Another with Leukemia

Last week, we sent another child, Julio, from the hospital to Tegucigalpa, the capital, for probable Leukemia. We gave him a blood transfusion on Friday, then they had the weekend to pack and get ready to leave for the capital. He arrived last Tuesday to the hospital in Teguc and received the diagnosis this week after about a week of testing. His blood was sent to Guatemala for specification of the type of Leukemia he had. He has probably from what I can tell AML, Acute Myeloid Leukemia. The most hope for these kids is a bone marrow transplant which they don't do here in Honduras. His mom, Sandra, is with him and is very concerned. She is very anxious and concerned for her son. She left 3 kids behind to bring him to Teguc. She is already ready to leave and desperate to leave. They have told her that he will need to be inpatient for 10 months before they are able to leave.
Erlinda, Osiris' mom, has been taking her everywhere and teaching her the ropes of having a child in the hospital with Leukemia. She says that children with the type of leukemia that Julio has almost all die. She hasn't seen one yet that has lived in her 5 months of being at the hospital. They say there is a 50% chance that the treatment will work. That's not very high odds.
Please pray for this family.
Pray for:

• healing for Juilo's little body
• hope for mom Sandra
• wisdom of Erlinda as to how to encourage knowing there is not much hope
• wisdom for the doctors treating Julio

• 

  Julio and mom Sandra at the hospital

Rain rain go away!

Well it's been raining for 3 days now, since Tuesday night. Yesterday we had a little pauses from the rain and then it would start again. Rained all night last night and all day today without stopping. (As of this morning we had gotten 15in of rain in the last 56 hours). The rivers are flooded and at times are impassable. Some of the lower lying streets are flooded as well. Went to see the river in Lucinda today and it was about waist high as people were crossing on foot. Employees were bringing clothes so they were ready to stay the night if needed. (As I am writing this, it has stopped raining...hopefully for good and we will see the sun tomorrow!)
With the large amounts of rain have come the power outages. Also, the water system here at the children's center needs all new tubing, but the hospital doesn't have the money right now to fix it. So, I have been blessed with water a couple of times since Tuesday. I try to take advantage and shower and wash dishes when I have water. I have been collecting rain water to flush the toilet and wash dishes when needed.
When the rain comes, it gets cold. Cold here is in the low 70's. This morning it was 70F in my house when I woke up. This is when we break out the sweaters, slippers, and warm blankets. With the humidity and very open houses, it always feels colder.
Taking advantage now of the electricity and internet.

Honduran Elections

Many of you have heard about the Honduran elections and wonder what is going on down here. Well, there was lots of military personnel and police presence even in the rural areas such as here on Saturday and Sunday. Saturday, many of the local churches spent in prayer and fasting for the elections on Sunday. Sunday, it was forbidden to have meetings before 5pm, so we moved church to the evening. Most people just recommended not going out of your house. (We didn't even make it to church Sunday evening...it rained and the river flooded and was impassable.)
So, the candidates for the elections were some interesting characters. The Libre (Free) party was created by the EX-President's (Mel Zelaya-who was thrown out in 2009) wife named Xiomara. Yes, his wife was running for president! Which meant, he was pretty much running again but through his wife. They are very much wanting a dictatorship and was the issue why he was thrown out. They go along the lines of communism and socialism, very much involved with Hugo Chavez when he was alive. What the uneducated here don't understand is that this is not freedom, but bondage. I was praying that either one of the other candidates would win. This became a very strong party here with lots of support and the final election was very close between her and the winner. Some still think it was fraud.
The other candidate that was big was for the Nationalist party, the more conservative party. He is actually the one that won. His name is Juan Orlando and will be the next President of Honduras. Some think this is the safest thing for the country right now, some think it's the worst thing for the country. God knows best! One of the things he has already done, many Hondurans don't like. He created new hourly work contracts here, which means that Hondurans now can work for a company part time making less money than they were before. After the minimum wage was almost doubled 2 years ago, this has created a way to keep employees.  In the states, we are used to working hourly and this is nothing new. The Hondurans though think that their rights have been taken away. So, this is the new president and some are not happy.
The other that was in the running was Villeda for the liberal party. He did get some votes, but not like the others. Don't know much about him and what he stands for, just know he is part of the liberal party.
So, yes this was a very pivotal election in Honduras. There was rumor of communism, socialism, riots, uproars, fighting, even possible intercountry war. I think because of this, God's people came together and prayed and God heard their prayers. People say that even if things are investigated that the results can't change now. There has been fear of the Libre party upraising and creating problems. Up until now, there is nothing really different.
Thank you for all your prayers.