Dear friends: Sunshine for a few days! After months of rain we are enjoying a break. On the worst side, the roads have up to 3 foot sloshy ruts and the drive to San Pedro Sula has taken up to three hours for travel to the city when it is usually 40 minutes or so. Our Land Rover has a winch on it to make it through the roughest parts. The winch has been put to much use in the last few months. The better part is that we have had more time to study and get paperwork done. With adoption, Daniel's surgery and recovery and our travel to Joplin, MO, Mooresville, In, and a few other cities, finance information has been everywhere. In recent weeks I've had to take time to pull it all together for reports. This week I finished off double checking information to be sure all was in order. FAME needs quarterly accounting and we want to be accountable. Toby enjoyed the time to study since we couldn't go anywhere. So this was all a blessing too while at the same time confining. After the rains stopped Tuesday (4th) a road grader came up plowing the roads Wednesday and Thursday. We understand the mountain people voted in the new Mayor of San Pedro Sula and this was his thank you. Although we are not involved with politics here we do enjoy the improved roads. Thursday Toby traveled to La Union to preach. He found that since our visit in the states and the impossibility of travel there since our return that many from the village have moved to the city. The economy is so bad and work is hard to find in the Merendons. Having worked so long and hard and even building the new church building there, it is difficult to have so few left in the village. Toby took advantage of the time to visit nearby villages. February 17 classes start at the new site for the Bible Institute south of San Pedro Sula. It looks like 9 men from the mountains will attend this term. Juan returns this same week from the necessary visit to Costa Rica where his brother is an evangelist. Visa's are renewable every six months and he has to leave Honduras for a month then. We are at work to finalize his residency so that won't be necessary. Juan will live in La Union and evangelize the area villages with hopes of again filling the new building in La Union. Toby's goal has been to have the men firmly grounded in the Word so as to know what is false doctrine so prevalent in the area. We need prayers for this spiritual warfare for the wrong seems so attractive to the mountain people. Even the young men who want to be ministers. For the first time in Central America married couples will be living at our Bible Institute. There are concerns and we ask your prayers that this will not complicate the preparation of ministers. Wife swapping is so common in Honduras especially in the region where we work we are challenged to teach self control and Christian commitment to marriage. We really need your prayers in this matter. Clinic work has been slow, but picked up Wednesday and Friday after the rains stopped and the road was graded. Trucks again were on the road from up in the Merendons. While there have been fewer patients those who have come have needed more care. One man came in with serious bleeding from a machete wound. He had walked a couple of miles in this condition to reach the clinic. One of our clinic workers applied pressure for twenty minutes while cleaned off his leg and prepared to close and finish the six sutures. Don Roberto operates a small village store next to the Penitas clinic and has been a very good friend. A week ago he was taking the pulp off his coffee beans when his long sleeved shirt was caught in the machinery and his arm was pulled into the equipment. He waited until Monday to come for treatment and infection had set in. I cleaned up the arm and started him on antibiotics. People should know better!! So often we receive medicines from the States and then a need for them comes up almost immediately. Glen Hardy from Mt. Gilead provided some strong pain medication and Don Roberto benefited. In another situation we received medicine to treat gout and on the same day a lady with gout came in. Friday (7th) a man came in with an abscessed tooth. The infection was golf ball size. A woman came in with a skin problem called Leishmonasis (a bug bite sets it off and the skin is eaten away). As with Don Roberto there was a lot of dead skin and infection to deal with. Then one of our student ministers came in with his daughter who was very ill. She was choking on worms to the point of turning purple. Toby took her to Cemesa Hospital where doctors can teat advanced cases. A regular feature of our clinics is worming medication. Again the locals should know this. We are grateful for the change of weather so that we can get back to normal activities. It was necessary to get caught up on the financial matters and have study and preparation time so the rain was a blessing. We are also grateful for our new to us Defender Land Rover. With room for twelve passengers we can take the guys and families to the Bible Institute Monday's and bring them home on Friday's without the usual hassle. It can navigate the roads when other vehicles can't. With the great blessings come greater responsibilities and also increased spiritual warfare here on the front lines. Do keep us in your prayers. Prayer warriors sustain this ministry more than we can tell you. May God bless you, Toby, Amy and Cassandra Hill |
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