Day 5 in Honduras

Apologies…this was posted the morning of day 6 because we had no internet yesterday.

We got to sleep in today…30 minutes. Yahoo! We’ve decided that the first day that we were here there were 24 hours. The second day lengthened to 48 hours long, and today was an eternity.

It was supposed to be an “easier” day. It was less muddy to be sure, but no less easy. I’m sure our weariness factors in to the “how hard was it” matrix.

After the usual devotions, breakfast and ride to Nueva Mendes, we began by testing the depth of the water in the well. We found that there was 100 feet of water in the 150 foot length…a great sign.

Next we got out the plunger (doesn’t look like ours at home, but does the same thing). A past team returned home after their trip to Honduras and invented it for the purpose of plunging the well. Before this they did exhausting work at it for sometimes up to 8 hours. This plunger made it possible for the well-drilling machine to plunge for us, turning the process into 80 minutes. The purpose was just to help clean out the gunk.

After plunging we fitted the well with an air compressor hose sunk to the bottom. The thought was that we would literally create a vacuum and blow the rest of the gunk out of the well. Hah. It kept getting plugged so we had to do it the hard way. By putting smaller pipe down the well until we reached the bottom, and flushing the water up and out. A hundred and fifty feet of 2” PVC gets heavy. It took all of us to hold, screw in and lower the pipe.

Did I mention the sun was shining? Beautiful and hot.

Next came the submersible pump. Again, after pulling up the 150 feet of 2” PVC, we attached a 30 pound pump and had to lower it all again. Even heavier.

It will pump out water through the night, trying to fill the well with clean fresh water from the aquifer.

More children, more men, more women. Lots of laughter. Erica, our 16 year old for North Carolina has boys of every age fawning over her. Whenever they ask her to be their girlfriend she just replies, “Mean daddy!” Smart girl.

Let’s see…big spiders…salamanders…screaming women…that about covers the day.

Tomorrow we assemble the pump and dedicate it with the community. Then off we go, back to La Ceiba for a day of rest. Well deserved, I might add.

BTW...My REAL AMERICAN DIET COKE was incredible!!!

Day 4 in Honduras

Well day 4 didn’t start out well for this blogger. Initially it looked like something I ate decided to run out of my body. I was a little worried given all of the horror stories I’ve heard through the years about digestive issues in a foreign country. Fortunately, for me, I am married to the pharmacy queen. Between prescription strength Imodium and prayer, things turned around quickly.

Devotions began at 6am. The Living Water team (who are Honduran nationals) love to worship. It’s quite convenient that I came with a worship team; worship with music and the Word, followed by breakfast.

After our daily trek to Nueve Mendes, we started the morning by reaming out the final 100 feet of the borehole.  The last 30 feet were tortuously slow. Because the aquifer is gravel based it was slow going to say the least. I found out last night that one of the other purposes of “Midnight” (see yesterday if you need to catch up) was to help the sediment raise to the surface. It’s viscosity is thicker than water. Water alone would never raise the gravel.

Lunch found us ready for the next step: casing the well. The process is to put 20 foot lengths of PVC pipe at a time down the hole. If all goes well, you only have to do it once. Otherwise, if there’s been a cave in, you have to take it all out and completely ream the 150 feet again.

It didn’t go well (no pun intended). We pulled it out, and started again. It was a little demoralizing, but not unusual in these cases.

By this point the sun had come out…ISH. It was warming up. Though I drank a gallon of water through the morning, I began to feel the effects of mild dehydration and had to sit down for a while to reinvigorate my body.

Can I say I am so proud of my son, Josh. He is almost 16. He has worked like a man this entire trip, cheerfully and uncomplaining, keeping up with us dudes (of course, it was pretty easy to keep up with me this afternoon).

Because we had to start again, we were told that we would be working late, probably until about 7pm.

The second time we began casing the well we all were more engergized. This was it. It had to be…none of us had the strength for more. We all agree, we can’t remember when we’ve worked this hard. We have easy lives in America.

After casing the well we had to flush out the slurry and the remnants of the dirt and gravel, which had a thick consistency. At times it almost looked like the chocolate river in Willy Wonka’s factory.

While we were doing this, the men finally had some time to talk a little more indepth with the locals. I talked to Bartajal. I asked him what clean water meant to his village. The thing that stuck most with me was his comment that during the dry season, sometimes they would go five days without water.

The women continue to do great: children in the morning and even more women in the afternoon.

Tonight I get to have a REAL AMERICAN DIET COKE. I packed it in my carry on from Houston. Praise Jesus!

Sorry there are no pictures. The internet is lazy and spotty, and we haven’t been at the hotel long enough each day to wait…wait…wait…

I’ll update you tomorrow.

Day 3 in Honduras

After morning devotions and breakfast, we got on the bus for the one-ish hour drive to Nueve Mendes. Time as an –ish means that I’m not really sure how long it took. We arrived at the church to be met by several men, women and children. The site of our well is in the corner of the church’s property. It is a simple one-room church with a polished cement floor, several pews and an outhouse to the side.

We greeted everyone around and then Nuggett began teaching us the drilling process. Since we have seven drillers (four from Dayspring and three from the east coast) we split into two groups.

Group one manned the drill: one person (the driller) controlling the up and down lever of the rig, one person (the assistant driller) doing the pipe fitting, one person checking the cuttings every five feet to see what kind of earth we were drilling through, and one person recording the results.

Group two prepared the “midnight” (that’s what they call it). It is a strange concoction of water and cement that is very liquid, but hardens to help shore up the borehole. We rotated through every position throughout the day.

The morning had started with the kind of mist rain that we are familiar with in Oregon, but soon it didn’t matter whether it was raining or not. Between the water from the drilling process and the water from the sky, the drill area became a slippery mud pit…worse with each passing hour. It was impossible to stay dry, and an exercise in futility to even think of worrying about the clay/mud mixture that would come up from the ground and spray all over our clothes.

Nuggett told us that the goal today was to drill down 120-ish feet. If  you read yesterday’s blog you’ll remember that I said they expected a total of 160-180 feet.

We found our aquifer at 120 feet, and continued to drill down to 150 feet. We had 30 feet of perfect aquifer for the well.

I didn’t think we could be wetter or muddier, but as we took off the 5-foot lengths of pipe, water and mud sprayed us in places we didn’t know we had.

With only an hour and a half left in the workday, Nuggett decided that we would put on the reamer (the drill bit that would widen the hole to the casing diameter), and try to ream out the first 40 feet of the well. We made it 50 feet before stopping for the day.

While the menfolk were doing the manual labor, the women began their day by teaching hygiene to the many kids who showed up for VBS. In theory, they would teach the same material (in an adult way) to the women of the village in the afternoon, but the women all showed up for VBS as well.

In the afternoon, with the help of Felicia (the head hygienist), the women sat and shared their testimonies with the women of the village, and vice-versa.

Larry, you’d be proud. I ate stuff that was new to me (but sadly, no peppers). I don’t love plantains. The empanada-like pastalitos were yummy. Ryan, are you sure you want your boots back? We were served real Coke for lunch. Yes, I drank it. I did bring two real Diet Cokes from home to help me break my DC fast tomorrow. I have had some Coca-Light, Michelle said it didn’t count (there aren’t many choices, and it doesn’t taste anything like Diet Coke).

Tomorrow I believe that the plan is to ream out the rest of the well and begin to place the casing in it. I’d guess we are ahead of schedule, but who really knows? Everything’s an ISH.

Day 2 in Honduras

We woke this morning to wind and rain. It didn’t stop Michelle from taking a run on the beach. After breakfast we were told we would be picked up at 9-ish for church. In Honduras, 9-ish means after 10am (just in case you who want to know how local time works).

Church was quite an experience. I fully expected to not understand a word that was said. However, the church’s (not Honduras, just this church specifically) first language is English and they translate into Spanish. The key leaders who started the church came from the island of Roatan, and their first language is English. That doesn’t mean we understood it all, mind you.

For those of you who think the music is loud at Dayspring, you should take a trek to this church. At Dayspring we shoot to have our loudest music peak at around 95 decibels. Larry speaks at about 88 decibels on a mic. At church this morning, the talking was 100 decibels, and the music averaged 107 decibels. Loud concerts run around 105 decibels. Suffice to say, even my ears were tired by the end of the service.

But what a service. We recognized several of the songs: Here I am to Worship, I Give You My Heart, Draw Me Close and a couple of others. I had never heard of the hymns before today. There were sung so fast that in my hymnal I could either follow the words or the melody line, but never both. I found that if I made Josh hold the hymnal I could still clap with the rest of the worshipers and at least look like I knew what I was doing.

One elderly woman held a shofar-like horn, and blew it whenever she liked something that was played or said…whether it was on key or off. Another lady in the congregation had a set of maracas that she played as they sang. The message was the second one that the elder, a young man just entering ministry, had ever spoken. It was enthusiastically presented in Spanish, interpreted by his wife (I think). Very emotionally delivered.

After church we returned to the hotel to eat lunch. We had a new driver, Nugget. He’s a little calmer of a driver than Emilio (though we aren’t supposed to tell Emilio that!). Felicia, a hygiene leader, also joined us for the two-hour drive to Saba where we checked into our new home for the next few days. No surprise. DeeDee decided to take a nap while we relaxed before our meeting tonight at 6pm (it is her first one for the trip, for the record).

Tonight we found out that we will be drilling in Nueve Mendes. They anticipate that our well will need to go 160-180 feet to reach an aquifer.

We’ll let you know more tomorrow.

Day 1 in Honduras

Since I felt the Holy Spirit leading me to explore drilling wells in third world countries a few months ago, there have been several times I've wondered what I've gotten myself into. Now that we are here - two plane rides and thousands of miles from home, I still wonder what's in store for us. Not from a fearful standpoint, but one of anticipation, knowing that God has called us here for a purpose.

From left: Michelle & Tony, Lori, Me, DeeDee, Josh, Justin & Jenny.

This morning we got on a plane in Houston, Texas. Three hours later we were standing at immigration in Honduras, trying to read the spanish signs (most of which were also in English).

We were met outside of the terminal by Emilio, our team leader, and Roberto. Emilio speaks English well, has a fun sense of humor, and had us singing songs we thought we forgot long ago (and some we actually did forget). It was a four hour drive from the airport in San Pedro Sula to Hotel Palma Real outside of La Ceiba, literally on the beach of the Caribbean. And my, what a drive. Potholes? No problem, we'll just swerve right around them. And school buses with their lights flashing and the stop sign out? Just swerve around them too. Policemen with AK-whatevers at checkpoints in almost every town, though none ever stopped us.

This was the most interesting house we saw...

It's put together using recycled materials, though the picture doesn't do it justice. You can't see it, but on the right side, second floor there is a bus (the whole bus) sticking out from the house which connects to a staircase down to ground level.

We ate lunch at, of all places, Burger King in El Progresso. The menu might be hard to read but the pictures are the same.

Our hotel is the Palma Real. It sits on the beach of the Caribbean. The water is bathwater warm. It seems to be a vacation destination for families from Honduras and elsewhere.

Tomorrow morning we join fellow believers at church before heading out on another two hour drive to the hotel that will be our home for the next several days. If I overheard correctly, the beds are nice but there isn't hot water. Oh well, showers are overrated anyway.

We are enjoying getting to know our team members from Florida and North Carolina. There are two teenagers besides Josh so he has someone his own age to talk to.

Pray for safety on the next leg of our journey.

The Presence of God Lotto

Luke 1:8-9 - It so happened that as Zachariah was carrying out his priestly duties before God, working the shift assigned to his regiment, it came his one turn in life to enter the sanctuary of God and burn incense. [Message]

This was Zachariah's fifteen minutes of fame, so to speak. The one and only moment in his life where he would be in the presence of God. I don't know if every priest got to burn incense in God's presence only once, or even at all. What about the ones who lived far away? Did every priest make a trek to serve as Zachariah's regiment did? The NIV says he was chosen by lot. With that method, I'd never get to go into the presence of God! I never win the lottery (of course, I'm told you have to buy a ticket to win). What about the other eleven tribes of Israel? They weren't even eligible for the Presence of God Lotto.

How different it is today. Thanks to the shed blood of Jesus, we who are saved are always in the presence of God. We can meet Him anywhere at any time. Of course, in the continual presence of God, most of us take it for granted. We treat the Divine like it is commonplace. For Zachariah, even without the angel, this was a holy moment...and everyone knew it.

Thank you, Father, for all the times I've clearly been aware of Your presence. I treasure those moments. Forgive me for all of the times I've ignored Your presence. May 2013 be a year spent knowing and appreciating Your presence in my life more deeply...each and every moment.

No pain, no gain

I like to run. Wait, let me qualify that. I like to run in warm, dry weather. I hate being cold so running in the wet winters of Oregon has always made it a challenge to exercise during the winter months. And, I'm at an age where I don't really have the option to not exercise if I want to stay healthy into my old age. I know that my wife would kill me if I died before her and left her a single mom while I got to enjoy my "mansion on a hill" in heaven.

I've never in my life worked out at a gym. Those of you who know me personally can attest to that fact. I'm thin and wiry with no muscle tone (not that anybody but DeeDee gets to see). I have no pecs. I would never need a "bro" in Seinfeld terms. I have bad posture, which I'm told could be helped if I'd buff up those pecs a little. Sadly I've lacked the discipline and drive to do anything about it. I've also never been able to overcome inertia to do anything about the sixpack I've always wanted.

Well, the perfect storm hit and I joined a gym. I decided that since I'm there, running on the treadmill while watching Netflix (which is a totally awesome way to run on a treadmill), that I would work on my other muscular deficiencies. I mean, I might as well take advantage of the opportunity while I have it.

I ache everywhere. And because I work out three times a week...it never goes away. I don't know how people do it year in and year out. And I totally recognize that the ache means I am building muscle - which I want - but I haven't yet gotten to the point where I can see any of the results. Still no pecs. Still a two-liter instead of a six-pack.

No pain, no gain. Whoever came up with that phrase should be forced to sit through every opera ever written (unless they like opera, but I'm thinking the five people in the world who do like opera probably don't hang out at the gym much).

Of course it's a great metaphor for our spiritual lives. Our spiritual journey is a marathon that requires us to train in order to make it across the finish line. Most of our training happens in places where we don't see the results for years to come. But if we don't train we'll never make it up the hill at mile five, or across the dessert at mile 19.

We'll never have spiritual abs or pecs, but just remain flabby and out of shape.

How is your spiritual training going? Are you still on the couch watching tv? Have you given up because you don't like the ache of a good spiritual workout? Or because you don't see instant results?

Run the race to win. See 1 Corinthians 9:24-27.