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