We have been working on reorganizing our filing system. While creating
new files we found our mailing list. We have been using e-mail and our web site
to send out newsletters. After looking through our list, we found there are probably several people who do not have e-mail. So we decided we would send
out a letter to update you on our most recent events. If you have e-mail access
you can e-mail us directly at tobyandamyhill@hotmail.com. If you would like to read approximately every two weeks a newsletter find someone who can
give time on their computer so you can find our website merendon.net. On our
website you can see pictures, information on Honduras and our newsletters. Now the problem is where to start. So much happens here in each day and week
it is hard to know what to tell.
In January we were really excited to have Toby's parents visit. Keith and Sharon Hill are from Mooresville, Indiana. They were able to see how we
truly live. The rain was supposed to stop by the end of December but it just stopped at the beginning of March. The mud on the road up to our house was
anywhere from a foot to over two feet deep. We had an emergency or house call to make almost every day. The weather kept changing, and many people
had asthma attacks or bad cases of flu. One lady had a miscarriage and almost bled to death. We were able to get her
to the hospital in time. Santos, an eight hour old premature baby, died just when we arrived at the hospital after giving it CPR or assisting its
breathing for two hours. We were at our rural clinic in La Union when he was brought in. No one would take him down the mountain so we did. We
closed the clinic early. Then my nurse Yami had complications with pregnancy. I
spent two days with her in the hospital making sure everything was OK. We don't know if Keith and Sharon Hill will ever want to come back after what
they went through. It was great to have them here though. They were a wonderful encouragement and support through all our
emergencies. We joked with them that they had to go home so that we and they could get some rest.
As I mentioned above Yami had problems with her pregnancy. We sent her to live in the city because the roads were so bad and she had had problems
during the first trimester of her pregnancy. We kept in contact with her. I became very
concerned when she was way past her due date. I happened to talk to her right after a doctor's appointment. The doctor had said it was no big deal
for her to be past two weeks on her due date. Yami and I both were not very happy with what he said. I was going through another series of infertility
treatment and told her I would see my doctor that day so I would ask him
about it. Dr. Zuniga was very concerned. He asked me to bring her in immediately. Within three hours we had her at his office. After several
hours of testing, Dr. Zuniga found that there was almost no fluid in her sack. He said if Yami would have waited a couple of more days (as the other
doctor had wanted) the baby would have been stillborn. Dr. Zuniga found a
less expensive hospital for Yami to give birth in, induced labor but nothing happened so He took the baby by c-section. Everything went well and
Sucelli Diana Zeron Diaz now is two months old and weighs 12 ½ pounds. We are thankful to God and Dr. Zuniga for making sure there were no problems.
We are very excited that Yami's husband, Martin, accepted Christ a couple of months ago. Toby is working with him teaching Martin the basic and most
important teachings, the foundations of our faith. It is exciting to see Martin already sharing Christ with others. He is
also making sure that both he and Yami read their Bible daily and have prayer time. Martin has so much potential as a future leader and perhaps
preacher for the one of the mountain churches. We appreciate his steadfastness. He is quiet but yet firm in what he believes.
At the end of March we had Stan Bowers, Dr. Rick Compton, and Alex Compton come to assist us and work on the church. We were amazed with how
much work they were able to get done. Alex, age 14, was a great worker and had a great attitude. We were very impressed with him. Among other things
they built five new benches for the sanctuary. They put in ceiling tile and lights in five
rooms. They also did a wonderful job helping us at my rural clinic in La Union de Rio Frio. I teach
three through eight year olds for Sunday School. It was hard to have a normal Sunday School because they could not make much noise or else they
would interrupt the sermon. With the new ceiling tile we can sing and play. The
kids are enjoying Sunday school so much more now. The lights that were put in the clinic make such a huge difference. Before we were always squinting
to see what we were working on. Now that the rooms are brightly lit up I have
no problem examining the patients. We really appreciate the hard work that Stan, Rick, and Alex put in.
Toby has been working hard. He started a new discipleship group with three guys. Martin has a notebook for his studies and he is serious. We are
hoping in the future to maybe send these men to the Bible Institute. There is a big problem in the mountain with people teaching things that are not in
the Bible or go against what the Bible teaches. Toby plans on sending
several men to the Bible Institute so that there will be people in the churches who know what the Bible says and will be able to defend it. He
also preaches at least once a week sometimes twice. He continues to play soccer with the kids. This has proved to be a great teaching opportunity.
It is always amusing to me to hear the kids ask me, "Can Toby come out and play?" He is also finishing a new room that Stan, Rick and Alex framed in
so that his Sunday school class can have a classroom. He is waiting for a door with a frame to come in so that he can finish the room off.
Over the last several months, Toby has spent a lot of his time running people who have had asthma attacks down the
mountain. We have been praying the Lord would provide a nebulizer for the clinic to assist with breathing
problems. I was telling a friend/missionary Bill Hoff about our problem saying how much we needed a nebulizer. He said that he thought another one
of our missionary friends, who runs an orphanage, had some extra and urged me give her a call. She had not only one but two nebulizers in working order to
loan us as well as three others if we could get them repaired. Not only that but she had the medicine for the nebulizers and other things supplies needed
to go them. She also gave us boxes of medicine that she could not use but that we definitely could. Thank you so much Nora Suisse for sharing with us! We joked that when we received the nebulizers that we would not have any
more asthma emergencies so we went and got them the next day. We have not had one emergency since then.
For a long time now we have had a problem with people taking advantage of us. Such as pretending illness so they could get a free ride to take a bunch of
produce down to the city. We also had parents whose children were sick all day but
waited till night to ask us to take them down to the city. It is dangerous to drive down the mountain road to the city in the dark. It got to the
point that Toby was running to the city anywhere from once a day to sometimes two or three times a day. It was taking all his time and energy so that he
could not do what he came here to do. We also had people who were coming to us day and night for
various things. While we enjoy having people come and we love sharing with people, but it got to the point where we were not getting enough sleep or
time for ourselves.
We also were sharing our money to the point we did not have enough for our own personal needs. We shared our concerns with Dr. David
Grubbs. He was a long term missionary doctor in Africa and is now the President
of Cincinnati Bible College and Seminary. He offered sound advise which we have been taking to heart. We were advised us to take three consecutive
days off a month, somewhere where no one could find us. He said, and we have found this
true, every day that you are where you work is a work day. He said that Satan would make sure we would not get rest on the day we had set aside for
our day off. That has been very true. We started this last month taking three consecutive days off and it make a huge difference in our attitude and
in how much we are able to get done. He also recommended that we divide our finances into mission and personal making sure that we always have money for
our own needs. We are working on that too. He also recommended that set up a board or group that would set prices for emergency trips and calls at night.
This way people will not be as quick to take advantage of us. We were supposed to meet last Friday but I lost my voice so it had to be canceled.
We are very grateful to Dr. Grubbs for his advice. It is making a big difference in our ministry here already.
Some of you know that we have been undergoing infertility treatment. We have found most of the problems and have had them fixed. I had surgery here
in San Pedro Sula on March 16th just to make sure there was no scarring or endometriosis
The doctor found that my fallopian tubes were closed. I was crushed. He said he had another test to do to make sure the diagnosis was correct but he
felt our only hope was invitro fertilization which we could never afford. I had the test done yesterday. I was in a lot of pain from surgery and then my
throat was in a lot discomfort from the airway they put down my throat during surgery. I finally got over the pain but I still wasn't able to sleep for
almost of week because of the irritation from the tube. I spent most nights with a coughing which nothing would stop. Toby had to sleep on the couch to
get any sleep at all. Not only that but I had pulled a set of my stitches from coughing so my stomach was even more tender. Last
Thursday I finally recovered from all that. I went in to work even though I could not
talk. I had several patients that came in who waited almost too long to get medical help for their children. One lady was two weeks past her due date.
She had not felt the baby move for four days. I listened for fifteen minutes for the baby's heart beat but could not find one. The baby was stillborn. I
had another mother with a five day old baby who could not get it to latch on for nursing and waited five days to get help. The baby was starving. There
were also several other cases of neglect. It was hard seeing all of this and thinking that the Lord might not bless Toby and me with a child. Yesterday I
went in for my other test. Dr. Zuniga found that my tubes are open. He did not know why in the surgery it showed they were closed. Although we have not
conceived yet we have hope. Next cycle, we will begin the next step. Please pray that the Lord would bless us with a child and that everything will work
together for good.
We have been offered a piece of property that has a much more spacious house on it than the one we live in. Where we live here in the Merendon
Mountains we are in a protected rain forest. The laws state that a person may not build unless it is on an existing structure. We enjoy the blessing
of our house where we live, The only problem is that there is no possibility to build on. Since we are planning on having a
family it creates a problem as to where our children's rooms would be. Our current home (on loan from John and Madonna Spratt) is a mile distant from
the church/clinic and most of the people of the church. The house that has been offered to us is almost next to the church and clinic with the community
store between. I would be able to walk to work rain or shine and Toby would not have to worry about me getting to the clinic safely. Also we would be
able to walk to church within minutes. The house is an adobe structure with three bedrooms, two baths, kitchen, living room, and dining room area. The
only problem that we have is that there is a dispute as to who owns the land. Amazingly the house is owned by one person and heirs own the land and we
aren't sure who really owns the land. We are trying to make sure everything is legal and right (there is a difference in Honduras). We have a friend who
is getting the paper work taken care of for us. We will then take it to two different lawyers to check into. It is not unusual for someone to buy a
piece of property, for the person to take the money and then for whatever legal
reason the land not be yours. In everything we do we try to make sure we use the money and time the Lord has given us wisely. We will not pay one
cent until we know that the property is legally clear and can be ours so that will have no problems. We had just about decided that the Lord did not want
us to have
this property. We had asked Jeff Faull, the minister from Toby's home church, to see if he could find someone(s) that could loan us $10,000. Due
to the undependable phone system here we were not able to contact Jeff till yesterday. We were pleasantly shocked to hear that he had found several
people from Mt. Gilead who would loan us the money and above what we asked so that we can make some needed repairs. The interest rates here in
Honduras are extremely high, 32%. We cannot get a loan in the states because we are buying property in a foreign country. People here are
generally dishonest or at least undependable. To pay this man on a monthly basis could also cause problems. He could twist things to make it look like
we did not pay him. We thank the people who are loaning the money to us from the bottom of our
hearts. These people from Mt. Gilead church know that we will pay them back over time. It takes a huge burden off our shoulders. Toby talked last night
with the man who is helping us make the purchase. It seems things are finally falling
together. We still have lawyers to talk to make sure everything is legal but it looks like we could be moving.
If we do buy the house, we will need many volunteers to help us get it into shape. Such things here do not have to done professionally. Its hard to
hurt an adobe house. If you have the talent of a general handy man, we can use
your help. We will need people with skills in block laying, plumbing, electrical
work, plastering, putting in windows, etc. We plan on building our bedroom, a bathroom, storage area, and a fence surrounding the property before we move
onto the property. If you are interested in helping us let us know. If you write Amy's dad
(Dennis Weaver 1989 Struble Rd. Cincinnati, OH 45231), to let us know of your
interest. He will pass the word to us and we can send you some more information and assist you with arrangements. Toby and I were discussing last night and trying to write down all the
blessings the Lord has given us. We finally agreed that it would take too much paper to send them with this letter and that we would not be able to
remember them all. The Lord has been exceedingly good to us. He has blessed us so much with everything us in our life. We know beyond a shadow of a
doubt that He has his reasons for not blessing us with a child yet. We are just waiting on His timing. We are
also thankful for the continual encouragement and support you provide. Thank you for all your prayers. We know we need them daily.
God Bless,
Toby and Amy Hill