Our God Is With Us- Immanuel!

Immanuel-

Our God is with us!

And if God is with us

Who could stand against us?

Our God is with us-

Immanuel!

For all those who live in the shadow of death

A glorious light has dawned.

For all those who stumble in the darkness,

Behold, your light has come!

7:30 AM here in the northwest- and I think I might be waiting in vain for the sun to rise! With the fog and dark clouds, it seemed yesterday it just never really “rose”! Michael Card’s song Immanuel has both run thru my mind as well as belted out from my Ipod these weeks here. The message of hope- God with us, our Light has come!

We can’t hear “Immanuel” without thinking of 2 significant stories from our time in Honduras. It is not an uncommon name here, but was meaningfully given to 2 special babies. The first was the very tiny son of Kaylin, a young lady we’d ministered to during her pregnancy, knowing full well she would not survive the pregnancy. She had a fatal heart defect, and it seemed unlikely her baby would come to term. But unlike most mothers here, she named her in-utero baby before birth,  Immanuel.  Kaylin died within hours of Immanuel's birth, and her sister Delmy has raised him.  He will celebrate his 4^th birthday soon, truly a sign that God is with us.

The other Immanuel just turned 3, and is the son of 2 radiologists in La Ceiba. They themselves discovered while she was pregnant that their baby had a spina bifida. They came to John, begging him to find them good options in the US. He did, thru a sequence of miracles, and their Immanuel was born in Houston with the best of prenatal care and postnatal surgery. Today, Immanuel walks with braces, and is developing normally, with a shunt for his hydrocephaly. To see his sparkly eyes, one knows for certain that God is with us.

God delights in making Himself known to us in very personal ways. “Behold, your Light has come”.  We pray that in the midst of whatever you are going through in your journey right now, this Christmas message of an unchanging God that is “with  us” will ring clearly.

John and I will be in our home in WA thru the Christmas season, finishing up needed remodeling.  We have made 2 trips to see friends and family here, but think the snow will keep us closer to home now until we return to Honduras.  We are sensing more and more of a need to return to our children and grandchildren in the Tulsa area, so more on those plans in the future. We covet your prayers as we seek wisdom and direction for God’s perfect timing. For those that are scholarshiping students, both nursing and highschool, we will be in touch about how those arrangements will continue. May you have a blessed Christmas!  Thanks for all your incredible encouragement of us. John and Penny

Sabbatical update!

John with Kaitlyn, Dan's firstborn

John Axel, Dan's secondborn, with Gran

 After just 2 short weeks in Tulsa getting dental checkups, an orthopedist checkup for John's bad shoulder, and many visits with family and friends, we flew to Moses Lake, WA, which will be our homebase for the rest of this Sabbatical. I'm thankful for foto memories of the grandchildren and nieces and nephews, as the visits were all-too-short.

Visiting our inspirational "fluffy friend", June

Immediately on arrival at our home here, John got busy insulating the attic better to prepare for the cold winter. Where would we be without our trusty friends, the Kirks, who are there for every major project, lending a hand and great wisdom? We made decisions slowly on a kitchen remodel, painting the whole interior of the house, and ordering flooring. We are now in the waiting mode, as with the holidays we couldn't get cabinets in until late January. Flooring awaits the rest of the cabinets- so looks like we will not be enjoying the finished product this time home! We have bare plywood floors and makeshift living areas, not wanting to move the furniture back in before flooring is installed. We will be camping while here!

Great-niece, Pati, on Oregon trip

Some of the great nieces and nephews on an AM hike in WA

We left the mess before Thanksgiving and took a week's trip south to visit 2 nieces and a nephew, with a total of 14 children between them, coming and going from S. Oregon! The reason for the trip was to spent a long weekend with John's cousin's church, who have come to visit us in Honduras for 6 years. It was a great reunion of about 20 that have visited us at one time or another, with a feast Sunday after church and a program, sharing their 2 weeks with us this October. 2 "frequent flyers" from N. California also made the trip up to participate in the reunion, so we felt well-loved and honored!

Great niece, Cadence, being photogenic for me!

We've had a chance to share our Honduran adventures with a small local church here in Moses lake, plus participating weekly in Sunday School in another supporting church. We are spending much good time with Penny's sister and her husband here, so feel like we have family even tho the kids are far away here. We spent Thanksgiving with sister Shellie, and enjoyed her 3 children in the absence of ours.

We've settled into a routine, up at 440 to go to the local gym in the frosty dark, home for hot showers and coffee with Quiet time, then begin the daily dirty-work of home remodeling. Feeling blessed.

all dressed-up for dinner out with niece Robyn and Nate in Vancouver

Joy of Teamwork

We are now 5 days into our Sabbatical in the US!  Noting that the last update was late August makes me reflect on how full and rich the last months have been.  In early September, our son Daniel and Nikki had baby John Axel.  We got to visit with them for the first time over the weekend. 

Son Daniel with HIS newborn son, John Axel

Several weeks ago, a 6 year old local child was admitted who proved to be quite a puzzle for the doctors. He'd been treated in the public system for months, being told he had arthritis, but was going downhill rapidly. All his glands were swollen; he looked like acute mumps.  He needed a blood transfusion. Our new pediatrician made a good call, made plans to transfer him to the huge University Hospital in the capital. For a country mom to be brave enough to take the bus to the city over 8 hrs away, and face the unknown takes great love! We have a friend there who is a med student who blessed them by visiting immediately, and thru her we know Edwar has ALL-leukemia- and has begun months of chemotherapy. He needs your prayers. The teamwork it takes to make something like this happen is daunting!

Our yearly visitors from Jacksonville, OR arrived on Oct. 5 with 8 members on the team, including an Orthopedic surgeon. Many were touched physically by Dr. Owens' expertise, some put on hold for a later visit. The other guys helped pay for and place a ceramic floor in our church.

Meanwhile, back at the hospital, nurse Amber, John's cousin, was praying for a delivery so she could use her expertise. The Lord again answered her yearly prayer, but certainly did it with fireworks!  I got an alarmed radio call from the hospital saying that we needed to respond STAT to the country midwife's mudhut, as she'd delivered the first of twins and the second wouldn't delivery after more than 8 hours.  By God's grace, Amber and I and John were all in the same place getting ready for a team dinner. Also God's grace was evident that the newly onboard pediatrician, Dr. Judy, was still in Honduras for 8 more hours before leaving for a conference!  The 3 of us raced for the delivery bag at the hospital and over the bumpy road to the midwive's mud hut, where we found a wee baby lightly wrapped and a young mom that needed a hospital, NOT a birthing bag! Enroute with her and tiny one back to the hospital, we radioed for Dr. Vance and Dr. Judy to meet us in the delivery room. Both Dr. Abby, the ER doc who does anesthesia and a visiting anesthetist, Tom, were also there, so an unusually strong team awaited us. Dr. Judy and Dave took over with Baby #1 to begin addressing his low temp, sugar and heart beat. The rest of us began the race against time to get baby #2 out by Csection, as heartrate was falling. Baby #2 was born shortly at 5# 7 oz.  We found when baby #1 was stable enough to weigh that he was only 2# 11 oz. Our visitor Amber directed the stabilization of #2, and within the hour, the 2 warmers were side by side to make serveillance of the 2 easier. The fight for the wee one's life was not over, but in a few days, after an exchange transfusion, he began to perk up. Now over a week and a half later, mom and twins are in the Children's Center, with the intent of growing him til he can make it several hours up in the mountain.
Our several months in the US will be spent mostly in our home in the NW, after these first 2 weeks getting checkups and reconnecting with kids and grands here in Tulsa. We have some forays planned to see all relatives there, and a longer one to see Penny's folks in Sun City, with plans to return to Hospital Loma de Luz before March. Pray for us as we travel, that this will be a time of restoration, and that we will listen to the Lord as to future plans.

Discipling, Evangelizing

Anael with 5 youth from the church

 Many of you that have visited here know Anael. Some of you have helped make his education possible, and some are making it possible for him now to do what he does....disciple new believers and reach out to the mountain villages with the Proclaimer project. Anael turned down a paying job on graduation, not wanting to leave the community and the fledgling group of young believers. He keeps them busy maintaining church property, studying the Word with the New Life in Christ series we provide him, and learning to share the gospel in mountain villages.

Attentive group of mountain students

After several forays into this village of Las Ballas, Anael returned with John an some others this Thursday with a well-prepared outreach into the local gradeschool, where they welcomed him with open arms. He has been invited back to form a "listening group" of about 20 who want to listen to the audio-Bible, the Proclaimer. He will return with John this Tuesday and do that while John hosts a Woman's Health Clinic next door in the Health Department.

Last Sunday, Christie and Rigo, long-time missionaries here that work partly with the hospital, partly in another ministry (including teaching at the Margarita Church) decided it was time for some fun and games for the church, to just share time picnicking.  So they bought and prepared the meat for grilling, and we fired up the grills after AM service and had an enjoyable time eating and visiting together. Its times like this that we are more aware than ever of the tremendous blessing this piece of forested property is to the congregation!

At times we experience a sense of defeat when we have friends/patients that suffer from illnesses that would have been easily preventable in the US, either because of lack of communication or understanding, or because of lack of funds and resourses. I drove Erminio and his wife over to Ceiba last week for  a good eye exam, as he is going blind. He was convinced it was due to a blunt hit above his eye with the handle of his machete 6 years ago and wanted to know if there was an surgery available. Turned out he has advanced glaucoma- he had had several recorded visits to clinics where he was told he had high pressure in his eyes and was advised to go to a specialist.  Never will know what went wrong in that chain of communication- he is using eye drops to hopefully arrest the disease in one eye but is too late for the other. Sad. He is a new believer- pray for him. 4 of the 5 young people being discipled by Anael are his children!

John has been unusually busy, as he has made 2 trips to Satal in 2 weeks, and will be 2 to another mountain clinic also. He is undaunted by the terrible roads!  Anael took a video of the trip thursday and I could not even watch it! Roads like that are not meant to be driven on! We've had 15 deliveries so far this month, and are both really enjoying that.

We have slightly changed our upcoming plans for returning to the US: we feel  that taking a Sabbatical is a better idea, so with support from both Loma de Luz and our sending board, Cornerstone International, we will begin that oct. 19 for an undetermined time, with the expectation of returning in less than 6 months. We have much to do in the US that demands being there, but much left undone here! We both have more peace about this decision. Our position with Cornerstone International is official: Part-time, longterm.  We are enjoying a season of great peace and stability right now, and do want to be sensitive to the Lord's timing.

Next blog will hopefully have pics of a new grandson, John Axel.  Dan and Nikki are expecting around Dan's 27th birthday, Sept. 9.  Stay tuned!

Under the trees grilling for the group of 50

Erminio and his wife Dinora

Its the Small Things...

Got to work one day this week in time to see 6ft. plus Donald with a hummingbird in his large hand. It had crashed against the shop and he was protecting it til it recovered enough to take flight again. Precious start to the day.

Cinthia Tumlinson is a fellow missionary here, a Honduran married to Joel, one of our doctors who hales from the In His Image Residency program in our home of Tulsa.  She has become very involved in Honduras Mundial, a missionary sending organization dedicated to seeing a change  in the North Coast from a mission field to a missions force. She hosted a large fundraiser porch sale 2 weekends ago to raise money to send Hondurans to some currently open sites in the Muslim world. It was a big success- netting over $400. This is a local Christian family enjoying some of the products, then loading up on their moto to go home.

Today began the last of the Community Health Promoters classes that John spearheaded some years ago. World MAP was providing the funding and the teachers to come to us at Loma de Luz to teach about 25 local young people concepts of community health. They have lost their funding, so this 3 days will be the last. Today, we had more than the normal number of babies accompanying their moms, so added to the challenge. This 9 month old was helping me teach CPR!

Highlites of 3 months!

Eryn turned 14 in late April- but every day is a celebration with her!

3 months to put in a nutshell. That will teach me to procrastinate! A  prayer warrior in WA told us last week that she's noted some answers to our prayers for Eryn and Benton. Another reason to keep writing and sharing!Thats encouraging- since April, we've had 2 baptisms at the Margarita church, both Catholic young men who are becoming quite the evangelists under the mentoring of Anael, who many of you have followed over the years. Anael is now taking the majority of the responsibility for the leadership in the church. Norma, our coworker and initial founder of the work in Margarita, left in June, so Anael now has even more reason to exercise his gifts.

Raul and Gabriel after their baptism

Eryn finished up her 8th grade work with me, with all A's. She spend her last weeks in May constantly partying, saying her goodbyes, overnighting, last visits to the city dump with her mentor, Lisa.  She was very involved with Lisa's foster boys, helping teach them, babysitting, playing, etc. She returned to her mom and to Benton on June 2, and rapidly got involved there. Seems she and Benton have made good adjustments- the house is embarrassingly quiet and orderly! Thanks for all the prayers making the time with them here a success.

We spent a week in Tulsa, visiting the 3 kids there, and getting some testing done for John.As a result of that testing, we are taking steps to bring our work here to an end and to relocate to  the NW by end of fall. We are in the process of changing our status with our mission board to "part time, longterm", allowing us to continue making short trips down over the years to check on our scholarshipped students, bring down supplies, and generally just help out where needed and as we are able. All scholarships currently in process will continue. 

Benjamin adoring his mommy!

After a week in the NW with memorable times with our neighbors and my sister and husband, we went to Philadelphia for 3 nites to greet Benjamin, our new grandson. It goes without saying that, tho the coliseum in Rome, the Temple in Jerusalem, the Sea of Galilee were memorable, more incredible yet was being part of another grandchild's life. From there, we took off on a 2 1/2 week dream trip: Rome and Israel with Dr. Barnett, our old pastor from Tulsa. It was a gift to John for our 38th anniversary- I am not a giftgiver, so had to be good to make up for 38 years of unimaginative presents! John loved it!

John and I in Rome- major WOW!

We returned to Hospital Loma de Luz July 12, and life has settled back to normal: me in mostly teaching and support role, John seeing some patients, off to the outlying clinics with his faithful helpers to address the prenatal needs in rural areas, planning 2 mountain trips in the next week! We are again involved in the Margarita church as encouragers, delighted to see that the guitar I loaned to Raul, 15, about 2 months ago was put to good use and that Joni, 14, obeyed and taught him to play!  Privileged to hear the 2 of them leading the singing last PM- WOW! There is no greater joy than to see our "children" walking in truth here!
Frontrow Seating in Honduras, Penny and John

Recreating- The Lighter Side.

Seems only when we have "company" do we truly "recreate" and it IS just that, a kind of "re-creating", a restoring. While at the beach with our OB Nurse guests recently, got this shot of Eryn, Sarah, and Rebecca- out on a limb.  One can handle it when there are good friends at one's side, right?

NOT JUST ANY OLD PIZZA!

Guildy, MK Extraordinaire, pizza-maker

Just over a week ago, the McKenney's invited many over to enjoy fellowship with a group from Cornerstone International who joined us for a week of experiencing missions. Dr. Jeff, Rosanne, and an Italian visitor, Desi, introduced us to awesome wood-oven-baked pizza, Italian style. Nothing like it!

Eryn continues, with other young people, to minister with Lisa in the La Ceiba dump at least weekly. Here's a choice shot! Whether she is rocking a child or suckling a wee puppy, she does it all with Passion- and yes, thats a capital P! Pray for her as she finishes strong her last 9 weeks in Honduras, pray for missionary Lisa, (also hospital administrator), as its she who has helped light the passion in Eryn!

God works in a mysterious way His wonders to perform...

learning how the new ventilator works

1 1/2 yrs ago, when Miguel Angel was a wee newborn, the Lord set in motion a chain of events that led to this blog entry!  This little man needed to be resuscitated several times in as many days, involving hours of hand-ventilating by some visiting RN's who come yearly.  The Lord gave him life. Months later, Amber, one of the involved nurses, was on a cruise with her mom when she met 2 travelers with their elderly mom in a wheelchair. She shared a taxi with the 2 ladies at the cruise's end, and found the mom had died while the ship was in Roatan, off the N. coast of Honduras. Finding the daughters were respiratory therapists, she shared her Honduras story about hand-ventilating little Miguel Angel. They parted, having shared the website of Loma de Luz.

Months later, we got an email from a Deb Spilde, the respiratory therapist, looking for Amber Shields, who happens to be John's cousin.  They communicated over the months, and put together a grant proposal  for a ventilator, in memory of her mom, and in response to the story of saving Miguel Angel's life, which would certainly have been easier with a machine!  A grant was finally received for over $30,000, and Amber and her friend Lori went to Vancouver to take a day's training on the use of a beautiful ventilator, with capability of ventilating infants, children AND adults! This past week, they arrived to do training for our staff here at Loma de Luz!

Less than 24 hours later, there were 3 births consecutively. Our second, after an uneventful birthing and a great first 5 minutes, went rapidly downhill and began having major respiratory issues. Amber quickly ran for the ventilator and within 15 minutes, a very white, struggling baby pinked up and has had no further problems!  Imagine, a real life scenario to put into practice the previous day's teachings!
Later that day, we got this picture of the healthy newborn. Whew!  We are SO grateful to Vitalaire in Canada for this incredible investment in lives in Honduras and to Deb Spilde, RT, as well as to Amber and Lori who invested their own time to go to Canada for the training and then miss a week's work to come make this all possible.

"We have this moment to hold in our hands...."

Benton, white tshirt, leg extended

Winter is over. Spring has sprung in Honduras.  Think we may have dropped to 70 during rainy season!  Never halted the daily soccer games at the Children's Center.  Every day, same schedule. 3:30 arrives and all kids/ young people seem to head down to invade the Children's Center. 5:30 sees one of us head out in the truck and throws the bicycles in the back to save them the arduous trek up the mountain before the sun goes down and dinner gets served without them! Benton has played his last game with his Honduran friends- when we arrived in Tulsa for the visa trip last week, he  decided to stay instead of completing the school year in Honduras. He will begin a new public school next Monday.   We've seen many changes since he arrived 15 months ago- we pray for many more, and that he allows the Lord to complete the work thats been started.  We love you, B!
Eryn has just 3 months til completion of her 8th grade year, finishing strong in her online English course. She has made herself invaluable to our fellow missionary, Lisa, with her passion for the La Ceiba Dump. She's discovered she has a great gift for teaching little ones, as well as patching up boo-boos. We will hold tight to each day of these last 3 months she is with us in Honduras.

2 1/2 years ago, John got involved in the "Faith comes by Hearing" project, and several of our area people were trained to lead listening groups of the Proclaimer. Last weekend, we were blessed to be invited to a "graduation ceremony" of the 3 women ( of the original 14) who had completed listening to the New Testament in Garifuna.

John presenting a certificate of completion 

John doing what he does best!

A serious moment, always accompanied by a gentle touch.

John continues to meet outlying clinic OB needs and has grown the OB department to 12 deliveries a month at Hospital LDL. He deserves a standing ovation!!!!!