R & R in Copan!

Saturday and Sunday were a time of relaxation & fun in Copan. A few visited the Mayan ruins and bird sanctury. Sunday morning all 16 of us enjoyed the zipline- so much fun! Then it was time to see Tim's Packers win the football game!

Monday morning 5am wake up call for the crazy 3 hour ride back to San Pedro Sula to fly home to cold and snowy Pennsylvania with good feelings about lives impacted in our brief visit to beautiful Honduras.

Stay tuned for news of the March 2011 Deep Run East team to San Pedro Sula.
Thank you!
Barb for the team

Surgery for Nolvin

This is the sad little boy, Nolvin who we met in Sante Fe on Thursday. With the help of the MAMA staff we hope to find a surgeon in Honduras who will give him a chance to run and play with his friends.

Celebration Dinner

Friday evening is a time of celebration of a week of accomplishments! Isabella, the best cook in Honduras fed 33 persons, our team and all of the MAMA team staff and volunteers. After dinner, Mary presented a report of the statistics of the week with totals for each community. The grand total results are as follows:
Homes with new cement floors- 30
Bags of cement mixed- 208
Medical clinic patients- 624
Deworming- 593
Vitamin A- 115
Dental extraction- 179
Low hemoglobin- 233
Malnourished children found- 21
Micronutrient powder distributed- 619
Reading glasses- 158
Praise God for giving us the opportunity to serve in this way.
Special thanks to the MAMA staff and volunteers who made this possible:
Hector- Director
Mary- Team Coordinator
Felix- Construction Leader
Wilson- Construction
Eddy- Construction
Rosa- Nurse
Dr. Blanca Ruby
Shelly- Dental clinic
Astrid- Dental clinic
Elle- Translator
Josselyn- Translator
Gabriela- Translator
Dania- Translator
Isabella- cook
Karen- asst cook

MAMA Honduras presented Deep Run East Teams with a plaque to commerate our many years of service in Honduras (this was our 11th team to San Franciso de Yojoa).

Thanks to our family, friends and church who donated medicine and especially for your prayers. This was the best team ever (but we say that every year!)

Barb for the team

Day 5- Camalotales

(internet not available on Friday Jan 21, so finishing our updates after the fact)
Only one hour drive today, past Lake Yojoa thru the village of Taulabe. We set up in a school for the 3 communities of Camalotales, Taulabe, and Comayaqua. The guys had an exhausting start to their day with a 1000ft elevation (using Joe's i-phone app to check altitude) to their first house. With the help of the amazing MAMA staff, Felix, Eddy and Wilson they were able to split into 2 crews this year, doing 2 floors at a time with Don or Ed finishing. The process is to use the mixing pan (introduced in Honduras last year by our team!) to mix in the middle of the room. The batch is dumped and another one mixed while 2 guys spread and Don or Ed start to finish in the back of the room. The process is continued until they get to the front door:-)
This community was a little smaller, the medical clinic only seeing 128 persons. A family with malnourished children was found who were invited to come to the nutrition center.
Barb for the team

Sante Fe Thursday Jan 20

January 20,2011
Santa Fe, San Francisco, Santa Barbara



Leaving the mission house at 7:30 and arriving at 9:30 we went passed beautiful countryside.Up, up, up high in the mountains on very bumpy roads we unloaded the trucks. We set up our stations while the men took their equipment and went to their first of six concrete floor projects. I am working with Joanna Detweiler this week and she is doing a great job of organizing the viamin A and the deworming station. She is a great asset to the team. People came slowly and steadily all morning. Today there were not as many men like we had the two previous days, mostly women and children. Before we knew it we had treated 100 people at our station. The men returned for a quick peanut butter sandwich and then back to work. It is never easy to eat our simple sandwiches while the town watches through the windows of the classroom. Karen Detweiler was taking blood from each community member. Yesterday she was very concerned that she might have made a mistake with the testing because the entire village had a low hemiglobin. Today everyone had a good number so in fact the numbers from yesterday were most likely correct and pointed to a community problem. MAMA will need to notify the proper community health officials. We noticed that there were large sugar bags that are reused for chicken manure and then washed for corn. The manure might be polluting the community water. We raised many questions at our nightly meeting about this acute community blood problem.
The afternoon was very warm but I didn't mind thinking of the cold weather back in PA. The blue sky was such a plus and the gentle breeze felt good in the open window of the classroom we were in. The people in this community were so friendly and thankful. Community members brought many gifts for the children staying at the mission center. Gifts of eggs, dried corn, oranges and small change were given with thankful hearts. Of course the men didn't enjoy the heat as much as I did because of the heavy water, the heavy cement and the heavy sand. There is a theme there! They certainly worked hard but were also appreciated by a people that truly needed the floor. Of course walking up and down the steep hills might have had something to do with the tired band of the concrete crew. Finally at the end of the day there was a little boy who was sitting nearby as we gathered our materials together. He didn't participate in getting the small gifts we handed out. It turned out that he never attended the clinic because his mom wasn't there. DR. Kathy noticed the boy had a club foot. Karen Detweiler found out some information. Sadly this 10 year old has had to deal with a club foot all his life which could be corrected. A new challenge for the team.
As we came together our team shared, reflected and looked forward to our final clinic. May God continue to bless our efforts.
Ruth Hohenstein for the team.

Canculuncos and Faithfulness

Day 3 of our work is done. We traveled 2 hours around Lake Yojoa and as usual up a rutted mountain road with beautiful overlooks as we traveled a little too close to the edge of the road. (BTW--in my years of coming here we are traveling more remotely all the time...as people closer to the main roads are more healthy and we travel to the poor in the remote squatter communities up the mountain roads.)

We found the agricultural village of Canculuncos to be well fed with lots of chickens and pigs. An interesting "business" there is washing "feed bags" for their third use- first sugar, then chicken manure (fertilizer), then corn...so the washed and drying bags lay all along the edge of the road. But although well fed, we discovered a consistent pattern of low iron (anemic) in everyone....our doctors wonder why and we will ask the MAMA staff to followup.

Our concrete crew continues to amaze...another 40 bags of concrete for a total so far of 126, tracking to hit over the goal of 200 bags! Six houses a day have new concrete floors and we hear that each one is "perfect"! The concrete crew appreciates the great organization of Felix and the MAMA staff in preparing all the materials ahead so they can make a difference for so many families.

The medical clinic saw about 145 patients and the dental student volunteers (Shelly and Astrid) pulled 46 teeth!

We thought about faithfulness tonight in our devotional time. Although we are only here one week, our team is being faithful to God`s call to help the poor in our work. As we read the appropriate Oscar Romero prayer, "A Future Not Our Own", we reflected that we are "planting seeds" and "doing our work well".

Thanks for your prayers...we are all healthy. Please pray esp. for the concrete crew tomorrow. They do not know...but the houses will all be up a mountainside and they will need to carry water, etc. up a very steep incline. Pray for a cool breeze to refresh them and energy to make it thru the day.

Barb for the team

Did you see us on TV?

Today we worked in Buena Vista, a village that was only settled about twenty years ago or so up in the hills more than an hour from San Francisco de Yojoa. The medical clinic saw 115 people while the dental clinic saw 40 patients. Since Leah is in public relations, she worked her magic and had a TV crew show up to film the work that we were doing (just kidding about Leah making the arrangements for the filming). The construction crew really poured it on today, using 46 bags of cement to make floors in 6 houses. Everyone continues to be in good health, gracias a Dios. Thank you for all your prayers. Blessings to all from Linda Rush for the team.

Greetings from Brisas de Bascadia

Richie Ludwig and I (Leah) will be your guest bloggers for today. Today we traveled to Brisas de Bascadia. We got an early start leaving at 8am. Both vans were packed to the brim with eager workers! We traveled for about an hour and 20 minutes and found our way to a remote village. The men completed six houses equaling 40 bags of cement. Rich says the guys are on track to reach their 200 bag goal. The medical team saw approximately 70 people. This village seemed to be a healthy one. It was a fruitful day and the children and people were beautiful and very gracious. Here is a video clip from the end of our day today.

Okay, well we tried to upload the video, but it was not a success. We will share this when we get home:)

Day 1

Hello friends! We arrived safe and sound today in San Pedro Sula and on to San Francisco de Yojoa. Some excitement getting Don through the security areas since his passport had been previously run through the wash and had water damage that perplexed the examiners. But, we all arrived and after a delicious dinner we have sorted and counted medicines, packed toys, crayons and soccer balls and clothes to take with us tomorrow. We also visited Marlins house that was built last year. Everyone is a little washed out tired after a very long day. JoAnna is doing great and handled 2 large suitcases that weighed as much as she does. Amazing that all those suitcases ended up in the right place. It has been a pleasure to be in the high 70`s rather than the low 20`s. The one set back is the high humidity which is such a change from the dry cold air at home. Looking forward to getting started tomorrow. Thanks to one and all for all the prayers. The snacks from our prayer partners are great! Love to all, Karen and JoAnna

Team #19- January 2011

We are excited! Have our 18 bags of donations packed! Please check in over the next 10 days to read our stories. Thanks in advance for holding us up in prayer!
Team Members: Joe and Ruth Hohenstein, Barb and Jake Rice, Don Rice, Tim Weaver, Ed Wyse, Karen and Joanna Detweiler, Leah and Rich Ludwig, Dr. Kathy Roeder, Dr. Judy Riley, Keith Williams, Timmy Magee, Linda Rush