Joyful.
If nothing else, our Men’s mission trip this week has been filled with joy!
On day 6 Pastor Alejandro arrived with 3 men from his Men’s ministry in El Obraje. They were joined by Pastor Henry and two men from his Men’s ministry from our Tegucigalpa Centrale church. Together with our team, we continued our work building the new mission house. Major progress has been made building up the walls on the third floor. An interesting change in our plans ensued when the architect announced the cistern hole our hole digging team had been working on would have to be much, much deeper than the 3 meter depth they were planning. In addition, our team had hit solid rock somewhere after the first meter down, so in the name of safety (the depth of the hole) and the intractable rock, we hired a back hoe to finish the hole. The need for this cistern and its pumping station which will get the city water line, which has inadequate water pressure, up to our Mission house was underscored when we ran through our second tank of water that supplies the mission house until the cistern and pumping station are complete.
For our evening together, we all took a vote and passed on a planned third indoor soccer game. Instead, after our devotionals, we got out the mission house games — Uno, Jen ga, chess, and checker boards — popped popcorn and had a full evening of games together. Although Dan from our team won the Uno game, Augustine from Obraje was a very close second in his rookie outing. The remaining Uno players (author included) need remedial training. Meanwhile, the Cubs won game 2 of the world series (updates on the score were made regularly. This is a men’s trip), so all was truly well in our evening of fellowship together.
On day 7, we woke to more wall building and dirt moving thanks to the so very efficient backhoe. After a partial day of construction, we bid the Obraje team farewell to 
their bus journey home. We finished out our day with some souvenir shopping in downtown Teguc before our group dinner at a family style Mexican restaurant.
Our evening devotional focused on the highs (many) and lows (none, once the backhoe showed up) of our trip. We are simply amazed at the many personal relationships we struck up with the men of the regional teams with whom we worked. We are also thrilled that the fabulous national “Men in Service” week has had in launching the Honduras Men’s ministry program to a whole new level.
Trip leader Joel summed it all up so very well with his observation: “If success is measured in Man-hugs, this has been a really good week.”
To close out our blog, as we prepare to head to the airport this morning, we are filing this results report – in part so we capture the notes for our future followup visits to Honduras. Here is a summary of the church men’s teams with whom we worked, and the progress we made together on building the new HN mission house:
First, on the construction front:
- We laid down 1,050 bricks
- …Building 8 third floor walls
- …Each to a 5 brick level!
Next, on the Build the HN Men’s Ministry front:
- From San Pedro Sula:
- Pastor Felix
- 14 men – all in matching church polo shirts
- 15 men total
- From Teguc Centrale:
- Pastor Henry
- Roger and Alex, men’s ministry team members
- 3 men total
- From Ciudad Espana:
- Pastor Daniel
- Felix, Yunior, Gersy, Alex, Marin, and Danilo
- 7 men total
- From Talanga Diez de Septiembre:
- Pastor Carolos
- Norlan
- 2 men total
- From El Obraje:
- Pastor Alejandro
- Augustine, Olvin, and Marvo
- 4 men total
- From Danli la Cofradia:
- Pastor Ramon
- 4 men, but we didn’t record their names
- 5 men total
- In addition:
- Construction foreman Mario and his 5-man crew of Henry, Emmerson, Darwin, Roberto, and Alan
- Men’s National leader Rigo Rios and our 2 translators Raphael and Luis
- 8 men total
- From Resurrection:
- Trip leader Joel
- Pastor Chris
- Bill, Dan, Brad, Norm, Ben, Tim, and Dennis
- 9 men total
- In total:
- 7 of 21 HN churches participated, representing all 3 Honduran regions
- 44 HN men and 9 Resurrection men working together
- In total, 53 Men in Service building the mission house and the HN Men’s ministry together.
We are joyful.