prayed for us.
A brief fireworks show followed at the casitas. Some of the children told us they had never seen colorful fireworks before. Some of the little children weren’t happy that we didn’t give them sparklers or firecrackers. Sorry kids, but we remember how hard it was to manage just two children with these. We couldn’t imagine how we could control 50+ little ones with fire. We didn’t want to begin the new year in the hospital with burned or injured children, so we’re a little unpopular right now.
The next event will be at midnight. It is a tradition in Honduras to construct and burn an effigy made from old clothes, crumpled newspaper, fireworks, and a homemade mask. It is called, “Año Viejo” (old year). It is burned at the stroke of midnight as a symbol of destroying all that was bad of the old year. We’ll have more on this later.
Christmas at the Good Shepherd Children’s Home (GSCH) was so very special for everyone at the GSCH this year. Thanks to Lifepoint and many special families in the USA, each child of the GSCH and each child of our guards received at least one gift. Thanks to Rice Bowls, we were able to buy extra food that we needed to make nacatamales and torrejas, the traditional dishes that the children and staff love to eat at Christmas. Thanks to our ministry supporters, we were able to be here and able to provide BMDMI t-shirts for each employee and gifts for the tías.
It was the first time that Kelly and I were away from our families in the USA for Christmas. It was the first Christmas for our granddaughter, Audrey. It was also our very first Christmas at the Good Shepherd Children’s Home. We are so grateful and thankful for our friends and churches that support our ministry and make it possible for us to live, work, and care for God’s children at the GSCH in Honduras.
Click the photo to view the Christmas video.
¡Que Dios les bendiga!
