I received this Saturday morning
Greetings in the sweet name of Jesus Christ:
Praise God from whom all blessings flow! I write from Puerto Lempira, the town of some 15,000 back across the bay from Cauquira. We arrived there last Thursday with out a hitch along with 15 pieces of luggage. We had spent a few glorious days with David and Gloria Miller back in the big city of Le Ceiba. My girls spent most of those days in the pool. They had worked tirelessly to prepare the house in Cauquira for us. When we arrived, their efforts were immediately apparent. Ceiling fans, lights and even water running from the faucet all powered by a generator, were items not present during my last visit. The big 4- bedroom house provided ample room for us all. The natural beauty and tranquility of the place were marred by the constant music blaring from the local bar directly across the water. I didn’t remember this from my visit in April. It continued until 2:30am. By Saturday it was really getting on my nerves. I got up around 2:20am Sunday morning to use the bathroom and was heading to the freezer to get a cold drink of water when a man in a boat passing by the house fired two shots from his pistol. I believe he had seen the light from my flashlight illuminating the interior of the house. He sped off with a wild shout. Needless to say it was a bit unnerving. The girls and I had spent Saturday building a bed for Bethany’s room.
Sunday morning we went to church across the water at the Renewed Moravian church. It was a blessing to be among brethren worshipping the Living God. Later that same afternoon, the Pastor came by in his small boat and took Gabrielle, Bethany and I to a remote village. We traveled east for about 20 minutes on the open waters of the lagoon when suddenly, without slowing, he veered into an opening about 10 ‘wide. We were surrounded by marsh grass and white herons. The canal ended within a quarter mile. To our right was a simple wooden structure made out of tree limbs. The Pastor explained it was a church he was building for the people of this village. We walked up to the lone house on the property surrounded by tall mango trees. The couple who greeted us was quite poor. The wife cried as she explained to the Pastor how she felt abandoned by his church since they had decided three months ago to stop funding this new building. As there were no other houses in sight, I asked him how many people attended the services. He said 20-30 people would come from the surrounding villages on a Sunday afternoon. I asked him to put together an estimate for the cost to finish this simple church. I was blessed when Gabrielle spontaneously hugged the sister when she began to cry.
When I had left our house, the loud music had not yet begun and I was hoping they would respect Sunday as a day of rest. My hopes were dashed as soon as we pulled up to the dock and a heard the thumping of the bass. Its force shook our bed at night.
On our initial trip out to Cauquira I had sat next to a local leader of the Renewed Moravian church. He told me he was on his way to a Youth Conference. I invited him to drop by on his return trip. On Monday he showed up along with the young Pastor I had met on my trip in April. He, along with four other Pastors and their wives, had just completed a seven day fast. I asked him what they had been fasting for. He replied the purpose of the fast was to ask God to pull down the strongholds of Satan throughout the Mosquito Coast. I told him I would have been asking God for the very same thing. The elder Pastor told me some 150 youths had attended the conference with worship, prayer and praise lasting until 1:00 am the final night.
The area of the Mosquito Coast is plagued by drugs, theft, prostitution, corruption, deception and apathy. There exists a spiritual oppression the likes of which I have seldom experienced. A center of this sinfulness exists directly across the water from our house. Kevin, an American who came here 2.5 years ago on his first mission trip and ended up marrying a Honduran, was guarding the house until our arrival. One night when had gotten up to use the bathroom, he heard someone banging on the storage trailer door. He ran out with his paddle in hand and chased the thieves off. David and Gloria saw the same storage shed robbed twice during their stay. Monday night after dinner, Michaela and I had gone to the dock to call Paul Benham on the satellite phone. As we were talking, Chaela said he thought she saw someone back by the storage shed. When I shone my flashlight at it, I saw the large generator had been moved outside. We were being robbed even as Karen was doing dishes looking out at the very same shed! I told Paul what was happening and hung up. I tried to gather my thoughts as I devised a plan, all the time fearing for my life and the well-being of my family. With flashlights, paddles and machete in hand, we slowly approached the closed door of the shed thinking the thief might still be inside. No one was inside. He must still be hiding in the bushes in the backyard. The only we could have gotten over here from the village was in a boat. With Karen and Chaela guarding the house, I took the other girls with me along the river bank searching for his dugout canoe. We found it out near the large storage trailer some 100yards west of our house. I had Gabrielle get in it and paddle it back to our dock. I secure the house and the storage shed and herded everyone into our tiny row boat. Gabrielle followed us up to the Moravian church where by God’s grace, a special meeting was being held as a celebration of the Youth Conference which had just ended. How sweet the sound wafting over the waters of brethren worshipping God! When we arrived I found the local Pastor, explained what had happened, and told him my plan. I wanted he and two other men to accompany me back to the house to guard it while he and I took the dugout canoe to the police station across the water from our house. With evidence in hand they would be certain to identify the thief. We proceeded according to plan. When we arrived at the police station we found them drunk. I asked if one of them could spend the night outside our house guarding it. The elder officer ordered his underling to prepare his bags. He told us to return in a half hour. Back at the house, I took the Pastor aside and asked him to tell me frankly and honestly if he felt it was safe for my wife and my girls to be living here. He said if I was ever to leave them alone, he couldn’t guarantee their safety. He said if he were in my shoes, he wouldn’t live out there. He said there was a very high probability of rape. As long as I was on the property they would be safe. If I wasn’t, they would be vulnerable.
When the young police officer arrived, we left him to go fetch my family back at the church. As we pulled away from the house, the officer unexpectedly fired five shots into the bushes. Since we were on our way up river, I didn’t know what had happened. With the family aboard, we returned to the house. Once we were settled in, I went outside to show the officer what happened. As we walked toward the shed, he whistled. With that, a local drunk who I immediately recognized, emerged from the bushes with a demonic grin on his face. Karen and the girls and I had met him when we were launching our boat from the village the day before to return home. He was either high or drunk because he was unintelligible as he staggered around us. There was an evil look to his eyes and a violence in his countenance. As he came out of the bushes toward us, I turned to the officer and said, ¨Here is your thief.¨ ¨How dare you accuse this fine gentleman of being a thief, ¨ came his reply. ¨Why, he brings us food and has our clothes washed. You insult me with your accusation. I refuse to spend the night here now! ¨, he continued. The officer’s breath stunk of alcohol. ¨But sir, if he’s not the thief, what is he doing here? How did he arrive? I asked. ¨He came with me, he said. ¨But you were alone when you arrived and I have five witnesses to prove it, I said. Oh, that’s right; he came in his dugout canoe, ¨ he stammered. If so, where is it? ¨ I asked. It sunk, ¨ came his lame reply. He ordered the thief to swim across the water and return with a boat to take him back to the police station. As we waited, I was able to share the Gospel with him. He became quite sober and listened attentively. I told him no matter how long he lived, someday he would have to give an account before the Judgment throne, that he needed to be born again in order to enter the Kingdom of God, that he needed to recognize his sinful state and to repent and live with his whole heart, mind and strength for God. Just as I asked if he wanted to pray with me, the thief floated up to the dock in the very same dugout I had taken to the police! Neither Karen nor I slept a wink that night. Without police protection, indeed with overt complicity, we felt quite vulnerable to the whims of the thieves. The next morning I took the 5am water taxi over to Puerto Lempira to look for a place to live.
Katrina and Roger Engle have served in Puerto Lempira as missionaries since 1989. They had befriended David and Gloria Miller who had sung their praises to us. Katrina and Roger were waiting for us at the airport the day we arrived out here. They run a home for abandoned and abused children. With three kids of their own, they’re caring for three more Honduran kids as their own. The first morning while we waited for the water taxi out to Cauquira, they showed us with great delight the new House of Hope nearing completion. This new building will be able to house 40 kids. They will live in a separate home on the same premises. The house is being funded by an American dentist who visits once a month from Texas seeing patients at a clinic he built. He told Katrina the Lord told him to start saving years ago for a project He would place on his heart. He will have spent $60,000 of his own funds to build the house of Hope. Katrina explains they started out living in a tent. ¨Look at what the Lord has done! ¨, she says with joy. Her heart is filled with love and compassion for these kids. (I will try to forward to you her letter which she wrote to me last April in response to my trip report. When Karen read last week she cried.) When I arrive at their house, I hear Roger reading from the book, The Purpose Driven Life, as part of their morning devotionals. As is his custom, Kevin is there too. When they ask why I’m there so early and I tell them of my decision to move my family here, Katrina puts her head down on the clothes she’s folding and begins to cry. We are an answer to prayer. Just in their ministry alone the needs are enormous. She asks us all to pray and leads us in prayer. When she’s done, I tell her I prayed almost the identical words on the boat ride over this morning.
Roger took me around town to visit the homes which were available for rent. I returned to Cauquira around 1pm on the water taxi operated by an elder in the Church of God. I asked him the same question I had posed to Pastor Ramon in terms of being able to safely live in Cauquira with my daughters. He gave me the same answer. I told him to return with his boat after lunch to take us to Puerto Lempira. We moved on Chaela’s 12th birthday!
I want you to picture this. Its a hundred degrees with 90 percent humidity. We’re moving 15 pieces of luggage along with every household item we can cram onto the boat which is rocking on the waves as we load her up. As we head west across the bay back to Puerto Lempira, huge thunderheads have gathered over the western horizon. I sit on two mattresses folded in half on the bow preventing them form being blown in to the sea. Suddenly I spot something I’ve never seen. There is a small, horizontal, disc-shaped rainbow hanging just above the closest thunderhead. Due to the angle of the low sun, there is an intensity to the colors which surpasses anything I’ve ever witnessed. I turn toward the rear of the boat to shout to Karen and the girls to look. They’re hiding under a tarp to avoid being drenched by the wind-driven spray. It is God’s birthday gift to Michaela and a reminder of His sovereignty.
The house I’ve chosen to rent is one among six identical two-bedroom houses within a fenced compound right near the airport. Digna, the owner, lives ten steps from our house. She is a divorced mother of three who lives off the income generated by the properties. A woman from Spain rents one while another woman from Finland rents another. We have yet to meet either one. Dinga is kind, gentle and very accommodating. She took Chaela and Bethany out to get ice cream the other night. We are safe and secure in our new home in a quiet surrounding. (There are only three flights a day into the airport and all three planes land around 7:30 am and leave within a half hour.) Please pray that we will be able to win Digna to Christ.
Two days ago was the Independence Day celebration for Honduras. Roger came by to take us to the local swimming hole in the afternoon. The only highway out of town consists of a one lane dirt road with huge holes making travel above 15 miles an hour impossible. Once we get out of town, I shocked by the beauty. Puerto Lempira sits on a peninsula. From the tops of the tiny hills we can see the water all around us. The marsh grasses wave in the wind. I ask Roger and Katrina while the nothing is being planted in the natural fields. She replies that most of the inhabitants of Puerto Lempira come from surrounding villages where the people farm. She said the growth of the town to 15,000 has all occurred just within the last few years. She said in 2000 there only a few vehicles in town. Now there are hundreds. Why? Drug money. About 15 minutes out of town we veer off on another dirt road, come over a rise and see a row of tree in a small valley. We pull up along this row of trees which hides a small stream containing absolutely crystal clear water. To get into the stream we jump of the 10’bank. Hidden from the harmful rays of the sun, we are able to stay in the water for hours. It blesses my heart to the girls playing and giggling with their Honduran counterparts. It is the first time since arriving on the coast that I’ve felt cool and refreshed for anything more than five minutes.
That same night (Wednesday), Katrina walks over to lead us to church. When we arrive it reminds us of the church we attended with Br. Greg Anan in Trinidad-the same warm greetings, the same beautiful smiles, the same delightful children. She introduces us to the Pastor. A young, wiry man with an infectious smile, he immediately makes us feel at home. His enthusiasm reminds Karen of Br. Tom Conena. He begins to explain to me the 13 different ministries they currently operate. I ask him how it he came to serve here having grown up in Tegucigalpa. He said he was running a very successful business when he began to hear from the Lord the call to ministry. They fasted and prayed and narrowed down the choices to four mission fields: the U.S., Colombia, Spain and Puerto Lempira. They sold everything and moved here 3 years ago. The Pastor plays the electronic keyboard accompanied by teenagers on drums, bass, guitar and percussion. They all sing with joy and zeal. Instantly we feel right at home. The Holy Spirit is undeniable present following the word as we sing a song of love and praise. I tell the Pastor afterwards we are here to learn how we can best help him do what the Lord has already put on his heart to do. He gets choked up. ¨Not by might nor by power, but My Spirit says the Lord.¨ Amen!
Thank you all for your prayers. You have no idea how much we have needed them just in the first week. Please pray for Michaela who continues yearning for home and her friends. Pray that she find a friend here soon. Pray for their music ministry. The Pastor has already asked them to perform a song this Sunday. They will probably be asked to join the musicians who lead worship. Pray for Gabrielle that she be lead by the Lord to serve in a way where her natural love for the people can shine. I know Karen would ask that you continue to pray for Bethany’s weight. I don’t share her level of concern as I see Bethany’s attitude has changed. She was climbing trees with Roger and Katrina’s young boys the other day at the swimming hole and jumping off 12’ high tree limbs into the water giggling again like the little girl she is. She seems happy to be here. Pray for Karen to find the ministry here where she can be best used by the Lord. The needs are so great and the choices so plentiful, it would be wonderful be directed by the Holy Spirit into that where we can bear the most fruit. Please pray for me to be able to visit Cauquira. Just in the short time I was there I was able to witness almost non-stop. I would love to be able to continue.
We love you and miss you all. May God’s grace abide in your hearts and may His peace guard your hearts and minds.
Sincerely,
Br. Ed
