At the end of breakfast, two young Honduran women who have been sponsored by Honduras Outreach, Inc., for education as teachers came to talk to us. We had a prayer together and gave each of them one of the crosses that the mission team members are wearing.
We climbed back into our school bus and set off through the mountains for Rancho el Paraíso. It had been raining, and the unpaved road was very muddy. A bus in front of us got stuck in the mud going up a hill and had to be towed out. We tried the hill next, and we got stuck in exactly the same spot as the first bus. On top of that, we had a flat tire. The bus has four wheels on the rear axle, so the flat didn't keep the bus from moving, but it needed to be changed as soon as possible.
The truck carrying our luggage and trunks tied a small rope to the bus and started pulling. The rope broke almost immediately, but it was just enough to get the bus's rear wheel out of the hole in which it was stuck, and the bus was able to continue up the hill to a flat stretch of the road.
Changing a bus tire on a dirt road was a muddy business. Karen got the bus driver to pose for her while changing the tire.
We reached a gas station for a rest break. Note the security guard with the machine gun. He was with us through the mountains.
Everyone lined up for the two unisex restrooms. The little kids were fascinated by the North Americans.
Lindsey bought almost all the entire supply of the local hot sauce.
We arrived at the ranch, unpacked, and relaxed for a bit.
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| Mark and Karen |
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| Pat, Kristen, and Mark |
Just outside the dorms is this cross, erected by a mission team some years ago. The appearance of the mountains behind it change almost hourly with variations in the sun and clouds. The area is very beautiful.
One of the dorms we're in has been named in memory of Jim Morriss, a long-time member of Tarrytown UMC and one of the people who originally organized Tarrytown's participation with Honduras Outreach, Inc. Jim came to Rancho el Paraíso many times, and served on HOI's board.
Looks like M*A*S*H 4077, with pointers to hometowns all over the USA. In this case, it's pointers to churches that have sent mission teams. Tarrytown United Methodist is prominent. On another pole and faded out a bit is Covenant Presbyterian in Athens, Georgia. That's a church just a few miles from my own.
The path to the dining hall is lined with plants that we can grow only in pots inside our houses. Here, they are shrubs. The palms are pretty impressive also.
Inside, the education team was preparing the supplies that they will distribute to the local elementary school teachers on Monday. The teachers have access to very little in the way of materials for teaching, so each will receive a bag full of things useful in elementary classes. The hundreds of colorful bottle caps in the trunk are to be used as counters for teaching arithmetic. Some of the supplies are for our own Vacation Bible School classes later in the week; the paper plates with holes in the middle will become sheep costumes for the kids to use in acting out a parable from the Bible.
One of the most famous of all American children's books, Margaret Wise Brown's Good Night, Moon.
Each person on the TUMC team traced their hands onto colored paper for this display.
Meanwhile, the construction team fetched their power tools from storage and set them up for use. Their job this time is to construct chairs, tables, and bookcases for an elementary school classroom and the local library. Everything is to be made of plywood, which has been ordered from a local supplier but hasn't yet arrived.
Amazing flowers just grow along the paths.
This is Flaco, our adopted dog. Flaco means "skinny" in Spanish. He showed up at the ranch sometime in December, and hadn't had a good meal for some time. During the course of our week at the ranch, Flaco became noticeably less flaco as we sneaked table scraps to him.
Relaxing before dinner. The birds are (we think) parrots, and are extremely colorful.
The ultimate in portable personal lighting. It's really a book light.
After dinner, a devotional hour that included communion with tortillas as the unleavened bread.
At 2:30 AM, the promised 30 sheets of plywood arrived. Most of us were sleeping so soundly we didn't notice.
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