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