Day 3 (Tuesday)

Today's devotion was presented by Ryan, and it was about unity. Unity as a team at the work site, unity as the combined teams of Elevate and Cedar Creek, unity of mission and purpose. As the newness of the trip begins to wear off, and our day's become more predictable, it will be important to not loose site of why we are all in Honduras.

We loaded the buses ½ hour earlier today than yesterday, (So much for routine). The Elevate teams first stop was the Tortilla factory and bakery. This store front was recently relocated across the street from the Great Commission Church. The Tortilla factory produces about 10,000 Tortilla's, baked bread, cookies and other baked goods daily. The recently purchased Tortilla machine can make 6000 Tortilla's per hour, so production only takes about 2 hours per day. The manager of the story is working on getting some contracts with local supermarkets to increase demand. Distribution and sales of the finished product is keeping sales down.

With all of the heavy rain, we loaded the buses and were taken to the central market area of town to purchased much needed boots. 1 Pair of rubber work boots cost $140 Lumpera (approx. $7.50). Then it was back to Casa Hogar Vida to continue working on the playground. With all of the rain yesterday, it was even wetter at the work site. We completed moving the fill to completely enclose the playground with a border. Then our next assignment was the lift the play structure the construct a new foundation of large boulders to replace the 4x4's currently sinking into the mud. What a challenge.

The afternoon we headed to a real supermarket to purchase some staples (rice, sugar, beans, lard, pasta, salt etc.) to give to the families we were to visit in the afternoon. We were told the supermarket was owned by Walmart. With the donations collected, the team purchased 33 bags of staples to be distributed. We went back to the same neighborhood to support the Senior Toshee's new small group being formed. Our team visited 2 families. We returned to a family we visited on Sunday, to talk with them again and give them some much needed food. Several of the children looked like they were showing signs of malnutrition. The second house was an older couple that had a real connection with Tom and Betty, since both couples had children from previous marriages and were not remarried. After finding out that they had already been invited to the small group meetings, our interpreter took command of the dialogue and we just sat back and watched.

After dinner we tried to Skype with Julie as a team and were somewhat successful, but we lost internet connection and bandwidth continues to be a real problem for us. Everyone got to at least say hello before we lost the link.