ascend

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It's hard, I can kind of see, to understand the roads in Honduras and what challenges they present to getting around, and doing...anything.  

Take for example this picture.  To the uninitiated eye, looks like just a road and some gravel.  

What you can't see is...
1. How steep this is
2. The dump truck
3. How the truck almost tipped over on the road
4. All the work to unload the precariously balanced truck, and then reload into the Fords to make it the rest of the way.  
5. Knowing that this is the EASY farm to reach with a dump truck...not even an option for the other areas we work.  

All this to get the gravel there to work on building the clinic next to the Milk Project and church there in Las Botijas.

Just one trip...but represents a weekly battle, just getting around.  

Those who have been around for this year especially, and for a while, know we share about these pesky issues, and our poor vehicles that make the trips and sometimes don't make it back.  

In the not-great picture above taken by our customs agent, you can see the next step forward: we have purchased a new Land Cruiser pickup to help the farms/moving material work!   

This one will be for Sampedrana primarily.  The white 2000 F-250 we have for that farm...has been down almost all year with problems.  This Land Cruiser should last 20 years or more with good care, and given the global craziness, we were fortunate to be able to get a new one, and even fully optioned (for us...that means a winch, cow catcher, and other safety equipment) will be about $35,000 all told.  

We have been saving what we can from people drinking coffee, but we are still about $17,000 short of having this fully funded.  We have been using our group vehicles to help with this, but that isn't helping us maintain those vehicles for when we have groups!  

Want to donate to help us pay this off?  It will be coming home this week, so it will be working while we figure out how to balance the books, but given the options available, this was by far the clear winner on all fronts. 

If you have questions about the backstory of how we could get this with supply chain issues, want to know why this is the best overall option, what it is equipped with that makes it great for this use, or anything else...please send me an email!  

If you want to donate though to help us get this funded and take a load of our minds, click here to help!