Been a while, and catching us up on what is going on is definitely more than one blog post can handle.  For example...pray for our rural farms, as there is government rumblings about making us and all our neighbors remove all our crops, for the good of the watersheds.  So pray...but if that previous sentence leaves you scratching your head, that is an appropriate reaction, but just no time to delve into that now, but suffice it to say, the impact to so many in the community could be devistating. (Seen below, the church in Sampedrana having a church service up on the farm property, a pretty cool thing!)

We have a medical team with us this week.  If I allowed myself to get cynical sometimes about teams like these, all you have to do is participate and talk to the people we are helping to realize how few options there are for care for so many people.  It is staggering really, and a great privilege to be able to serve in such a way.  So much need, and with more trips this year, all week we went to four different places we had never been.  

Seen below, if this posts correctly, is some good news.  The paving of the road in Cantarranas is now reaching the front door of the church/Milk Project.  A paved road there that connects to Talanga will be huge for mobility for people, for a lot less dust and illness, and less repair on vehicles.  (I'm keeping this positive and not thinking about the possibility of 12 speedbumps as well going in)

Also going on soon is trying to get all the Milk Project locations on their own electrical meters.  That's the kind of exciting behind the scenes stuff you don't get to normally hear.  Also that Maria and the staff have been looking for good, reliable, and cheap ways to have internet in the different projects (for homework, lessons, songs, etc.)  And how we fix the natural gas refrigerator in Las Botijas.  

The other good news is that in terms of the day to day working of the Milk Projects, we have been very much blessed with great teamwork and things going smoothly.  There have been some changes of some of the kids, usually related to moves, school issues, distance to get there, etc.  It is awesome though to see how much the kids want to be there, and the wide variety of things that they get to do every day, as things grow, expand and get more and more creative.  
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Before Valerie and I came back to Honduras, we were at a Christian Medical conference, and got to hear from a missionary doctor who was sharing some of his story, and the slide below.  I had not seen something spelling it out like that, but it was interesting to see the struggle of three sides of medical care, and that doing all three is seemingly not feasible:  caring for the poor, sustainable care, and excellent care.  You can do two, but not three.  

As we continue to look at how we can grow the clinic work into doing surgeries, especially in light of what I just mentioned, it is intimidating.  But as I said about groups earlier...there are so many out there than need help.  It is a fight, but one I am looking forward to seeing how God will provide.  Because seemingly like everything else, and more and more as we grow, try to improve, and do things better, I find myself saying "I don't know how to do that"  "I don't have the answer"  "I don't think I have the skills to do this"  and more.  

The more I know...the more I realize I don't know.  And I can see that this pattern will continue.  It is scary.  It is humiliating.  And it is God sized.  We are starting to bite off some of those God sizes pieces already in preparation and trying to move forward.  

A few years ago, thinking about how much bigger this is than what I can even attempt to do, would have kept me awake at night.  Actually, it used to some times.  And sometimes the temptation comes still.  But, He knows.  

I have tried four ways now to tie this together...let's just see what happens?

The Milk Project opened in Danli yesterday.  It will take a while to get the kinks worked out, but it does get "easier" after six different locations now.  Another community will be blessed, a church will be a bigger part of their community, and outreach will be improved.  There is a lot of behind the scenes things, from boring, scary, complicated, and otherwise running the gamut.  It won't be easy, being as far away as it is, and in the area it is, but the direction and ability to get this far has been clear.

We spent $5,000 on pavers to improve the road to the farm in Sampedrana back in December...it takes this long for the company to make them, and this week, all week, most of our trucks are transporting all that to the farm.  The farm staff will be putting in some of them, and we will be using two groups in March to help as well. 

I can't tell you how exciting I find this.  Something that I know for many reading this won't make sense.  I am excited not mostly for me, as I don't get to drive up there very often (maybe more often when the road is better eh?) but everyone else that lives on that road and works using that road.  This is a long term investment that will improve safety and many lives now and to come, Lord willing.  

Also Lord willing...we will need to buy even more of these if we can afford it/fundraise for it.  And we need to pray that they are the game changer we believe them to be.  Game changer...in transportation?  Don't get me started talking about how infrastructure can change lives in the short and long term.  

Church service, in a home, coming from patients coming to the clinic.  Wow.  

We didn't have this like as a goal or something, but in a way something we have been praying over for since the beginning.  And we honestly don't have a clue what this means long term, are we talking about another church plant?  No?  Yes?  This house is just a few blocks from the clinic.  There are other churches in the area...including next door!  But there are patients, nearer and further, that aren't churched.  How do we respond, and plan to respond?  Mostly right now, in prayer. 

We have had four groups already this year, and the last two were medical teams.  It is easy to get focused on all the details doing those.  I was focused right before I took this picture, trying to explain some optometric options to a patient that needed a lot of explaining.  It was somewhat difficult though due to all the crying and screaming.  I tuned it out, but when the patient left, I took a moment to see if this was out of the ordinary or just the normal stuff.  Turns out, the mother there is holding a small child that had a plastic piece lodged in its ear.  The doctors could have referred him, left it for someone else to do...from what I literally heard and how long it took...it was somewhat involved.  But they worked hard and got it out.  Then we learned from the crying mom that they had tried somewhere else, and even had the child admitted previously, but the situation wasn't fixed.  

I have statistics and numbers of how many were seen, and they are impressive, but the real life stories...known and unknown, the prayers, and lives impacted...are beyond me.  

Ingris, our new group coordinator helping take those pavers to Sampedrana sent me this picture today. 

I thought it was beautiful, for metaphorical reasons mostly.  The seen and the unseen.  What is ready for harvest, and what soon will be.  The fact that someone long ago looked at this fruit, and looked beyond the fruit to what was inside.  

Thanks be to God that He sees what we don't, works where we don't think there is a chance, brings things about otherwise unthinkable.  

There is a lot we are planning that seems unthinkable, or undoable, (right now!  Like...we just today bought property to build a hospital?!!?  How is that going to happen?!?)...and yet we are on a path clearly laid out for us, even if we can't see but for a few steps ahead.  Praying for the steps, for faith, for the help we will need, and all the help we don't even know we will need!

Change is a funny word.  Both desired and feared, avoided and sought out.  All depends on your point of view and desires I suppose.  Part of our leadership in Honduras thinks we are changing and progressing too slowly...for others it feels like being drug along behind a truck at speed.  

Above is a change in the Milk Project in Tegucigalpa, re-creating one of the classrooms to better handle the youngest of the students and separate the ages out a bit.  The paint we had purchased in 2024 for groups to use painting murals...but none did, so they will have plenty to get started on new murals such as this one, as well as re-painting some on the property wall that faces the road that haven't aged well over the last four years.  ​

The optometry group that was here last week saw quite a few people that even though they were far away, we referred to the clinic if they could get there for the difficult prescriptions they had.  Giving them something to get them by, but often times 1/2 or a 1/3 of what they needed.  When talking high prescriptions...that is a lot missing.  

Seen above is one of those patients that came quite quickly!  Being a -19.00 or so, one can understand why.  For those who don't know those kind of numbers, it is kind of like 10 times stronger, (in an inverse way), than a pair on the shelf to read with at the pharmacy.  

We are working on a plan how to handle the farms this year with all the trees we have planted...how will those harvests be distributed?  What about the timing?  What about the different quantities?  It will be a bumpy ride for sure, but getting started talking about it helps.  

This week though, a test planting of yuca came ready...and it was enough to feed all the kids in the Milk Project in Cantarranas.  

Another change of many with the new office building is the restructuring of the electrical meters and connections.  I include this because a lot of change is...hard.  Change isn't easy to process, isn't easy to make sure you are going the right way, isn't easy to handle when you find out you aren't going the right way, and in many other ways...it can just suck.  

Getting the permit for the new meter (to be placed there on the right) was shockingly done in one trip.  I thought that was at least one good/easy change.  Of course...they did say it will take 25-40 days to actually get it done.  And we will presume that will actually happen without a hitch, right?  

Yeah, we will need to paint there, and redo that mural...oh and the gate and door need painted.  Oh...change, change change.  What sometimes is hard to accept, is that change is constantly coming at us.   

We see a lot of change coming this year, both good and challenging.  I imagine it will all come too slow...and seemingly all at once as well. 

The good thing is that when changes suck, when they seem to be good, when we are so frustrated we just want to cry...we can remember James 1:17

"Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows."

We have all received the good gifts...but when the shifting shadows are all we can see, we can always come back to the Rock which does not change or shift.  Amen y amen.  

The mission is sending out an appeal as the year draws to a close, and this post is to expound more about what is being asked.  

As we look back through the year, and look to the future, these are three things, in three different areas of the mission, that we see as priorities moving forward. 

We had a lot of help to get a long way with the church building in Danli.  We are going to spend some more money though (and already have) to finish the Milk Project portion of the building.  The floor, paint, windows, bars on windows, tables, chairs, appliances, plates, cups...you get the idea.  Some of the things we got on previous containers (we have a fridge and TV for example) but there is a lot left to do, and we won't be able to open until this gets done, because there just isn't anywhere else to meet while we wait.  (The church meeting space upstairs isn't finished either...one thing at a time.)

So this is a great timely opportunity to give, because we can see that finishing the physical work will directly allow us to start with the kids that have already been selected for us to start.  We are hoping if the money comes in, we can open by February.  

You can donate for this specific project here

This is a big project...and a long time coming, even from before 2024.  

We have debated and looked into the advantages and disadvantages of different properties for sale in Tegucigalpa and outside of Tegucigalpa.  Buying property here is never an easy proposition, and looking into a lot of different facets, led us to choosing this property that is just outside of town.  The cost benefit versus trying to find something closer is HUGE.  It looks like we are past one of our farms or something, but there are neighbors in nice homes down the main dirt road that connects to the main highway to Tegucigalpa. 

We are taking steps to make a hospital a reality, but also we are realistic that it will not be quick or easy.  This property allows us to do some basic road work, set up some fence, smaller buildings for housing construction equipment, etc. to set us up for the long term when bigger things need to happen.  We can use groups and some smaller donations in the future to get those balls rolling.   

We are also looking at adding two ambulatory (walk in and walk out same day) surgical suites in Tegucigalpa at the clinic, which would be done and working before we finish the hospital on this site...it is all part of a longer plan to bring all this together in a healthy way.  I won't go into all the details, but the board of directors and us locally in Honduras are working on this and looking at the many different steps it will take for us to get there.  

But...it all hinges on getting this property purchased first.  

You can donate for this specific project here

And the last area is one that for those familiar with His Eyes, has been something we have been working on for several years.  Road work. Doing this on the farms is expensive, labor intensive, and hard to schedule since it can currently only be done during the dry season.  

But...we have a new answer.  

The picture on the left is from a recent installation of $500 worth of pavers.  These things are huge, and weigh a ton.  Well, that is, $500 worth were several tons. 

These give much needed stability to the hills, and will also help clean up from mud slides.  Some of those mudslides might be helped as well from some greater ground stabilization.

Oh...and they will be a lot easier to drive on as well!  

We have some groups coming, and we have some guys working on the farm...and we want to order $5,000 worth of these to install.  Right now, we are thinking all of them will go to Sampedrana, since that is where the worst of the roads we face are, but in the future, some could go to Las Botijas, and Cantarranas as well for the farm there.  But, these $5,000 worth if we can raise the money...will take us a good long while going into 2025 to put into place, and boy will we be happy for all that work...it will be life changing for a lot of people, and help us do more, no matter the weather or time of year, in a lot of different places.  

You can donate for this specific project here

If you are still reading this, thank you.  

I wanted to add an extra thanks to those of you that not only give, but also pray for these items, and everything else going on in the mission.  There are several other areas we could bring up as appeals, but these were carefully selected as we look at what we are doing, and what we will be doing as a mission.  

From time to time someone asks if this is overwhelming.  It certainly can be, especially when we take our eyes off of Him who is making it all happen.  Then we can sink into worry, stress and more.  Prayers help us in the highs and lows of our own rhythms, as do donations to help us keep going and doing more for Christ!

I helped a bit this week with the medical brigade that is visiting us.  I was particularly keen this week to take time to think about what was happening around me.  Who were the patients being helped?  How amazing is it to see people study for years, and then be able to visibly make a difference in a few minutes in other's lives...and on and on.  

Yesterday, as sometimes happens, before, and then while I was conversing and setting up this Jets fan with some readers he needed, I was seeing/hearing/feeling a heaviness, in that I was in fact accomplishing nothing, that it doesn't matter, and everyone can clearly see that I am just wrong about everything.  

Thankfully, I had just been listening to a sermon on the way there by Tim Keller (the group members in the cab with me were rather quiet, so we went that route instead of music) talking about persevering and dealing with attacks.  Also, interestingly, on Sunday Rony in Las Botijas preached on something very similar.  

I took the picture as this was going through my mind, because I imagine I am not alone fighting such battles.  It is one thing when you know you are screwing up, but quite another thing to be struggling with such feelings when in fact good is happening around you. 

​When attacks come, from outside or inside, where do we go?

Clothes were purchased for all the work that will be done in the coming weeks to measure all the Milk Project children to see what they will need for Christmas this year.  Here we are in Cantarranas doing some measurements...one of 220 children to measure.  That's a lot of measuring/writing/planning.  

Work continues on the clinic campus, with the roof up on the second floor of the office building, and the walls going up as well.  This is a separate crew from our regular guys, who are still working on the office building itself with all the details left to do.  As you can see...it will be a big building space up there.  

Right now, we are just doing the roof and walls for the water issues we were having with the floor, plus the heat issues for the office building.  Perhaps next year we will work with groups to put up the false ceiling and setting up the new porch, but it will be a while before that all gets built out.

Turns out, the word persevere originates way back being "very strict" or "very severe."  

Persevering, staying the course in doing good, in the right frame of mind, in resting in the shadow of the Almighty, requires continual training, and a mindset of very strictly moving forward in Him. 

Otherwise, even in times of good, "stuff" will conspire to throw us off course.  

I thought it interesting some of the pictures I received already this week.  Again, as so many blog posts just present themselves, I didn't plan this. 

Above shows the church in Guayavillas doing a clothing sale for people in the community on their own, with a donation of clothign pastor Javier recieved.  

Another photo from Talanga showing a youth retreat from this weekend.  I forgot to download another picture Manuel shared of them doing a separate trip for prayer and fasting with adults as well.  

Jeffry working on the bathrooms in the new office building, finding a way to make the very nice, high quality faucets (that were donated) work with our pedestals, since the pre-drilled openings are different from what was included.  In the end...you can't see the custom adaptation. 

The guys working on more detail and improvement work for the new office building.  Groups have done a ton of work, but a lot of the details and little things add up, plus, some big steps (like the stucco) happen when no one is around to see usually.

Jose Luis, the spiritual development director in the clinic, has also started doing some cross over work, also reaching out to talk, offer prayer, and Bible studies with some of the families in the Milk Project in Tegucigalpa

There are many people working in the mission, in different ways, seen and unseen.  Well, maybe unseen or unshared by us sometimes, but God sees all.  We are grateful for the work so many are doing for Christ, trying to see the world around them...in their church, their neighborhood, clinic, construction etc.  May God be praised, shared, and exalted!  

Meetings at the mission have often looked like this over the years, in a not-yet-finished building, improvising while looking towards the future. 

This one is with pastor Edwin in Danli, with Maria and Oscar, talking about the future Milk Project location there.  (This is upstairs in the new church meeting space, the Milk Project would be downstairs next to the parsonage we built there.)  

We don't have enough sponsors to start there yet...but this time we are working ahead, to be ready, or as ready as we can be, for when the time comes, which will prayerfully be sometime in 2025.  Depends on how fast new sponsors sign up, since we aren't fully sponsored in the other five locations yet.  

The work digging out the future fish farming location in Cantarranas has finished, (for now) and now comes the part of seeing how well it holds water, while making plans on how much initial investment we would need, and ongoing care needs.  

Hopefully this will be another area to advance in 2025, after we finish the house where Hector, the farm manager, would live.  We will be planting more fruit trees here long term as well, as we have funding and help available, possibly with more groups.  

Got two pictures this week from Jose Luis, the clinic spiritual development director, who shared a mix of Clinic/Church/Milk Project without intending...on the left is Xiomara and her granddaughter Emeli and her son Yostin.  Emeli is also in the Milk Project.  And Don Teodulo came to the clinic, and Jose Luis has been visiting him since, doing Bible studies, praying for him and his family, and this week blessing him with a Bible.  

The clinic expanding more into spiritual care this year has been huge, and the ability to use the rural clinics as well helping the community, churches, and Milk Projects is just kind of mind blowing to see, especially just thinking what we were doing just a few years ago.  

Marvin put together this handout for an upcoming conference on October 19th.  While the office building isn't ready yet, we are still trying to schedule what we can, where we can.  Next year though, we are hoping to do many of these, with different areas of emphasis.  

I am in the midst of trying to put together the budget for 2025, and while every year that is an interesting proposition for a mission like ours, this coming year looks to be even more interesting...in a good way!  Some things that we have planned for, some we want to plan for, and some as yet not fully seen. These pictures represent just a fragment of everything coming new/different/growth. 

I usually don't want to go into details about things that are not yet 100% sure/known, but we are definitely praying about hiring two new staff members to help handle the growth and spread some of the workload out.  We also have enough construction projects already going that we have priority lists for things that have to wait, and there are several other things possibly God will bring about coming in 2025 (including over 20 groups!)  

Pray with us going forward...for God inspired decisions, new hires, plans, and financial/manpower help to make it all come together!  

Did you know we have a Gator for the farm in Las Botijas?  I was skeptical at first that it would be useful enough to justify the cost.  Wow, was I impressed. It is expensive, but so easy to use on the farm, to get things around, in tight spaces, and at less cost hour to hour in rural settings like that.  

We have the opportunity to get another one, at a greatly reduced cost. We have already been blessed with $1,000 towards the $15,000 total we need to raise (the actual value of the Gator would be $22,000)

​This one would go to Sampedrana. going back and forth between the church and up to the farm.  It is a very cool opportunity to get this one, especially now that we know how well they can serve the farms.  If you want to donate...you can do that here:

  

The work has begun on creating the pond to house the tilapia in the farm in Cantarranas.  We are a long way from having fish, but this is a good start at least.  

The fish is a way we are praying we can produce enough financially, to cover all the rest of the fruit trees on the farm giving them away in the community, church, and Milk Projects.  

Pray for these unique little concrete contraptions.  They weigh 40 pounds, and we are going to try a test implementation of these on the road to the farm in Sampedrana to help with the road construction.  If these work, they could greatly improve our ability to do more road work, throughout the year.    

We have to wait for enough of them to be made, to try a small test area with $500 worth.  It would be so much easier and cheaper than pouring concrete, it just remains to be seen if they will be a good fit.  

The FAME container came a little while back.  The interesting thing has been this year giving out some of the supplies has been more structured, with Jose Luis (clinic spiritual director) doing more of it as he does house visits and Bible studies.  We always request wheelchairs, canes, crutches, etc. as well as adult diapers, as they are very expensive in Honduras.  It is great to see those go to so many who need the physical help, and also get to hear the Good News, the reason we are able to do all this in the first place. 

The Milk Project locations are continuing the tradition of making piñatas, for use for holidays but also to share with the churches where they are.  (These here are in Cantarranas)

Please pray with us...there are many different projects, like the ones above, some funded and just to do, some we need funding, all though which need to be covered in prayer for successfully being carried out.  

The pastor's meeting this month was a national pastor's meeting, held a couple hours North of Tegucigalpa.  Development and care of the pastors is something we need to focus more on, especially once the office building is finished.  We are even hoping some specialized groups or parts of groups in the future will be able to pour more into pastors, leaders, Milk Project staff and/or all three.  

A lot of times, meetings and encouragement/training times don't photograph well, but for the future of the churches, of the mission, we need to do more, better, and consistently.  

Two year anniversary this week of the Milk Project in Las Botijas.  We had some dental gift bags a group had left to distribute (seen in the picture some of them getting those)  

It hasn't been easy, but the expansion of the Milk Project into the churches, as fast or as slowly as that seems to be unfolding, was not something we saw at the beginning, but definitely now can see how it fits into not just pouring into the communities where we work, but also by extension the church going forward.  

I have a picture from the clinic spiritual development progress, but don't want to share that publically.  Instead, enjoy this picture from Sampedrana one of the kids learning to treat the wounds of a classmate in the Milk Project. 

The clinic spiritual work has been doing so well since starting in January.  The picture I am not sharing, is of a patient that came to the clinic suffering from depression after the death of a love one.  She lives about a twenty minute walk from the clinic.  For three months, Jose Luis has been visiting her, talking, studying the Bible, and praying.  One of several such pictures and stories not being shared here.

Some that were just here might be seeing the picture above and saying...What?  We just poured concrete there!  Yes we did.  

We are opening those holes to put up columns to support a new pad up above, to tie into the new building and mission house patio.  

What's up?  Well, to keep a long story a little shorter, we are using some group funds and building funds, to put up the second story on the office building.  Not the concrete and third floor concrete roof...but metal walls and a metal roof.  That will be good enough for the next 5-15 years if not more.  And if we need to go higher soon/sooner, we can take this down, and essentially move it up to the next floor.  Easy peasy...ish.  

This will keep the building cooler, eliminate our water issues with the way the roof was poured (still not happy about that) and essentially give us some breathing room/storage.  We will be working out how to keep a porch with a view long term, especially to avoid a revolt from groups. 

Likely, eventually we could build out that space for groups to use, bedrooms, bathrooms, instead of or addition to, the duplex, but that remains to be seen.

How are all these above items connected?  I don't think I'll write a great essay to probe that, but in my mind, they definitely are.     

As you can see below (hopefully...depends on your device) mangos are growing in Las Botijas.  It is always nice to see pictures like this, of trees that a group planted last year already bearing fruit.  They are small trees still, and not a lot of fruit...but it is a healthy start.  

I don't have to reach very hard here to see a metaphor brewing, do you?

The clinic container unloaded from FAME, distributing some of the items has begun in earnest...Jose Luis in his job as spiritual development director of the clinic is doing more home visits one day a week, and taking some supplies to those that need them. 

He has a lot of people asking him where "our" church is in Tegucigalpa since he is doing the work of a pastor.  So far, we just point them to different churches in their area, but we are praying if God is taking us down a road of starting something in Tegucigalpa, we shall see.  With something like that, we want to pray, take our time, and see how God leads for sure...rather than running into something that seems so exciting.   

The office building is getting the pieces coming together...it feels so slow, but there are so many hands helping...a lot of group hands over the past seven weeks, and a lot of local hands as well.  A group this week started the painting process on the exterior, and several helpers we hired are pushing through this week to finish it all up.  Still lots to do...but so close now, you can almost see it all coming together.  The garage below also has a lot left to do, but also...a lot less than just a couple months ago!