The Hole in Our Gospel
This section of chapter nine of "The Hole in Our Gospel" by Richard Stearns (president of World Vision) describes very well why I continue to go back to Honduras year after year, and why I encourage other people to go.
"I have to confess to you that I, too, struggle to mourn over these kids as if they were my own. Becoming the president of World Vision didn’t turn me into Teresa of Calcutta. It is altogether possible for me to do my job at World Vision with a sense of emotional detachment. I can sit in meetings all day, review financial statements, attend chapel at eleven o’clock on Wednesdays, and even write a book about the poor, without my heart burning every moment with sadness., Like most Americans, I can get easily distracted by the details of my own life and family. We have a nice home, live in a pleasant neighborhood, and go to a beautiful church. We make trips to the mall, go out to the movies, and take family vacations – often with little thought for the tragic lives of children thousands of miles away. But then I get on a plane, and twenty-four hours later I find myself in the home of a grieving mother dying of AIDS and leaving her five children orphans. Or I see a baby slowly starving to death, a child with one leg because of a landmine accident, or a little girl who was rescued from prostitution. And all of a sudden it becomes very personal again. Somebody else’s kids just became very important to me because now I know their names, I have looked into their eyes, and I have cried with their parents. I come back home angry at myself, incensed by my own apathy, with a fresh resolve and a renewed passion to crusade on behalf of these kids, to fight for them with every breath in my body. The meetings are no longer routine, and the balance sheets are no longer just numbers; they are now life-and-death issues. They’re urgent. We’ve got to do something! We’ve got to help! But then, a few weeks later, the fire dies down again, the images in my head fade, I drift back inside my safe and protected world, and they’re somebody else’s kids again – not mine."
- The Hole in Our Gospel by Richard Stearns, pg 109
Apologies
The site got hacked last week. It took awhile to figure out what the problem was, but it’s all fixed now. Sorry for any inconvenience.
Choluteca Projects
Latin News GCLA
January 2010 – Pictures!
Special thanks to Eunice Mejia for the photos!
Virginia Tech Missions in Honduras
I just discovered this site & blog about our friends at Virginia Tech who are working with GCLA in Danli, Honduras.
http://www.missionlatinamerica.com
http://blog.missionlatinamerica.com
Fawcett Family Christmas Newsletter
Click here to see the Fawcett Family’s Christmas Newsletter:
Application Deadline for Spring Break
I just checked the GCLA website, and our Spring Break trip is finally available on the application form. So please go online and apply today!
Remember the deadline to apply is this Friday.
To Apply:
1. Go to GCLA’s website: www.gclamissions.com
2. Click on Register Online (right column)
3. Select our project from the scroll-down list
4. Fill in the fields (4 pages total)
5. Click Submit at the end.
The January team spent about an hour on Sunday packing supplies for their trip, and sorting through our stash of shoes for our upcoming shoe drive. They are so pumped for their trip!
Website Maintenance
I’ll be doing some restructuring of this website for the next few days. Please bear with me as I try to make the site better. Hopefully it will all go smoothly. But just in case, forgive the mess 
.
- Stevi
Keydi Paola Osorto
I’ve put off writing this entry for awhile. Too long. And I apologize for that. I wanted to write something eloquent. But I find words difficult.
On September 7, I received this email from Ian:
Stevi,
Today has been a very difficult day for us here in Choluteca. Keydi Paola died today at 3 pm.
She was admitted in to hospital on Friday and we have been shipping down medication from Tegucigalpa because they did not sell it here in Choluteca. She was really sick on Saturday but when we visited yesterday with Pastor Giovanny she seemed much better.
Sadly I received a call saying they needed more medication urgently at around 12 midday. The medication was due to get to Choluteca at 4pm. It would not have made much difference the doctor said because TB had set in and her defenses were so low.
Praise the Lord she accepted Christ with a Pastor from Cedar Creek Ohio and the CHV team had a chance to confirm here acceptance on Saturday, I was really privileged to be asked to pray for her around 5 minutes before she passed away. She was peaceful when I told her God was there with her.
Thank you for your prayers and your support in all we do, our work here would be much harder than it is without your input. For us it has confirmed once again the importance of the support groups who have rallied around carrying out various things needed before and after Keydi’s death.
Blessings
Ian