His Eyes

I have been meaning to take the time to blog for some time.  To share some deeper and more involved updates on many of things happening around us and in us, but man, time just gets away from me for other obligations, and sometimes those obligations include actively trying to not do anything.  

I'll admit that I have some issues with the large grouping of music labeled Jazz.  Not all of it, but sometimes, in not a judgy, or "I'm better than that" way, it just did not impress me.  Again, not all of it as a whole, but some...sometimes it just felt a little too thrown together, like anyone could just sit down and do it.  

Listening to excerpts from this album (link below)
https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/well-i-should-have/1049424846 
(from voice actor H. Jon Benjamin, whom I knew best from "Bob's Burgers") who does not know how to play piano, yet still records a jazz album, I found rather interesting and just made me think.

Not to get too much into my train of thoughts and its dirt road, but if I think about life a little bit too much, it all does seem a little jazz-like.  Take that for what you will, I could expound on it...but I fear it would become some kind of small book.

As you might be aware, mission life around these parts has several foci, playing different solos and then also playing together.  

Lately though a new instrument of the road/entrance/gate construction has been taking center stage as we try to get everything ready for when the road officially re-opens all nice, neat, and white concrete.  As I have mentioned, this was not something we anticipated being part of the budget to start the year, since we didn't know the main road was to be paved.  Although, it is a pleasant surprise to be sure, it is a costly one.  We have not received much directed financial help for leveling the entrance, and have had to cut back from other mission efforts to pull it off.  

Fear not, I will include a link below of course if you want to help the mission.  As it stands, this year is proving to be a tough one in some big ways.  General donations are down quite a bit.  We have had fewer groups and group members.  Our upcoming trip to the US  to visit supporters and make new connections seems to be timely indeed.  

The rest of the work on the entrance project should be done in the next week or two, as we finally have a welder on site to tackle quite a few projects that have needed done, and raising the gate is a big one.  (Note to self...start a welding school somehow in the future, as welders seem to be in quite short supply whenever we try to find one.)  

Another big part of the picture above is the mission house remodel.  We have had some big help to get to where that is this year, pretty big strides.  Unfortunately the remodel will go silent for a while.  We had to let Rolando go from full time employment at the end of June due to lack of funding.  If enough donations come together, we might be able to throw him some more work on a job by job basis maybe in a month or two.  We still need to finish off the enclosure and windows, and then focus on walls and wiring on the new first floor.  Hopefully we can get back on that to some extent still this year.  

We completed our first big export of green Hill Climber coffee to a supporting Church in Florida.  How that will play out  to help there as well as to improve our operations side of things here God will reveal in His timing.  The idea is that we will use the money from selling the coffee in Florida to help build/fix/make better systems for harvesting and drying the coffee in Honduras to make its quality that much better.  

The Milk Project in Sampedrana is closer to getting started. We have identified the 25 children to get started (12 from the Church, 13 from the community) and the building is mostly ready to go.  Working on details for the day to day operations and the people that will oversee and implement everything is the missing key right now, and that takes prayer, planning, and discussion.  This takes more time than I would like personally, but it is not something we want to take lightly, as these are big first steps for the future of the viability of the project.   

We still need to figure out how to improve the road to the coffee farm in Sampedrana. And finish the caretaker/harvester house that needs to be built. The work on the clinic entrance and then the start of the rainy season makes it more problematic.  

Thanks to the group from Swiss Cove Christian Church and the Ohlsen family, we did our first group activity in Las Botijas in June, an eye brigade.  We saw just over 50 patients, which for a first event at the Church, which is not exactly downtown like in Sampedrana, this was a pretty good turnout, and very, very few of those patients had ever previously had an eye exam.  

Preparations for our US trip are mostly mental at this point...dates, some wrap up activities, and making sure we are ready to move everything to one of the containers on the property.  We think we are ready...well, as ready as we can be.  Truth be told, it is a scary business full of unknown and possibility for disappointments and failures.  Kind of like Jazz.  But I digress yet again.

I could go on about good things and hard things.....the new ultrasound use in the clinic, the new OBGYN, the new evangelism position for the clinic, the new Ford, work by the Church in San Juancito on their failing roof, the wall progress in Cantaranas, the struggling Church plant in Danli, the green pepper farming in Cantarranas, our special 76th child in the Milk Project in Tegucigalpa, and some of the recent deaths and health issues being dealt with around the mission family.  

I am not one for making grandiose statements, but as I write this, I feel like we are at a sort of key point for the mission...a financial one for sure, and one for many potential good, or challenging, dominos to come (such as some of the those listed above), and several more not yet mentioned but possibilities still in more of silent prayer and thought.  

Your prayers for our ability to be effective for God's work here while in the US would be most appreciated, as well as contacting us if you have any ideas for potential groups that could come, Churches with whom we could meet, or individuals that might want to help the work here.  We want to do our best, but ultimately we can only do that with help to make connections

You as well can always help, with a check sent to the address below or a PayPal donation made via the link below.  

His Eyes
9903 Indian Lake Blvd
Indianapolis IN  46236

PayPal

The Milk Project continues to look for ways to engage the kids and teach them.  The core is Christ, but how that is done on a daily basis can be done in a wide variety of ways.  

Including, taking care of our environment.  And specifically, the environment right around us.  Not just busy work, and not just free labor, but Maria decided to talk to the kids about litter and helping clean up our neighborhood, starting with the clinic property.  

I would be remiss if I did not include that Maria does this in our neighborhood as well as she lives very close, and with the road construction even fewer people are keeping up on keeping things clean, and she has been collecting and taking trash to the appropriate drop off location  for a while now.  
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These kinds of ideas and opportunities are great because they are about changing our country through changing our neighborhood.  

Same with the continuing sewing ministry.  Sewing is a life long skill, but also just good to develop some confidence and learn new things.  Not to mention that you can then make all sorts of cool stuff.  

Pretty soon we will need to get some new materials for them to use as their skills grow, a good problem to have.

The new machine you see here is part of several that were purchased via a special donation made just for that purpose.  




And there is time for fun as well.  This special day was a time to dress up, do some runway modeling (including dresses as well as sports figures among the different girls that participated)

Celebrating holidays, birthdays, and the like are great fun, because they do not all get celebrated all the time in their homes.  

This year as well everyone has been working towards a special project of making piñatas for all the mission Churches for children's day (which is in September) which means in total they will try to make almost 20 piñatas.  This is great for teamwork, creativity, and saving some money being a side benefit for all told.  





Here are a few of the newly added children to the Milk Project, after a very successful drive at Outlook Christian Church, we are at 75 children total!  That puts all of the children we had on the waiting list, no longer waiting!  

With Sampedrana coming online soon, we will probably keep it at 75 until we get all those new children sponsored.  

We are all learning, and praying God continue to guide us! 


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We had a medical team this past month of May, from Bring Good News.  Many of you know that for a few years now, we have been changing the format we use for such groups, and trying to use them more effectively...just better, in a way that makes the most long lasting impact for Christ, both physically and spiritually.  We don't claim to have nailed that yet, but each time we make a tweak, it seems to go well, in different ways, and just leads us to discuss more ideas and ways on how to use these to help the Church, evangelize, and as well provide long lasting physical impact for the families and the community.  

This particular trip was also unique because of the partnership with BGN, and some of the resources they brought to the table.  We were able to take Valerie with us every day to do optometry exams and have readers with us, do ultrasound exams with the new portable unit, and our dentists organized several students to do different dental work.  

​One of the biggest things to juggle is how to balance spiritual outreach, imparting teaching information useful for education/prevention with seeing as many people as we can mostly in areas where the need outweighs what we can do one day a year (for those curious, we saw just under 200 patients average for each day between all the areas.)  All this while not requiring six hours attendance for everyone that comes. We want this to be something that is seen as a value for anyone that comes as well, not something just where we think we are doing it a better way.  

BGN also brought funds to do a leadership/pastoral training seminar for one day.  It was expensive, but we were able to gather 50 people from at least six different Churches.  We look forward to more opportunities to do these kind of events in the future as well, they are so helpful in impacting so many that in turn impact many more.  

How do we use resources, teams, seminars...all questions we continue to wrestle with, in a good way.  

It seems an update regarding the coffee farms would be good via this medium where we can expand a bit more than just a regular email update. 

You might not know it, but the farming we do (all of it really it just so happens that most of it is coffee focused) has a focus on...providing employment, being self sustaining, producing quality products, looking out for the environment, and doing all in the name of God.  Overall it needs to provide funds to not only self sustain itself, but also to help with the other areas of ministry.  

So that is the goal, and the reason we do it.

It wasn't always in our plans, and originally came about from there being coffee plants on the Church property in Sampedrana.  Quickly it spread from there, but this is probably not the place for a complete history of our involvement with farming and coffee.

Currently there are two farms where our focus is coffee, in Las Botijas (1.5 hours from Tegucigalpa) and Sampedrana, both of which are quite large, and then one farm in Cantaranas of a few acres that is not suitable for coffee, and another small plot near the Church in San Juancito that we have basically turned over to the Church to use themselves.  

2018 is starting with finishing one construction project that was almost a half decade in the making (the Milk Project building) and working on several continuing projects in different phases of development.  

To show the Milk Project building finished is hard because there is just so much more space, and more than one level even to show (four different levels total.)  

​Here you can see the lowest level, closest to the clinic, of the play area.  Up from there is the storage for food and supplies, and potentially a future classroom, along with bathroom and cleaning area.  The main level has most of the operating area...main entrance, kitchen, bathrooms, sewing room, computer room, library, and classrooms.  

The upper level is serving its purpose very well right now of keeping the main level nice and cool even in warm days.  It is impressive.  That upper level is very basic right now, since we are not sure how it will be needed in the future.  However, we have already been able to put it to use with extra game space for the kids, and as well hosting the entire mission activity we had in late February, when the board of directors was here.  There is no electricity or any finishing features installed here yet, but that is according to plan (and our budget.)  But the big wide open space is a good set up for the time being for such meetings, which was a nice bonus! 

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Speaking of the Milk Project, plans are proceeding with the expansion in Sampedrana.  There has been a lot of talking about how to best proceed with the execution and selecting the children involved (the Church is wanting more than 50% to be children not from the body itself) and while forming rules, time, menus and such still come together, construction has begun, putting the kitchen above the current Sunday school rooms.  Thanks to Swiss Cove Christian Church we have the funds to get the kitchen fully built out and mostly equipped as well.  

We took advantage of a group from Sherwood Oaks Christian Church to spur on a few other construction initiatives as well...first being getting the mission house remodel in Tegucigalpa under way now that the Milk Project building is finished. First was eliminating pretty much everything that was in the old first floor, as you can see here.  We have actual plans for this floor and the entire new building when it will be completed.

Those plans include these columns which will be formed in the current parking area, and long story short...the building will be one building with one entrance when this is done, not two separate floors if you will.  It will be much more spacious upstairs, and downstairs accommodate 22 people on double bunks.  Why the columns and how all this will work?  More to come on this as we can make progress, but we are not expecting to finish this (money being the factor slowing things) until hopefully June 2019.  




We also took a big step adding on to the farm home in Cantaranas, as we hope this building will get a more permanent long term resident, especially as we hope to expand planting fruit trees here soon, along with pastor Jonathan expanding the use of the main farm land.  The added room we hope will allow for an inside bathroom and kitchen.  


Aside from us doing construction, there is also plenty of road work going on outside the clinic campus.  We are anticipating the main entrance being closed for hopefully under three months total, but that remains to be seen.  They are installing all the main future sewer lines, and then...supposedly (we are still in disbelief) will be paving the road all the way from above the clinic down to the bus stop.  If it all comes together in the time they are promising...it will be a huge, huge change for the neighborhood.  


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What else is going on with construction?

-Cantaranas wall continues, mostly with groups, but some the Church totally by themselves.  Hoping that can be finished by the end of 2018?

-Need yet to build a farm house in Sampedrana for a long term family to live there and keep an eye on things

-Road work in Sampedrana will be a big financial need and physical requirement to be done this year.

-We are told funds are on the way to put in the Church floor and windows for Las Botijas, which will be huge for that burgeoning body there (more to come soon on that)

-Several smaller projects around the clinic campus, and potentially partnering with ICCC Tegucigalpa (next door) on some bathrooms they are working on for their Sunday school areas.  

So...2018, not slowing us down any!  Please join in prayer with us to make strides on all these projects...safely, and with the needed funding to make it all happen.  

Interested in contributing to the cause?  If any blog post would seemingly be ripe for a PayPal link, this would seem to be it!

Donate here for...construction 

We had a very special visit last week, getting to talk coffee for a few days, and about opportunities to partner even more with one of the supporting Churches through exporting some coffee to them to roast and use/sell in the US.  

We have been praying about God making such connections, as using coffee as a long term vehicle to help the mission as well as help people here, and do more by selling at a better price (right now the local markets are only offering about what it costs us to pay people to pick the coffee...so we make almost nothing or even lose money...in other words, prices are very low.)  

Obviously there are many options out there, so making those connections, and connections with roasters/importers that can help us improve and do things better to have a better product are hard to come by.

So we are trying to take advantage of this opportunity to spring forward, and hopefully generate some extra income to turn that around into the farms to improve where our workers live/work, and as well the safety conditions.  

Case in point...getting up to the farm in Sampedrana proved impossible, or impassable as the case may be.  There was simply too much misting/rain and then mud, to get up the mountain safely.  We were able to get up far enough to find a spot to turn around safely and get back...but it was a harrowing ride.  Falling down the mountain was not imminent, but getting horribly stuck and having to leave the truck overnight seemed a very strong possibility many times.  Prayer works friend, believe me.  

The Ford was almost stuck more times than I can count.  

I have had enough. 

We need to put more time and money into the road.  Widening it is not really that much of an issue, although some effort can be given to that.  The main thing that needs to be done is rent a backhoe, a dumptruck...and make as many trips with gravel as we can to the areas that need it the most.  

It'll cost more than $3,000...but the peace of mind of being able to go, or return, without fear for our workers...it just has to be done.  They drive well, but this is not tenable long term.  

Now...I do not have $3,000 to do that, so we will need help.  We have received over $600, but obviously more will need to be found to do this right, with enough and well placed enough to not wash away or just not be effective of giving grip over the present mud.  

If you are so moved, you can donate here

In other news, the work in Las Botijas is looking up.  Rony and his family are doing well, and were a blessing to get to chat with as they have settled into their new location (having moved there to work with us from Sampedrana.)  

They have the Church building all decorated, and are holding services...mostly by popular demand, with 15 faithful attending already.  This was not exactly a planned move to begin a Church this way, but great to see them so moving.  We are looking forward how we can help them there.  As ultimately that is why we are there!

Also though how we can help them improve and expand the agriculture work.  There is plenty of room yet on the properties for more coffee, it is just a matter of money, effort, and time to get the nurseries going...and seeing less open green and more leafy greens.

There is so much going on in both farms, both physical and spiritual...hard to grasp, but please continue praying for the workers' safety, for their testimony, and for the funding to do all this.  

Why?  To provide employment, to give testimony to good working practices, to help Churches, to produce a great product, and to use that to help spur the mission along in its different areas through ultimately selling that product, making us less dependent on funds from abroad.

There is no finish line per se...but I can see the progress being made, and so many opportunities on the horizon, it is exciting stuff!  fac

The clinic in 2018 is undergoing some changes.  Some small, some medium, and hopefully some big.  

One small change won't be small for long.  Doctor Alejandra had her baby earlier this month.  Everything went well, and we hope she will be back seeing eye patients in March.  




In the mean time, Valerie soldiers on, with the help of Manuel, in his role as op tech, as well as yet another graduate from the same program Alejandra attended for some optometric training...Sarai.  She is helping daily as a volunteer, for the training and experience, but obviously one does not do this daily without a passion for it as well.  While not a MD like Alejandra, there is still quite a bit she can do in a support role, and is getting quite the on-the-job training as well.  



One example of the patients that come for treatment, this husband and wife have adopted 17 kids over the years, have sent them to school with money earned from the wife's pulpería and have seen them graduate as professionals. 

The girl on the right is their daughter and the boy lives where the lady grew up. He has bad eye allergies (and also had a very high and odd prescription and did not know it.)  They brought him to the clinic from 2 hours away.


Our progress on the new ultrasound hunt has been huge...a great looking unit has been donated in the US!   It is not portable however, so we are looking at the best/safest/cost feasible way to get it here, and sending back the old portable unit we had to see if it can be fixed as well.  With the generous donations we received, once we have either unit back and working we will be proceeding apace to hire a doctor full time, which will be a big step for the clinic.  

And thanks to Dr. Darwin's direction,  the clinic is getting some much needed fine touches (probably hard to see in this picture, but easy to see when here for sure) a fresh coat of paint on the first floor, including the windows and doors, and some finishing details that have been lagging getting done on the side of the building's concrete and metal structure to bring it all up to match and for long term protection, with more to come (with God's help/funding of course.)  

We are also looking to hire a professional to paint signs on the building as well as outside on the corner wall as you approach the property.  Hopefully more to come on that soon!  

If you want to see some more pictures, the clinic also has its own Facebook page, mostly for patient use to be able to find out more information, directions, etc.  You can visit it here.  

Please pray for the clinic...that God would continue to use it to show His glory and work, and to encourage all the staff of the clinic as they work not only to provide physical relief, but emotional support as well, and ultimately spiritual light to all those they strive to serve.  It is at the same time as easy as it sounds, and sometimes very difficult as well to balance all those.  

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