Friendly visit

Had a super busy week with my friend Deyni staying with me. She is in medical school in Tegucigalpa (the capital) and wanted to see lab and some other areas of the hospital as much as she could during her break. She stayed with me at the house where I am house sitting. She got to see how busy my life really is. We didn't have a free night Monday - Friday and we had a busy Saturday too.

Deyni and I at a friend's house Tuesday night for dinner.

Irina's baby shower

Today we went to throw a small surprise baby shower for Irina...one of my lab employees. She was overjoyed to see all of us and put us to work reorganizing her house too in preparation for baby in a couple of weeks. 

Commissioning service

Last night I was privileged enough to be able to attend a commissioning service for a Honduran woman named Karla who leaves for Mauritania January 16th. It was such a blessing to see her church send her out in a culture that doesn't see missions as important. Many churches here are not very supportive of missions however when asking the people in the church, many have been directly affected by missionaries.

Karla has a 6 year old daughter from a relationship before she became a Christian and she will leave her here with her mother and sisters to watch for the 3 months she is gone. She was the first in her family to accept Christ 4-5 years ago. Now her entire family follows Christ. About 2 years ago, one of our missionaries arrived at her church and said who wants to go...who wants to go to the ends of the earth to share the love of Christ. She said "I will". She is a blessing in her Garifuna (African sub-culture of Honduras) community as a teacher and leader in her church. She will be in Mauritania for 3 months working mostly with Muslims. Less than 1% of the nation of more than 3 million are Christians. Wow, that's astounding.

Last night was a very emotional night for Karla and her family. Many of you who saw me or other missionaries sent out know the bittersweetness of the mission calling. It is very exciting to go knowing that it where God is calling you. It is also very sad leaving behind your family, friends, church, coworkers, and everything you know. But Karla has said " Yes". Please pray for her these last few days as she prepares for her 2 day journey to Mauritania on the Northwest corner of Africa.

These will be hard days for her as she makes her last preparations, as she talks to her family for the last time for three months. They will only be communicating through email over the next 3 months.

Taking the nations for Christ

This is so exciting for us to see as missionaries. Missionaries being sent out from where we are serving. God has really been opening my eyes to see how big His calling is. In the last 3 years, I have met missionaries from Guatemala, Mexico, Germany, Norway, Scotland, and Italy. Some have come here to the hospital for some time and some are full time missionaries in other countries. How exciting that God's calling people from all over the world to GO...and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Please pray for Karla. She gave me her email, so if I get any updates from her while she is there, I will pass them on.

Month's worth of update

church picnic

About a month ago, we had a church picnic. Everyone helped cook the beef and chicken for the barbarq. The kids played several games of futbol, tag and frisbee waiting on the food to be done. It was an enjoyable time getting to know people better. We always find when we do stuff together like that, the members of the church work together so well and grow closer as a body.

Game to win a Bible, took about 15 mins
 to put together a 25 piece kids puzzle

We went up the mountain about two weeks ago to a village called Las Balles. There is no established evangelical church there and the youth group from our church have gone up a couple of times to evangelize. I went up one day with the youth group to do a service in the school. We went up by car because walking is about 3-4 hours. Anael, a young man in the church, has gotten 80 Proclaimers donated from the Bible Society in La Ceiba. This was our first time taking the Proclaimers up to the mountains. The mountain people are very uneducated and many cannot read. Proclaimers is the recorded Word of God that they can listen to. They were super excited about it.

Anael sharing about the Proclaimers

I just got back on Monday night from a Christians in Action Conference in San Salvador, El Salvador. Christians in Action International has a conference once a year for Latin American church leaders. I went with two other leaders from the church, Anael and Jose. It was about a 15 hour journey on the bus. I had a few problems getting into El Salvador because of arriving by plane and leaving the country by bus. God is sovereign and He gave me grace with immigration and I was able to attend the conference.

Us with leaders of the conference

We had 2 days of lectures and then church on Sunday. Sunday afternoon we went to the mountains with a small group from San Salvador that has a ministry about and hour and a half from the city. They go up once a week to share Jesus with a small community. It was a blessing to see their ministry. It was a blessing to get to know some of our brothers and sisters in Christ that are serving in Guatemala and El Salvador.

Ministry in the mountains

video of hospital loma de luz

Just wanted to share a video of hospital Loma de Luz that a recent vistor made. This is a good general overview of how the hospital functions day to day. I hope you enjoy getting a little glimpse of what we do day in and day out. I hope you see and feel compassion for the people as we the missionaries do.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1lI-PZANwo

Happy Easter!!!

Happy Easter! He is Risen! He is alive!
We had a wonderful sunrise service at church this morning. We got up at 4:30 (really early, even for me) and walked to the top of the hill on the church property to have a sunrise service. The sunrise was beautiful, but what was even more beautiful was the worship that was sung to the Lord. I love worshiping the Lord in Spanish. Sometimes I wish I knew more than two languages so I could worship Him in other languages as well. There are different ways to express our adoration of Him in other languages.
As I was reflecting this morning on the resurrection, I was just thinking about the sunrise and why we do sunrise services. I like that in English, the word Sun and Son sound the same, so that we we talk about the sunrise, we are also talking about the sonrising that we celebrate today. We celebrate the death and resurrection of our dear and beloved Savior who rose conquering death!!! I was thinking about the sun and how it rises day in and day out and without it, there would be no light or life on the earth. It is God's way of providing light and life to the earth. Without the sun, the plants and animals and life as we know it, wouldn't survive. Well, Jesus' rising is God's way of providing light and life to us in our lives. He wants to provide that light and life to our lives daily as the sun does to the earth. Jesus is the light of the world and in Him, there is no darkness at all. We praise Jesus today for coming to earth, suffering and dying for us and being raised to new life. I pray that we are raised to new life in Jesus daily as the sun rises, that we will rise as well with Jesus at the forefront of our minds and hearts.
Many blessings for a blessed Easter celebration!
Jesus esta vivo! Jesus is alive!

It's been a long time.

It's been a long time since I have posted here on my blog. Sorry to those of you who have wanted to read updates.
This week is Semana Santa here in Honduras and Central America. The week before Easter is called Holy week, however is not very holy at all. Most people use the week of vacation to visit family and go to the beach along with all the worldly stuff that goes along with that. The hospital is closed Wed, Thurs, and Fri this week for the Semana Santa holiday.
Eventhough the hospital is closed today, there were surgeries scheduled, so I am here anyway. I just got finished helping give a blood transfusion with 20ml syringes in surgery. They couldn't get the back to work and the blood to infuse, so we punctured the bag and gave her about 20 syringes full of blood. This is her second unit today and we had to get it in her. We don't waste blood around here if we can help it.
Please pray for the young lady in surgery (still in surgery as I write this). She is 22 years old with 5 kids and has a very aggressive ovarian cancer. She was operated on 2 months ago and was supposed to start Chemotheropy (donated by a very generous person in the states) last week. Her tumor came back within 2 months and more than doubled in size in 3 weeks time. Please pray for healing. Please pray for wisdom in councling this young couple.
I hope that you have a blessed Semana Santa. Happy Easter. He is Risen. :)

*Lab Need*

We, as a lab, desire to provide the best, most accurate results possible to our physicians allowing them to treat our patients with the best care possible.

I want to buy a new machine called the EasyLyte Plus (pictured right) which is a small, user friendly electrolyte analyzer that would give us a Sodium, Potassium, and Chloride result in under a minute. This would make a huge difference in how we are able to care for many of our patients that come to our hospital, sometimes the difference between life and death. These three lab tests are simple and basic lab tests that are taken for granted and ordered daily for nearly every in-patient in more developed countries.

With this machine, we will be able to monitor the condition of patients with:

Burns

Kidney Failure

Severe dehydration (very common with the heat here)

Diabetes Isipidus

Adrenal Insufficiency

Addison’s Disease

Acid/Base disorders

Severe Diarrhea or Vomiting

Bowel Obstructions

Conditions causing muscle breakdown (Rhabdomyolysis)

And many other conditions…

~This is where I need your help.~
It will cost $3,600. We will be able to provide good, reliable
results for less than $1 per test after purchase. Please prayerfully consider how you can help us get this necessary piece of lab equipment.

If you decide to take part in this special project, please send a donation to Cornerstone International, PO Box 192, Wilmore, KY 40390 marked Bell-Lab. Cornerstone has set up a special account for this machine and will keep me updated so that when the funds are available , I can purchase the machine.

The goal is to have sufficient funds to buy this analyzer by August 1st since it is such an urgent need. Thank you for your prayerful consideration in this.