Satuday, July 1, 2017.

Greetings from Honduras!  Another beautiful eye opening day for the team members, starting with Rite Two Morning Prayer, and finishing with good conversation and unwinding in the pool back at the hotel.

We went up the mountain today to visit the site of a past Mission trip.  The town was Las Delicias Del Norte, and the Church, a short walk away, was Iglesia San Lucas.  The original mission trip consisted of building hornos, masonry stoves for cooking, and pilas, masonry water holding tanks with washboards and a sink.  Several of the team members worked one or more mission trips of the five or six that took place in this town.  To rekindle old friendships for Tim, Bob, Alice, and Fredy was a true blessing, and to meet and make new friends for Byron, Debbie, Star and me was also a blessing.

The town itself was like others we have seen recently, on rocky, dirt roads carved out of a jungle, with little hope of improvement in the near future.  The homes are almost primitive by our standards with the wood burning hornos and pila sinks.  Transportation seems to be mostly walking, some horses, many motorcycles, three wheeled motor carts used as taxis, a few cars and trucks, and a few bikes.

Picture mostly masonry homes with tin roofs, approximately 300 square feet (many less), in varied states of disrepair, with paper and refuse everywhere, and children everywhere, with power lines crudely tapped to bring free electricity to their homes without the benefit of fuses.  The backdrop is lush mountains and deep valleys with beautiful vegetation, an explainable contrast to the impoverished city.

Now the miracle, the people and children that we met appeared to be mostly happy, joyful, and accepting of the situation they are in.  A few young children brought beautiful wild flowers to the women of our group, and the smiling faces of the children brightened each of our days.  Many smiles and greetings.  The lesson being that money and worldly goods are not necessarily the key to happiness.

We ate dinner with some past friends from this village, Grandma Gloria and daughter Erlis prepared a delicious arroz con pollo dinner (a rice, chicken, vegetable casserole) for father Miguel, baby Andres and us, with ice cream for desert.  Very delicious!

• We learned some lessons today, made some friends, and praise and thank God for the love that he shares with each of us..........George