The team also went to a boy’s orphanage. It has been a long time since I’ve been there. We took hats and played games with the boys. We enjoyed a great tour of the facility. There is some work that needs to be completed and they asked if we would be interested in a work project. I told them I would have to let them know. They have vocational school training on site which is open to the people of the community. They teach welding, sewing, and woodworking. The wood shop needs a hand jig saw with scrolling ability, they have three wood lathes without motors and no lathe knives.

A Helping Hands Ministry team just returned from an eight day trip to Honduras. Fourteen people made this trip and represented several different churches.

This is one of the best trips I have ever been on. This is my report:

Our latest shipment arrived one week before we did which gave us plenty to sort and distribute.

We visited the Santa Teresa Hospital and gave away newborn caps that were handmade and donated to us for this purpose. We also went to the “Home of the Ancients” (rest home to us), to see how they were doing and to meet the nuns that oversee the place. It’s been several years since I was there and we found many needs which we will attempt to alleviate with future shipments.

We went to a newly roofed church in a community called Ahortirique (unsure of spelling) which also now houses a school. We delivered school supplies, food, clothing, shoes and toothpaste and toothbrushes for each child. We also distributed quite a few stuffed animals.

And, of course, what would a mission trip to Honduras be without the infamous “chicken truck ride” up the Oki Mountain. The truck is a dual wheeled farmer type truck with metal rails around the bed about chest high. The rails serve two purposes, the main purpose is to keep you from falling off the truck on the rough roads, and the second purpose is to almost bruise every part of your body from waist to neck. This trip is looked forward to by all and anticipated greatly. By the way, this is about the only way to get a group up the mountain and it is about an hour and a half trip. The trip is a lot quicker coming down; but, enough said! The only way to get an “I survived the chicken truck ride” tee shirt is to, well, survive the ride.

We toured the Enlaces Bi-Lingual School and the new additions to the building. They have turned what used to be a warehouse into some really nice classrooms. They have also completed part of the second floor of that same building and have three additional classrooms finished. There was plastic on seven of the windows to keep the blowing rain out. After a few questions, we discovered they did not have the funds for these windows, so HHM supplied the funds for six of those windows and a member of our group purchased the last one. The school now has 357 students enrolled through 9th grade. Next year they will add the 10th and possibly the 11th, which in Honduras will complete your high school requirements.

There is a new building near the small gate to the orphanage which will be a barber shop. There was nothing inside when I saw it. I asked the administrator where he gets his support. Some comes from the Catholic Church, some from the community, some from folks like us. He said he just prays and God sends it. When we returned to the warehouse at Enlaces, we were trying to finish sorting the shipment that had arrived the week before we got there, and you’ll never guess what I found. Three hair trimmers, I plugged them up and all three worked, they were delivered to the orphanage the next day along with six mattresses. The other six requested mattresses were delivered the following day. When we were shown the kitchen, there was one freezer (it’s broken) and two old refrigerators and not much food. The sink drain lines have been patched the Honduran way which consist of wrapping the leaky area with plastic bags. We are inquiring the cost of feeding the boys per month and hope to have that information for you at a later date.

There is a church that meets at the Enlaces Center on Sunday morning. They have been building homes for people in need and just completed one project. The only thing left were the funds for a water meter and a power meter, which HHM provided.

HHM helped draw and paint a picture on the wall inside the school. We also painted part of the wall on the outside of the compound. The team organized the wedding ministry room, organized the kitchen, straightened up the storage room in the school and stamped the books in the library.

Tony Haywood and Sandi Burgess along with the newly hired ministry guy (don’t know his official title), Triffi Rios, met with the Governor of Comayagua state. She had some requests that we were able to fill and she toured the school, the youth center and the compound.

As you can see, we were busy and accomplished a lot. We are already picking up supplies and preparing the next shipment. Here we go again!!

It will take much funding to meet these needs. Please pray and if God so leads, help us to help these people with these projects. We will be waiting to hear from you.

In His Service,
Tony and Donna Haywood