Saturday in Honduras

Saturday,
We were assigned to hard labor today. We worked alongside a group from the Mount Dora Christian Home and Bible School to build a all at Casa de Esperanza (Terri Tindall's children's home). After two hours of picking up large rocks, setting them in a wheelbarrow, and desperately trying to hold onto the handles as it pulled us down a tiny dirt trail we decided that God had put the rocks at the top of the hill for a reason and that perhaps we shouldn't mess with His plan. Terri wasn't agreeable so we continued our work dodging the large dark flat spiders that seemed to appear only after we'd lifted the boulders up.
Many of you may remember the playground we built last year. It is no longer with us. After three days boards began falling off of it. (Don't worry. No children were harmed in the recounting of this story.) There is now a play fortress standing in its place. All it needs is a moat. We'd like to thank Pinterest for providing the picture, Timoteo and Luis for drawing up the plans, and the Orlandians for rebuilding the temple. Also we'd like to give a shoutout to Danny who traveled from England to entertain us with his accent. You'll all meet him soon. He plans to spend a year with us working with our youth ministry.
Terri is doing a tremendous job at casa. She and Nicole and Matt have been blessed with God's wisdom and strength as they slowly but steadily undo the damage that has been done to their ministry. We were blessed to spend some time in prayer with them and are greatly encouraged by their desire to stay and finish the Work God has given them to do with their children, the feeding at the dump, and Honduras Hope Missions teams.
After the rocks were moved the boys gathered together in a small church nestled at the bottom of the property to speak with the men of Santa Ana about God and his greatness. We ate rice and some type of meat that was well seasoned and unidentifiable. All the men were excited to shake hands and hug us along with a smattering of young men eager to hear about the Lord. After the message Jorge, The local preacher then gathered several men for a bible study with the topic, "what is the gospel?" After speaking, three men decided to give their lives to our Lord Jesus Christ. Baptism in Honduras is always interesting. I've seen people immersed in cisterns and oil drums and in some pretty disgusting rivers. The church in Santa Anna has a baptistry. It is on the stage of the church and is covered by two large steel plates that must be drug away to reveal what can only be described as a tiled pit. Most Hondurans are short so i'm not sure why the baptistry needed to be recessed ten feet into the ground but you get the feeling your watching the beginning of a cage fight as the three men entered into the knee deep water. Jorge had each man kneel and then sit into the water as they confessed their belief. As their heads were about to go under they were admonished not to swallow the water. One of them did and came out in a coughing fit. He was happy but half drowned. Afterwards we all enjoyed wet hugs from our new brothers.