"Shall we gather at the river..."

Anael, Bessie, and Rigo Andino

Sunday saw another baptismal service for the Church at Margarita- this time Bessie and Edwin, 2 more siblings from a catholic family that have become delightful additions to the growing family here. There are now 4 of the children baptized and actively serving in reaching out to the mountain communities with Anael, on the left in the picture. Rigo Andino(R) and his family have been helping Anael with the church leadership since last summer.  Less than 2 weeks and we will again be with these awesome folks, applauding at what the Lord is doing!

"Shall we gather at the river..."

A time to mourn and a time to dance....

Receive regular news from our Honduran home and wanted to pass on something for you all to lift up in prayer. Veronica is a young woman who has worked at the hospital since before John and I arrived in 2004. She left to get married and have her children, and came back to us to work in the lab a few years ago. This past weekend, her husband was murdered in San Pedro. Please remember she and the children in the aftermath of this tragedy. Also pray for our fellow missionary, Christine, as she is particularly close to Veronica, having been her supervisor in the lab.

Sabbatical- a long Sabbath rest, right? In ways this past 3 months has provided that- daily exercise in a nearby gym to stave off the seasonal affective disorder, and using that exercise time to listen to favorite podcasts like John Piper and Alistair Beggs. We've both done a LOT of reading, as our church here has a great library, and we find we can read on the treadmill or elliptical machine! Always loved to multitask.  I've learned to knit and crochet,  and almost done with scarves for the 3 littlest grandgirls. We've enjoyed being in much better touch with all the kids and grands during this time home.  Here's 4 of them celebrating Savannah's birthday. She had a mermaid party, I think it was!

Winter Wonderland

Dark and gloomy below the inversion- but gloriously sparkly and sunny, with cloudless skies, above!  Kind of like life at times! Our friends of 40 years took us snowshoeing on New Years Day- and the outing gave us new perspective!

We visiting our Honduran neighbors, the Greenes,(here in Wa.  in Bellingham). What a fun reunion! We met their adult kids, their grandkids, and managed to take in a delightful Celtic Christmas concert.  The main fiddler was a Scottish miss, who could dance, fiddle, and sing all at the same time!  Made us homesick for Iain and Liz McKenzie back in Honduras, with 2 hours of that accent!

After Christmas, the cabinet man arrived for a day of BIG MESSES to put in the countertop. Now have hooked up dishwasher, and rearranged cabinets, waiting expectantly for arrival of the remaining few cabinets to complete the kitchen project the end of January. Then we can put in all the flooring- these past months here we've been treading lightly on plywood flooring to prevent slivers!
We've delighted in calls from our Honduran coworkers, and missionary friends. Xiomara, now doing her social service at the hospital, seems to be thriving. We talked to her and her 5 yr old son this week- sure put smiles on our faces! Another 2 coworkers are revving up to begin nursing school in February- that will make 7 homegrown nurses! A slow trickle has begun to enter the workforce at the hospital- raised in the area, with family there, so not likely to leave us! Slowly they are learning to use email so keeping in better touch when we're out of Honduras. Looking forward to returning February 8, just in time for opening day of this year's LPN program, in which we will have 2 scholarshipped students again, one in the private and one in the public. God is good in providing the needs of Loma de Luz!

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