WE have been going over the discipline of prayer with the girls for quite some time. I had felt for some time that we needed to be praying more with the girls and just establishing a discipline for them and ourselves. While Natalie and I were stuck on a bus for hours a couple of weeks ago, while we were waiting to get through a road construction situation on our way to pick up a team, I came up with the idea to get a chart with all the girls names on them and put on the grid a place for the names, and their requests and then the date that God accomplished the prayer. The assignment is to pray for those who are on the page every night so we won't miss anyone.
I had them bring their prayer requests and we filled out the sheet and placed every request for the girls on the paper. We had almost 40 names, including girls and staff members. Then they started remembering others that had been here for a short time or long time, and other staff members. So I told them to turn the page over and started writing by hand. The other side of the page had almost 100 people on it. It hit me how huge God's vision is for this ministry. We didn't even include teams that have been these last 17 years and how their lives were changed by visiting this ministry. WE have had on the average of 10 teams a year with 15 persons each team. So that is 150 people X's 17 years, which is 2550 people more or less, who have come through this ministry to bless our girls. I don't even know how many more have given gifts or sent items to the girls who have never been. Churches that we have never been in or that they have never seen, have helped us all these years, and then we have over 11,000 people who read the blog page where people from all over the world keep up with the stories of our girls, as we give Glory to God.
I was thinking if we had not come as a family, none of us here that live on the farm and the people who have visited or worked on the farm would ever have met each other. As it is we all have a close bond to each other. All the girls were rescued from some kind of hard situation. The girls and I were overwhelmed at this information. Who can know what kind of plans God has for our lives.
I was amazed that the girls remembered some of the folks who came years ago. I would have expected for the older girls who graduated out of the ministry to remember these names but the girls remembered ones who had touched their lives when they were little. I wanted to share some of the names.
Girls who have lived here or who are living on the PTC Farm:
Alicia
Anna
Brenda
Carina
Carmen
Darlin
Francis
Gabbi
Jennifer
Jenny
Kami
Katy
Kenia
Kimberly
Lizzy
Lucy
Maria Elena
Mariela
Mary
Mera Mileidy
Norma
Paola
Rosy
Sonia
Stephania
Yensi
Yessenia
Angela
Cruz
Anastacia
Rosa
Eziekela
Marta
Doris
Dilcia
Dina
Dunia
Evelyn
Ana Patricia
Lina
Any
Angela
Brenda
Mireya
Miss Corrie
Elsa
Vicky
Kensy
Keiryn
Suyapa
Zulmin
Karin
Lourdes
Neli
Glynis
Natan
Reina
Gabriel
Lucia
Genisis
Nora
Carla
Naomi
Gabriela
Charity
Charisa
Sarah
Helpers over the years
Miss Jennifer
Miss Jessica
Mr. Joe
Mr. Jimmy
Mr. Ben
Natalie
The Botkin Family
Miss Haley
Miss Amanda
Miss Brandi
Anna Williams
Courtney
Clayton and Morgan
Laverne
Johnny and Anna
Mr. Keith and Joana
Tanner
Nathan
Margot
Esperanza
Samuel and Sonia and family
Mr. Sonny and Ruth
Charlotte and Kevin
Mirian
Sharon and John and family
McWorters
Mr. and Mrs. B
Brett
Miss Nancy
Miss Pat
Mr. Rick
Pat
Miss Martha
Miss Mona and SAM
Miss Linda and Seth
The Judges
Teams
Mr. Jonaton and Rebeca
Denise and Brook.
These are just some of the people that they wrote down to pray for every night. I was so overwhelmed at all the people who have been affliated with this ministry that I know and all the folks I have never met. I just wanted you to pray for us and our list. God knows all of our names, and He knew we would all be connected by this ministry to each other. Thanks to all of you who made relationships with our girls. I pray God bless you for your faithfulness to follow through with what God asked you to do. If God is calling you to go anywhere, go quickly. Who knows what He will accomplish through your obedience. God has a plan. I am thankful to be part of His plan. The cool thing if even if it was one girl who needed help God would have still set sent someone to rescue the perishing, care for the dying. God is Amazing.
Monday, March 19, 2012
Sunday, March 4, 2012
Broke Bottom Mountain
This week has been yet another week of crazy circumstances. We had a team from Round Rock Church. They were the highlight of the week. It was a small team, but they were such a blessing because they were small. They had brought uniforms for the girls, and had brought so many wonderful things for the community in which we are serving.
In one of their trips down the mountain to the little village of Yasi, one of their members took a tumble. The swing bridge was out of commission, so they had to go through the river and going in they successfully maneuvered through to the other side. After they had delivered all the goodies to the local school in Yasi, they came back to the river and did like they did when they entered and crossed over on the rocks. One person stepped on a slippery rock and her legs flew up and her bottom went down on the large boulder as she was crossing. She was a nurse and she knew that she had cracked her tailbone. After the shock of the initial injury, she realized she had to get back up and go up the mountain. The trail to Yasi resembles a goat trail. It goes straight up and straight down. You can't even get a mountain bike or ATV in there. So those guys from the Texas team, and a positive confessing nurse with her cracked tailbone, climbed out of what we lovingly call "the hole", which was a miracle.
I knew how she felt. I have cracked my tailbone going down a flight of wet wooden stairs on an island in Honduras. If you try to step up at all, the pain is excruciating. I just sat in the ocean because there was no where to go and thankfully the land was flat at sea level. Yet they climbed one of the steepest mountains around here and got back on top of the mountain to our Center. At first she had two of our girls assisting her, but the pain became too intense and so she finally opted for the big guys to come help her. She was focused on getting back up the mountain and her confidence wasn't in herself or her ability to do it herself, but through necessity, she reached out to God to get her what she needed. Her confidence became focused on God to be her Healer and her Helper. God got her up and she stayed up and about for the whole trip. She travel extremely bumpy roads to visit other places and share the love of Jesus with her team.
The whole team blessed me and our girls with their quiet confidence that they knew they were supposed to be here. They drove up to the mountains to Secate Blanco and they had bought 100 pounds of rice and beans to share with the people there on that mountain. One guy was stationed outside to guard the stuff. The ride to Secate is amazing most times, but right now it is really dusty and so he was sucking in a lot of very fine powder from the dirt road. After stopping several times the women on the team voicing their concern with this situation and convinced him to come inside. They finally arrived at 7500 ft elevation to their destination and they had planned on ministering to over 160 children. When they looked in the back of the truck, most of the stuff had fallen out along the road because our faulty tail gate broke again. With our rocky condition of our roads almost everything spilled out. They were able to recupe a few things, but the rest of the goods were gone. The cheered each other by saying "WE did come to share with the community. " Who ever got all the stuff was probably overcome with gratitude that someone had left all that stuff in the road. They didn't murmur or complain about what had happened. They were confident that God worked all things together for good for them and the people in that mountain.
While all these trips were going on, I was going to the judges office. Sometimes the families of our girls visit. Unless the judge has said otherwise we work with the officials in seeing that the girls get to see their families occasionally. Most of the time, it works against us. This time an older sister unbeknownst to us, had been looking for some of girls birth father's. These absentee fathers had agreed to help her monthly for their child support. So she started planting seeds in the hearts of some of our girls. One of our girls who is so quiet and no problems started breaking out with rebellious attitudes towards everything. Finally, she ran away on the day I returned after a brief visit to the US. We found her about an hour later and called her older sister about the problem and she said that she wanted to have her sisters come to live with her. I asked the girls and they are new teenagers and said "Yes". So I made arrangements for the two sisters to talk to the judges. When we finally had an audience with the judges, they asked if the girls if they really wanted to leave, one said "yes" and the other said "I want to stay with Mom", which surprised me, because she was the one who had given me the most trouble for years, and the one I felt for sure would have left if given the opportunity. After the judge signed the document, I found out from the other family members about the sister's contact with the birth fathers. I was so frustrated about this 12 year old being used, and she just wants her dad, who she has never met as far as I know, to want her. Her sister has her own agenda. I have had these girls, who have left recently, from anywhere from 5 years to 13 years. I could only see that somehow none of this was right. God keeps reminding me that I don't need to put my confidence in how many years the girls have been here with me in Honduras, or how long I have had relationship with them, or my abilities as a mom, or a missionary, but to keep my confidence and focus on how my relationship is with Him
We have had so many things coming against us this past month and many things are on going. My confidence has not been where it needed to be because I have just been trying to deal with all the situations that are racing towards me I haven't felt like I had time to stop and focus on God. I know the legal systems are fractured, people are fractured and it would appear that I am showing signs of fractures too.
One of our girls who left recently has been transferred to a horrible center. I tried my best to talk her out of it because I had heard rumors of how bad it was, and now I know it is a nightmare of a place. She just was just determined an felt like her family would come and get her out and she would live with her Dad. She is still there and her Dad has been unable to get her out. I hate that she will soon be 14 years old and I raised her since the age of 5 and she is there seeing the side of life that I had hoped to protect her from. One of my graduated girls went to visit and encourage her and she called and told me "This place is horrible with a Capital H." Apparently the police pick up kids from the streets and if they are under 18 they place them in this center. This is what she witnessed: There a 30 girls to a room. One girl who lived at this center, had a failed attempt at suicide the night before and so when the mom came to visit, she told her daughter that because of her trying to kill herself, her punishment was that the mom was going to leave her there one more year. One group of girls from a gang, got mad at one of the helpers, and beat her up and kicked her teeth in. This all happened within 48 hours of my girl being placed there. I was told they sent her to Tegucigalpa because the dad could get her easily out of there, and it hasn't worked out that way. She wanted to be with what she remembered her family was like. During all her transfer, we found out that her mom lives under a bridge and has no home, and her dad has one glass eye and he is losing vision in the other. He was a watchman but he can't see at night and so there is no work for him. She is still in the center in Tegucigalpa. Please pray for her.
It seems that my faith has been taking a hit lately. Not that I have doubts about God, His presence has been the only constant in my life for a long time. But even though I know He is ever with me, I want my confidence to be in the Lord, and to automatically look to Him when I can't understand what is happening all around me. I don't know why I try to figure it out before I stop and ask Him for His counsel. I don't want to be focus in my abilities or the lack thereof, or trust in my girls to do the right thing, or me saying our doing the right thing, or others doing the right thing. Confidence : a noun that is the feeling or belief that one can rely on someone or something; the state of feeling certain about the truth of something. The only truth I have found, is there is Someone who we can rely on, because has been my experience that we just can't rely or depend on anyone or anything 100% of the time except for God. He never leaves and never forsakes, and I am thankful I have an advocate with the Father. I want to be confident that I know this truth and when life comes careening towards me as if to run me over, I will automatically and immediately turn to Him and ask "What is your take on this?"
I want to ask you to pray for all of us, but especially for our girls. Our little family unit feels a little fractured and we are at the bottom of the mountain right now, but I know through prayer He will send who we need, and what we need to help us get back up to the top.
Meantime thanks for praying for us. Blessings, The Fractured but Recovering Honduran MOM
In one of their trips down the mountain to the little village of Yasi, one of their members took a tumble. The swing bridge was out of commission, so they had to go through the river and going in they successfully maneuvered through to the other side. After they had delivered all the goodies to the local school in Yasi, they came back to the river and did like they did when they entered and crossed over on the rocks. One person stepped on a slippery rock and her legs flew up and her bottom went down on the large boulder as she was crossing. She was a nurse and she knew that she had cracked her tailbone. After the shock of the initial injury, she realized she had to get back up and go up the mountain. The trail to Yasi resembles a goat trail. It goes straight up and straight down. You can't even get a mountain bike or ATV in there. So those guys from the Texas team, and a positive confessing nurse with her cracked tailbone, climbed out of what we lovingly call "the hole", which was a miracle.
I knew how she felt. I have cracked my tailbone going down a flight of wet wooden stairs on an island in Honduras. If you try to step up at all, the pain is excruciating. I just sat in the ocean because there was no where to go and thankfully the land was flat at sea level. Yet they climbed one of the steepest mountains around here and got back on top of the mountain to our Center. At first she had two of our girls assisting her, but the pain became too intense and so she finally opted for the big guys to come help her. She was focused on getting back up the mountain and her confidence wasn't in herself or her ability to do it herself, but through necessity, she reached out to God to get her what she needed. Her confidence became focused on God to be her Healer and her Helper. God got her up and she stayed up and about for the whole trip. She travel extremely bumpy roads to visit other places and share the love of Jesus with her team.
The whole team blessed me and our girls with their quiet confidence that they knew they were supposed to be here. They drove up to the mountains to Secate Blanco and they had bought 100 pounds of rice and beans to share with the people there on that mountain. One guy was stationed outside to guard the stuff. The ride to Secate is amazing most times, but right now it is really dusty and so he was sucking in a lot of very fine powder from the dirt road. After stopping several times the women on the team voicing their concern with this situation and convinced him to come inside. They finally arrived at 7500 ft elevation to their destination and they had planned on ministering to over 160 children. When they looked in the back of the truck, most of the stuff had fallen out along the road because our faulty tail gate broke again. With our rocky condition of our roads almost everything spilled out. They were able to recupe a few things, but the rest of the goods were gone. The cheered each other by saying "WE did come to share with the community. " Who ever got all the stuff was probably overcome with gratitude that someone had left all that stuff in the road. They didn't murmur or complain about what had happened. They were confident that God worked all things together for good for them and the people in that mountain.
While all these trips were going on, I was going to the judges office. Sometimes the families of our girls visit. Unless the judge has said otherwise we work with the officials in seeing that the girls get to see their families occasionally. Most of the time, it works against us. This time an older sister unbeknownst to us, had been looking for some of girls birth father's. These absentee fathers had agreed to help her monthly for their child support. So she started planting seeds in the hearts of some of our girls. One of our girls who is so quiet and no problems started breaking out with rebellious attitudes towards everything. Finally, she ran away on the day I returned after a brief visit to the US. We found her about an hour later and called her older sister about the problem and she said that she wanted to have her sisters come to live with her. I asked the girls and they are new teenagers and said "Yes". So I made arrangements for the two sisters to talk to the judges. When we finally had an audience with the judges, they asked if the girls if they really wanted to leave, one said "yes" and the other said "I want to stay with Mom", which surprised me, because she was the one who had given me the most trouble for years, and the one I felt for sure would have left if given the opportunity. After the judge signed the document, I found out from the other family members about the sister's contact with the birth fathers. I was so frustrated about this 12 year old being used, and she just wants her dad, who she has never met as far as I know, to want her. Her sister has her own agenda. I have had these girls, who have left recently, from anywhere from 5 years to 13 years. I could only see that somehow none of this was right. God keeps reminding me that I don't need to put my confidence in how many years the girls have been here with me in Honduras, or how long I have had relationship with them, or my abilities as a mom, or a missionary, but to keep my confidence and focus on how my relationship is with Him
We have had so many things coming against us this past month and many things are on going. My confidence has not been where it needed to be because I have just been trying to deal with all the situations that are racing towards me I haven't felt like I had time to stop and focus on God. I know the legal systems are fractured, people are fractured and it would appear that I am showing signs of fractures too.
One of our girls who left recently has been transferred to a horrible center. I tried my best to talk her out of it because I had heard rumors of how bad it was, and now I know it is a nightmare of a place. She just was just determined an felt like her family would come and get her out and she would live with her Dad. She is still there and her Dad has been unable to get her out. I hate that she will soon be 14 years old and I raised her since the age of 5 and she is there seeing the side of life that I had hoped to protect her from. One of my graduated girls went to visit and encourage her and she called and told me "This place is horrible with a Capital H." Apparently the police pick up kids from the streets and if they are under 18 they place them in this center. This is what she witnessed: There a 30 girls to a room. One girl who lived at this center, had a failed attempt at suicide the night before and so when the mom came to visit, she told her daughter that because of her trying to kill herself, her punishment was that the mom was going to leave her there one more year. One group of girls from a gang, got mad at one of the helpers, and beat her up and kicked her teeth in. This all happened within 48 hours of my girl being placed there. I was told they sent her to Tegucigalpa because the dad could get her easily out of there, and it hasn't worked out that way. She wanted to be with what she remembered her family was like. During all her transfer, we found out that her mom lives under a bridge and has no home, and her dad has one glass eye and he is losing vision in the other. He was a watchman but he can't see at night and so there is no work for him. She is still in the center in Tegucigalpa. Please pray for her.
It seems that my faith has been taking a hit lately. Not that I have doubts about God, His presence has been the only constant in my life for a long time. But even though I know He is ever with me, I want my confidence to be in the Lord, and to automatically look to Him when I can't understand what is happening all around me. I don't know why I try to figure it out before I stop and ask Him for His counsel. I don't want to be focus in my abilities or the lack thereof, or trust in my girls to do the right thing, or me saying our doing the right thing, or others doing the right thing. Confidence : a noun that is the feeling or belief that one can rely on someone or something; the state of feeling certain about the truth of something. The only truth I have found, is there is Someone who we can rely on, because has been my experience that we just can't rely or depend on anyone or anything 100% of the time except for God. He never leaves and never forsakes, and I am thankful I have an advocate with the Father. I want to be confident that I know this truth and when life comes careening towards me as if to run me over, I will automatically and immediately turn to Him and ask "What is your take on this?"
I want to ask you to pray for all of us, but especially for our girls. Our little family unit feels a little fractured and we are at the bottom of the mountain right now, but I know through prayer He will send who we need, and what we need to help us get back up to the top.
Meantime thanks for praying for us. Blessings, The Fractured but Recovering Honduran MOM
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