December Highlights

Hi, we hope that you all are doing well, we are going to start putting monthly highlights here. We were posting the weekly updates but then found out that our data uploads are limited. If you are interested in weekly updates you can sign up on our website or send an email to hishandsconstruction@yahoo.com 

 Dec. 7th:

Sindy, Beto, Denis and Natalia have been in Omoa so far this week. The electric there has been causing difficulties, they have found several places that need reworked. They are putting in a new disconnect and are changing some of the wiring that the electric company put in that isn't correct. Victor, Gustavo and Antony are working in Quimistan. They have been pouring the upper perimeter "ring" that ties everything together at the top of the walls. A great group of hard workers!  We are also leaving for Honduras and Panama for two weeks, next week! Time is flying! We also have two meetings set up in Honduras for potential work. Praise the Lord! 

     Today is Friday, Sindy went over to a restaurant and hotel in Omoa to look at some possible work for Sandy and Greg, the owners who live in Canada. Sandy had several items for us to look at on her maintenance list to see if we could help them. One of the items was a potential safety issue with coconuts falling out of the trees and hitting a customer! I've read about coconuts falling and hurting people, with an occasional death so it is an important thing to keep on top of! They, Beto and Denis, ended up cleaning the fronds and the coconuts out of the trees to eliminate that potential risk to their customers! Good call Sindy! 

     This Sunday, it's back to Ohio to get ready to go to Honduras and Panama this week. We should have some good reports for you! 

     We are leaving early tomorrow morning so I'm sending this tonight.

Dec. 14:

 Hi everyone! Welcome to Honduras! This morning when we got up in Ohio, it was 14 degrees. At noon when we arrived in San Pedro Sula, it was 91 degrees!

     We had a nice surprise for Sindy, Nikki came with us, and I didn't tell Sindy! A fun reunion! We haven't slowed down much since we've been here. After the airport, we headed to Omoa where we settled in, ready for a good night's sleep and up at 4 am, leaving at 5 am for La Ceiba. We met with Teresa (Hi Teresa) who was watching another person's house, Sue, had contacted us about some repairs on her house. It was a fun time with Teresa, finding out she'd been on our email list for quite a while and was keeping up with us! Praise the Lord!

In the morning, Thursday, we have another meeting, with Jason from Givehope2kids. He has some items to review with us, hoping we can help him! Then we are on the road to Tegucigalpa with some more legal

paperwork, praying this is the last information they need! Then Friday we are off to San Salvador to get ready for our flight to Panama on Saturday! Praise the Lord! 

     Today, Wednesday, we had another need put on our hearts for prayer. We were approached to church plant in Honduras! There are pastors that want and need direction in starting their own churches. And we were asked if we could help, how do you say no to that!?  Oh my, when we give our lives to Christ and ask Him to use us... hang on! Isaiah 6:8 "Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, "Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?" And I said, "Here am I. Send Me!" So, add in the new commitment with the country of Panama...and just like Moses, listening to his father-in-law Jethro, you need help! You can't do it all! And so do we! If you want to get involved let us know! 

     It is Friday morning, wakening in Tegucigalpa, getting ready to meet Darwyn for breakfast and handing off our legal paperwork. Then on to El Salvador. We had a nice visit with Darwyn, Ana and surprise, Fernanda! I had thought she was staying in Ohio because her student visa had expired, and she was a little concerned about the renewal. Which, praise the Lord, only took her a week and she

said it was very easy to renew! Then off to San Salvador. We checked 3 different gps's and they all took us north first; there must have been something going on south of Tegucigalpa on the roads. As a result, an almost 5-hour drive ended up taking us 9.5 hours! We made it safely to San Salvador and that was the main thing. This will be Beto and Sindy's first time flying and our first time on a local airline, COPA airlines. I'm looking forward to watching them :) 

     Saturday night in Panama City! We were about an hour late arriving, a late start and then we sat on the tarmac for a half hour at least, waiting for a gate to open so we could disembark! As a result, we had a little trouble with our rental car, not sure why still but we did. Eventually everything worked out and Jose drove us to our hotel.

     We did get our first Facebook review posted! Thank you Merry and Dwight for your kind words and support!

Dec. 21:

Merry Christmas! 

     It is Wednesday evening. We just got back from another day of visiting churches! What a blessing this week has been! We left you last week on Sunday morning as we were getting ready for church. Church at Central Church Panama was very nice! Monday saw us visiting a couple of the house churches in the suburb areas surrounding Panama City. The first visit was with pastor Marvin and his wife Elizabeth. They feed 35 children when they have the money. Our next visit was with pastor Vincent and his wife Berta. They have 15-20 adults come to their church. Once a month they have church all night long and as

many as 50 people come. Pastor Vincent has a prison ministry where he ministers to approximately 200 inmates, in 10 different prisons! Our third visit was to pastor Roybie and his wife Karen. 15-20 people attend their church in the Tanara neighborhood.

     By then it was time to go to the Panama Canal for a tour! We went to the viewing area of the canal and watched a couple of the 40 plus ships that traverse the canal daily! A very neat experience! 

     Tuesday, we headed west towards the city of David. On the way we went into the mountains to the Ngobe Bugle (know-blay blue-blay) Indian reservation. There are around 300,000 Indians in the mountains on 3 different reservations. They are a very colorful people, all of the females, regardless of age, wear a specific type of dress in many different colors. We met pastor Roma who shepherds

several of the locales. At the first church, which was just a minute from the mountain road, we met Mercedes who was the church leader. Next stop we drove around the mountain and proceeded

to hike for 35 minutes! Up and down at least 3 ravines with a creek usually in the bottom of the ravine. Pastor Lionel was a young, full of energy pastor who was perfect for his position! They had church for us in the middle of the day! The songs and prayers, with them being so very genuine, crying to the point of sobbing because of their love for Jesus and what He means to them.... awesome! Praise the

Lord!! We stayed the night in the city of David. Today, Wednesday, we went farther west to visit pastor Eliecer and his wife Lilian, in Puerto Armuelles. They have 25-30 people in their congregation. Pasto Eliecer helped to plant two more churches in the mountains which we visited. The first church was in the Zapote area of Puerto Armuelles. This church has been active for 3 months and has 80 people attending

already! Praise the Lord! The community is working on giving them a piece of land that has a "shelter house" on it for their church! The next house church was in the middle of a banana plantation.

The Majagua neighborhood. Pastor Eliecer is busy pastoring to those 3 churches, hallelujah! After more prayer, we headed for the beach area to check out a new dock area that is being built to promote more business and possibly a cruise ship port!

Tomorrow we are traveling back to Panama City going straight to the airport where we'll fly to San Salvador and spend the night before heading to Honduras Friday morning.  God is so very, very good!! 

     It is Sunday morning, we finally get a chance to kick back and relax some without the go, go, go! It was nice to not need to set the alarm and just wake up naturally, which of course was still 5 am. The crew is still working hard on Roxanne's house in Quimistan!

We and talked with Greg at Sunset Playa Resort, had dinner and discussed us doing some of his maintenance items. We're going back today sometime to make a list and review it

with him. We are talking to a veterinarian, Corey, in Olanchito about replacing his roof and repairing some mold issues. The Lord is faithful in sending us things to do! Hallelujah! Tammy and Nikki are putting together a bunch of Christmas gift bags for the children and staff at Yolany's Hope, the orphanage where Johany works and we've visited several times. 

Dec. 28

Praying you all are doing well and enjoyed celebrating the birth of our Lord and Savior Jesus with your family and friends! And happy new year coming up! 

     It is Monday evening; we are preparing for our trip back to USA tomorrow. Back to cold weather, lol!

Today, Friday, we had a meeting with Tyler who is the ministry director at Marysville Grace church. Jerry has been working with Brannon at Richwood Church and there is interest there. God is moving! 

We're going to have a review next week with Roxanne and her house project in Quimistan, Sindy is working on a timetable for the completion. We have vision statements to finalize, Tammy is working on a

yearend video, Jerry has been working on our sponsorship program, Nikki is working on the landfill mission, Dr. Dave is working on the chiropractor trip in April.

Teamwork makes the dream work! Praise the Lord!

Blessings, John and Tammy