Happy New Year!!!

No, I haven’t died.  I have just refused to sit myself down and type, for like the last 4 weeks now.  But it is now time.  Time to empty my brain of everything I’ve been up to in December, an entire month.  I really have gone too long this time.  I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas.  I sure did because I got to go home for just under two weeks.  It was nice to see family and friends and enjoy some cool weather for a little while, even though I don’t like the cold stuff very much, I kind of enjoyed it this time.

Ok lets see what I can remember and where I should start?  Let’s see, how about with the Church.  You may have heard that we have a new preacher now.  Noel and his family have decided to move on to a new challenge, planting a Church in Mexico.  He left December 9^th or 10^th and that’s when Pablo’s journey through life made a stop in Mololoa.  He and his family moved into the preacher’s house next to the Church on December 13^th.  It’s awesome to have Pablo here now and sad to see Noel go but everyone is able to take advantage of a new opportunity that they are excited about.

The tile was finished in the Daycare on December 16^th.  It looks great and for those of you that will be here next summer, I can’t wait for you to see it.  The whole place looks soooo much better than it did this past summer.  We have just a few small things left to do and within two weeks it better be open or I’m going to fire myself from repair work.  The ladies have already started setting things back up the way they want it so we can open soon.  I hope to have some pictures for you soon.

The kitchen is still running like a well-oiled machine.  The new color inside the kitchen has been a wonderful change.  Sonia will start working in the kitchen this week, which is awesome.  Evelyn created gift bags for all of the kids for Christmas and gave them out on Christmas day.  All of the ladies had Christmas day off but a few of them came to work in the kitchen anyway.  They said that the kids still needed to eat even if it is Christmas.  Can’t argue with that and you cannot question their dedication to this ministry.  We also had a Christmas party for everyone involved with Mololoa Ministries on December 12^th.  We all went out to Pizza Hut where we had a great time exchanging our Secret Santa gifts.  The ministry also gave them each a gift as well and they all seemed to love their presents.  I’ve also never seen pizza disappear as quickly as I did that night.  They LOVE pizza.  Everyone had a blast.

There were a couple of doctors that came to work in Honduras during the middle part of the month.  On December 16^th they came out to Mololoa to have nutrition classes with any of the mothers that wanted to attend.  A report that Dr. Aguilera composed of his medical clinic that he conducted in late October revealed that a majority of the kids that come to the feeding center are malnourished.  They fall into one of the three categories of malnutrition.  The feeding center provides 5 meals a week out of the 21 meals they need per week and it’s hard to think about what the condition of the kids might be if we did not provide these meals for them.  The meals that are provided are a blessing that most of us will never comprehend.  I wish there was a way we could provide more nutrition for them and possibly expand the program to offer more meals to move them out of a state of malnourishment and on the road to being  healthy young boys and girls.  That would take a lot more funding though, funding from new places.

When I flew back to Teguc on the 27^th I also had a friend flying down to spend a couple of weeks here.  Haylie Kirkendall spent a lot of time in Mololoa this past summer having Bible classes and working with the Church.  This week she will be having a class for teenage girls, a Daughters Of The King class.  She has a few topics but one of her main goals is to help them understand that they do not have to seek their self-worth through men but rather through God.  She has lessons, crafts and games planned.  She plans to work in Mololoa this week and Nuevo Oriental next week which is great.  Just like a lot of us, she has a passion for Mololoa.

So like I said, I went home for Christmas.  I left December 15^th and just got back to Teguc last Friday, the 27^th.  It was great to be home for a little while, to see my family and get to spend some time with friends.  12 days seemed like a long time to be away from Honduras but it was definitely not enough time to be home.  I now live in two different worlds and I want to be in them both all the time but I just can’t.  If I was Superman I could just fly here and work during the day and then fly home to watch Paw Patrol with my niece at night.  But I haven’t learned to fly yet….YET!  Christmas was a lot of fun but also different for us.  We usually spend it in Alabama but with a few scheduling conflicts like me having to come back here soon afterwards and my sister-in-law having to work, we just decided to spend a rare Christmas at home which was just as wonderful and perfectly ok with me.  I had a great trip and maybe they can make a trip down here soon to see what I’ve got going on….  :P

So it's New Years Eve isn't it.  The fireworks are starting to echo across the city and in about 4 and a half hours it's going to be crazy here.  They make these manikin like figures and burn them at midnight.  I've seen them all over the city and there are lots of them in Mololoa.  The kids have had fun propping them up in odd locations and poses for nearly a month now.  They also have been standing on the side of the road asking people to donate to their firework fund.  Yesterday one group of kids laid down in the middle of the road and wouldn't let me out of Mololoa until I gave them some lemps for fireworks.  I think I've given 5 lempiras out quite a few times.  It should be a fun and crazy night.

This has been an incredible year for me.  I was able to visit Panama, Costa Rica, do a drive through of Nicaragua (thankfully avoiding scorpions and fire happy shower heads), spend over a month of my summer in Honduras only to move here a couple of months later.  I’ve met so many amazing people this year and I’m blessed to be here doing what I’m doing.  God is great and He just keeps on doing amazing things.  I hope you all have a wonderful New Years Eve and that you get your new year started off on the right foot.  If I could just ask one favor as we start a new year, please start praying or continue praying for the ministries here in Mololoa.  I think God can do some great things here, on top of the awesome things He has already done,  in the coming year but there are always challenges and we have to be willing to meet them and lead the charge against poverty, hunger, injustice and a world telling us that going against the word of God is ok.  But when God reads our hearts, when He hears the conviction and the passion in our voices, He listens.  When He sees people willing to work and give, when He sees our dreams and visions are all for His Kingdom, He puts things in motion that when we understand and see, will blow us away.  We just have to have a little faith, like the size of a mustard seed and he will do amazing things through us for His Kingdom. 

Jesus replied, "Truly I tell you, if you have faith and do not doubt, not only can you do what was done to the fig tree, but also you can say to this mountain, 'Go, throw yourself into the sea,' and it will be done.  If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer."    Matthew 21:21-22

Jesus said it not me!  So let’s pray for the AMAZING things that are happening right now but lets also dream up some INCREDIBLE things, things that seem impossible but for God, are soooo easy.  Let’s believe in them, in HIM, pray about them and watch HIM move mountains for HIS Kingdom!

Happy New Year!!!

Wedding Pictures!

The wedding was fantastic!  The only hiccup actually turned out to be pretty cool.  The wedding was at 5pm, which means it started at 6, so it was dark.  The power went out which meant a change of plans.  Candles were used to light up the Church and Tania and Nancy loved it, they said it made the wedding much more romantic.  They both really loved it, Nancy was nervous then entire night and Tania was excited and had this smile on her face all night.  The last picture I took, I was finally able to get catch Nancy smiling.

Here are a few pictures from the wedding

A Great Thanksgiving Surprise

Great News! Money was given for Tania’s wedding.  I won’t mention who gave but THANK YOU so much for giving to make this a special day for Tania and Jorge.  I will have pictures of the wedding up soon.  Today they all went to sign the marriage license and tomorrow is the wedding ceremony.  It’s going to be a big day for Nancy and Walter, Tania and Jorge!

Here comes the bri....TOUCHDOWN!!!

So guess what?  The daycare repairs have been finished!!! They said it would take six weeks without rain and they sure lived up to their word.  The rains held off until night time and the guys worked to get it done.  It looks great and the new drainage worked great when it came a monsoon two nights ago.  I asked Evelyn how bad it had rained in Mololoa because at my apartment it rained A LOT.  She said she didn’t think it had ever rained that much at one time in November.  The best part was, there was no water on the daycare property, it all drained away really well. 

Yesterday we started going through all the material inside to see what is salvageable and what isn’t.  Right now a good portion of it looks good, we just have to clean the mud off of it.  We literally had to scrape the mud off of each tile yesterday because it seemed like it was glued down.  We are getting closer and closer to getting that baby up and running again.  Evelyn and Wendy are soo excited.  Other than that awesome news, everything else is going great in Mololoa.  If you would like to see pictures of the repairs to the daycare, go to the Mololoa Ministries page on Facebook.  You’ll get a good idea of the work that was done.

Also, one of the ladies who works in the Daycare is getting married this Saturday.  Nancy and Walter will be getting married at 5pm at the Church in Mololoa.  Nancy is worried that she is going to pass out because she said she gets really nervous.  I told her I’d definitely be there to take a picture if she did.  She is actually having a double wedding.  Some of you may know Tania who lives right beside the classroom at the Church.  She is getting married at the same time Nancy is at the Church.  It should be pretty cool.  Noel is going to perform the ceremony.  The only problem that we have had is this.  Nancy has had someone fully fund her portion of the wedding.  Rings, cake, food etc.  Everything she needs has been taken care of.  Tania has no money at all for the wedding.  It will cost $300 for rings, food, cake, etc.  $150 of that is just for the rings and she doesn’t have money for wedding bands right now.

You may have noticed this nice little donate button that I’ve added to the blog.  It’s a paypal button and donations go to paypal and then to the Palmetto missions account.  If you would like to help Tania have a memorable wedding then just click the button and give a little.  The biggest thing is the rings.  If we don’t have cake or food then that’s fine, but they need wedding rings/bands.  So if you would like to help then great and if not, well that’s fine too.  They are members at the Church if that helps at all J.

Sunday was Presidential election day here in Honduras.  Last week the rallies were crazy and traffic was HORRIBLE.   I know people who stocked up with a months worth of food and supplies just because you never know what is going to happen.  I was told to have no less than 2 weeks worth of supplies just in case.  But there was no need.  The election went off pretty smoothly in my opinion.  Sunday all the votes were cast.  Sunday night and into the early morning they were counted in which Juan Orlando declared he had won, which I’m pretty sure he did.  Monday the current president announced that Juan Orlando won which sort of confirmed it.  Then Tuesday morning, yesterday, the lady who finished a fairly close second declared she had won…. Then some protests started.  Since I was at the Daycare yesterday I didn’t know anything about it.  That was until Evelyn, Wendy, Edgar and I had to run out for an errand and on our way back we driving down the road and start noticing all the police.  We were like huh, there sure are a lot of police in this area, wonder what’s going on.  Then dang, there’s A LOT of police here.   Well look at that, what are the riot police doin…..uh oh.  That’s when we realized we had driven right into ground zero of the protest.  Store fronts smashed, stuff all over the road.  Riot police everywhere and people running away.  Lucky for us we came in on the very tail end when it was calming down.  That still didn’t stop Evelyn from freaking out.  Edgar and I were up front and were loving it, “chase him down, tackle him, there ya go”, while Evelyn and Wendy were in the back having a panic attack.  So we drove right on through with no problem, just avoiding stuff in the road.  We didn’t get back to Mololoa until dark and Evelyn said she wanted to be my big sis and she lived up to it.  After I left Mololoa she kept calling to make sure I was ok until I got home.  Which I did with no problems, just terrible traffic.  So we’ll see what today holds in store.  Hopefully yesterday the riots started and died so hopefully there won’t be any problems today.  This election stuff has gotten exciting all of a sudden.  Juan Orlando did win though, so he will be the new president in January.  Let’s hope he’ll be a good one.

My heart is torn though.  Most of you know what this Saturday is.  Rivalry weekend.  Auburn and Bama play at 2:30 here and Carolina and Clemson at 6…. And of course, I have a 6^th grade graduation to go to at 3, and a wedding at 5.  And you can’t watch a replay of a sporting event, it just isn’t right.  As Jase from Duck Dynasty said, you can’t will your team to victory in a re-run. And right he is.  #1 v#4, #6v#10.   Why must we face decisions like this?!?

Oh yea and tomorrow is Thanksgiving….wow tomorrow IS Thanksgiving.  I hope you all eat an extra plate of food for me.  Hopefully tomorrow I’ll write saying Thanks for Giving money for Tania’s wedding J.

I hope you all enjoy the holidays and I’ll talk to you soon.  Evelyn is at the daycare waiting for me so I gots to go.  WAREAGLE!!!

Sink or Swim!

It’s that time.  The time I had been looking forward to so much but at the same time, a little frightened at the idea of being on my own.  This Padawan has graduated to Jedi…I hope.  Jen and Josue left for the States yesterday and while it isn’t the same as Qui-Gon Jin dying and leaving Obi-Wan on his own, it kinda has some parallels.  I mean I have my own Jedi council here that I’ll see occasionally but as far as the work in Mololoa, it’s just me and Evelyn and the ladies.  You know, when I think about it I’m not really frightened at all.  I’m excited! 

Jen was a huge help to me for the first month and a half I have been here.  If it wasn’t for her I might still be sitting at the airport with all of my bags wondering what I should do next.  But instead, she and Josue gave me a place to stay, great food to eat, showed me around the city  and helped me in any and every way they could.  Without them I’d still be lost, even more so than I occasionally am while driving (but I always find my destination J).  I can’t say thank you to them enough and I pray for the best as they move to the States.

This past weekend Ed Brown and Danny Mullins, Elders from Palmetto, came for a weekend visit.  They stayed Thursday-Monday and I think they had a great time, even though my death star… I mean apartment isn’t fully operational yet.  Can you tell I’m having Star Wars withdrawals?  Their main purpose for visiting was to hire a new preacher.  Noel has been the preacher in Mololoa for about 4 years I think and he has decided to go to Mexico to plant Churches.  That meant Mololoa Church of Christ was in need of a preacher.  Danny and Ed did exactly what they came to do and the new preacher, Pablo is set to start in December.  Mololo gets a new Preacher and a new American all within 2 months.  However, the ones that are leaving are leaving us new guys a great ministry that we can expand upon and help grow.  This was Ed’s first trip to Honduras and I think he really enjoyed it.  He got to see a lot of what we do here.  Now we just need to get him back on a summer trip to show him what Torch does. 

We had a party for the ladies last Saturday.  A 7 year kitchen anniversary party up at El Picacho, The Jesus Statue.  The ladies all seemed to enjoy it especially when they were told about their pay increases and received a little token of our appreciation of them in the form of dinero.  It was a very special day that I was glad Ed and Danny could share with us.  Evelyn had a great devo, the pizza was great and the rain held off while we were at the statue.  It was a great day!  The ladies at the kitchen received on gift for each year that they had been working at The Manna Project.  They love getting gifts.  God has provided the ministries in Mololoa with men and women who are dedicated to the work, who love the work and we are extremely grateful to them for the passion they have to serve their community. 

Repairs on the Daycare are coming along nicely.  I am still being told that another week and a half and they’ll be done but that might be asking too much.  I think 2-2 ½ weeks and they’ll be done.  Things will then start being bought to replace the things that we lost during the flood and the Daycare will be up and running before we know it.  We are going to have a Grand Opening party once the Daycare is back open. To let everyone know that it is back open but also to re-introduce the daycare and it’s services to the people in the community.  An open house is probably a more suitable word.  If anyone would like to help with the cost of that then just let me know.  We have thrown around ideas but haven’t nailed anything down yet so as soon as we get more details and costs, I’ll let you know. 

So what’s new with me?  Not much really.  I’ve been doing great.  Are you like me and wondering  how on earth it is already November 14^th?  I mean REALLY?  The time just keeps flying by.  They are playing Christmas music here in the stores and setting out Christmas decoration ALREADY!  It’s crazy how fast the days are coming and going.  Although itt is good that some days go by faster than others.  I’ve had good days and bad days but the good ones outnumber the bad ones by a lot.  After I came back from the States a couple of weeks ago I was praying at dinner and thanked God for the safe trip back home that day, meaning back here.  Jen got a little tickled and later said she thought it was cute that I said “back home”.  But it does feel that way now.  A few people have kind of chuckled when I say I’m going to run home really quick or something like that.  They say, “It’ll take more than a few minutes for you to run home” meaning the States and then laugh.  But right now this is home and I love it.  Monday I had a bad day.  Danny and Ed left, I didn’t feel too good.  Which by the way I think I have finally gotten over that stupid cold I had.  But I had all these thoughts running through my mind about what would happen if living here turns out to be more expensive than I can afford, which is still on my mind, or if something happened and things didn’t work out here and I had to go back to the States.  I started thinking about what I would do if that were to happen and how it would be nice to still have the things we take for granted in the States (mainly a drier seeing as how my clothes were hung out and it rained last night before I got home to get them L ) and my stomach started hurting at the thought of leaving here.  I mean like, I had to go make myself do something else to take my mind off of that because I don’t want to think about that.  Now I hope and pray that won’t happen but like I said I was just having a bad Monday and all these doubts were in my head.  But for me it was God taking doubts in my mind and casting them aside by making me feel the passion He has placed inside of me for this place.  If I feel that awful at the thought of leaving then I know that I have a passion for this work.  I love my family and I love my friends.  I miss them all a lot but it would kill me if I had to leave here right now because I feel like this is exactly where I’m supposed to be.  I think I said this a week or so ago but I have all these plans that sound great and are running around in my mind and I think God is doing great things here and I’m just so thankful to be a part of it all. 

I’m also working on a monthly newsletter to start sending everyone who praying for me and the ministries or giving financially to me or the ministries.  It will hopefully be a little more in depth about what is going on.  I have a lot of people’s email already stored in my email account but just to make sure that I have everyone’s email, could you either comment with your email here or send me an email with your email if you would like me to email you the newsletter.  (I just used the word email 7 TIMES in that sentence).  I bet you just went back and counted. My email is jtgist@hotmail.com.  I also just realized that it was daylight when I started typing  so I didn’t have lights on and now it’s pitch black and raining.  I can’t see a thing from staring at this computer screen….AND I HAVE CLOTHES ON THE ROOF DRYING!!! AHHHHH, NOT AGAIN!!!! Dang, two days in a row!  I hope you have a great night and I’ll write again soon! I gots to go.

The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing.

He makes me lie down in green pastures, He leads me beside quiet waters,

He refreshes my soul. He guides me along the right paths for his name's sake.

Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I will fear no evil, for You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.

You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.

Surely your goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.