More hospital news...& School

Yesterday was another day spent in the hospital for Joyce and I...one expected, one unexpected!

I had a colonoscopy scheduled for yesterday so I was at the hospital by 8:30 a.m. When I came out of the procedure Will informed me that Joyce was next door in the emergency room. Seems she got food poisoning and the combination of diarrhea and vomiting caused her to dehydrate severely. By the time I got to her she was resting comfortably receiving an IV to hydrate her. Today she's back to her "old" self.

Tomorrow 5 of the kids head back to school at Good Seed. That's right, this year we have two more in the Christian Bi-Lingual School! (Cesar & Pedro). I, also, will be going to school tomorrow. The school asked me if I could help them out for the month of September so I'll be teaching 4th, 5th, 6th, & 7th grade math classes. I don't know if you should pray for me or the kids...maybe both!

Urgent Prayer Request!!!

Please read the post below. It is from Robin Demboski, the Chief Medical Officer of Wellspring of Life Ministry. Robin is a devoted servant of the Lord and even now just returned from another medical trip to Haiti to help those less fortunate than her. Please, please read and ask the Lord if He is telling you to step up and help Robin!!! At the very least...PRAY!

Good Morning everyone,

As most of you know I went to life link yesterday to find out information about Kidney Transplant.

So basically I am good candidate as long as I get a little more testing done.

1. Dental (seeing Friday)
2. Echo Cardiogram ( I will try to set up next week)
3. Blood testing for (sex transmitted disease (standard)
4. MAMO’S ( will try to set up for next week)

I must meet with the surgeon; I am waiting on that for life link.

First they told me average time to get a kidney is 2 years (which the doctor made it pretty clear I don’t have two years to wait)

Alternative is a living donor someone who is willing to give me a kidney.

What is required for a living donor?

1, under 60

2. No hypertension

3. No diabetes

4. Not sexually promiscuous.

5. Must be A or O doesn’t matter negative or positive.

No one can be tested till I finish my testing, I will speed things up , because Life Link is too slow for me.

That is why I will set up for Mamo, Echo, and see what else they will let me do on the out side

More General Hospital and just things...

Poor Angel! He's walking around like a little old man. He has one of his mother's tee shirts on and nothing else...when he walks (very slowly) he's bent over and holding the tee shirt out away from his front...he's very, very careful.

My turn in the barrel...Tuesday morning I have to go in for a colonoscopy. I've been losing blood and my doctor wants to take a 'look see'. Oh joy!!!!

We have a meeting with Fiscaglia (Attorney General's Office) on Monday to try to figure out what we can do for Antonio. Thus far we've found no one, or no organization in the country who is willing to try to help him. There are so many 'plain sight' reasons why this country suffers as it does and this is just one of them. Honduras is almost set up to perpetuate gangs by the way the treat their children and the way they make it almost impossible for foreigners to adopt.

Last night we had our own 'mini-hurricane'...it poured and poured, and it blew and blew; the result: we had another night of flooding in our house...in Antonio's bedroom, the kitchen, our bedroom, and a little in Cesar & Pedro's bedroom. The street in front of our house had over a foot of water covering it from one end to the other.

General Hospital continued...

This morning was spent at the operating/recovery room with Angel. We went in at 6:30 a.m. and came out at 11:40 a.m. Long morning, but Angel was a trooper and earned the praise of his doctors. He's home now, but having trouble keeping anything in his stomach. He says he hurts 'a little' but other than that he appears to be fine...he's one tough hombre!!!

Yesterday afternoon we took Pedro to the doctor to check on his asthma...we had to buy an atomizer and new meds for him. He uses the atomizer 4 times a day for 15 minutes at a time and it seems to be helping him already.

This afternoon we take Cesar & Pedro to the dentist for each of them to have two cavities filled, and then next week we take Mauricio & Fabiola to be fitted for braces.

We continue to have 6 of the 7 on amoxicillin (Rosa has escaped thus far).

And that's the day's report from General Hospital........

Creatures of the Deep...

No one knows for sure what goes on in "The Deep"! Now these pictures may reveal some of the mystery for us! It looks as if the creatures like being together, although they don't appear to do much work. We can also see from one of the pictures that they apparently suffer from eye disease like we humans!!!

Health problems continue...

Now it's Pedro's turn...his asthma has a taken a severe turn for the worse necessitating his return to thrice daily inhaler treatments. On top of that he's broken out with a rash around his neck and upper chest area. I'll take him to the doctors with me this morning when I return with Angel's blood test.

Hopefully this morning we'll get Angel's surgery scheduled and get some relief for Pedro.

More Medical News...

Angel has had his third lab test in three days. The first two were for urinary tract infections and the one today was the 'dreaded' blood test. Dreaded because it requires a needle! This one was a blood test to see if he's okay for surgery. Angel needs to be circumcised...ouch! Tight skin is the cause of his infections and now surgery is to be scheduled for Thursday, we hope.

The doctor said he will be down for one week and it will be painful. His school starts on Thursday, but we should be able to get his assignments and keep him caught up from home. The cost is 18,000 limps...cheap by U.S. standards, but when you take hits like that on an already thread-bare budget it makes you wince a little.

Please pray for Angel; he's tough, but he's going to be very sore for a few days.

Musings...

Worldwide recession? The paper here today says that unemployment in San Pedro Sula is hovering around 40% and that among youths it is at 70%! That's the figures for here in the city, so you know it has to be much higher in the rural areas where illiteracy abounds.

Mini-vacation: Today is the first time in 2-1/2 years that we will have the chance to go to the beach. A young man in our church is getting married on the beach at Tela at a beautiful resort and Joyce, Fabiola, and myself are invited. We are going BUT... Tropical Storm Harvey with winds of 60 miles per hour and torrential rains is directly over Tela as we speak and is moving westward at only 9 miles per hour. Doesn't sound like much of a beach day, does it?

Minor illnesses: It started with Angel and now has spread to Antonio, Pedro, Cesar, & Mauricio...the coughs, runny noses, etc. Coupled with that Angel is on medication for a urinary tract infection and the medicine is giving him diarrhea. Will's going to have a good day watching the rest of the kids while we go to the wedding!

Back to School Supplies...

Getting back to school doesn't come cheaply when you're sending 5 children to a private Christian bi-lingual school. Witness the supplies above for 4 of the 5 children.

Comings & Goings...

This week has been busy doing seemingly nothing...

• we received word that through his summer tutoring program Cesar will not be admitted to Good Seed School in Sept. That's a great break for him, but it take considerably more resources to get him there. Matriculation, Monthly Fee, Books, Uniforms, etc.
• Angel, Mauricio, & Fabiola have all had dentist appointments and now they tell us that Mauricio & Fabiola will both need braces...think more resources
• Angel has developed a urinary tract infection which was uncovered after two trips to the doctor and two outpatient lab tests...he may have to be circumcised!
• we've been trying to buy the last of the kids books and supplies for Sept. 1 opening
• two meetings with our new lawyer have unveiled that once again we've been taken for a 'chunk' of money by our latest lawyer
• Joyce & I spent a day driving to and from Teguicagalpa and meeting with the head of a very well known and well respected ministry there. They specialize in special risk kids and there's a chance they may have the capability of taking Antonio to the next level of his development
• delivered documents to our lawyer today to solidify our standing w/IHNFA
• had a meeting at 7:30 a.m. with Cesar's school about his unacceptable behavior with a young girl there.
• this afternoon Joyce and I spent 1-1/2 hours talking with Cesar & Mauricio about their behavior
• made a trip to the machine shop to check on the progress of the repairs to the drill rig
• went to Good Seed to pay for Cesar's matriculation and books

AND IT'S ONLY WEDNESDAY!!!

Birthday celebration...

View from our boat on the lake

Our birthday mermaid...

Would you want to captain this boat???

Yesterday the entire family went on a 'day outing' to celebrate the 14th birthday (actually it's Monday) of Fabiola. It's hard to believe the scrawny, little, 10 year old girl we first met is now a blossoming, beautiful, young woman...but she is!

First we went to Lago de Yojoa, the largest lake in Honduras, and took a boat tour of the lake. It was great fun, as none of the kids had ever been on a boat before and the lake is beautiful. After having a picnic lunch we headed high into the mountains to 'Joya Grande', the largest zoo in Honduras. It was really quite good; they had monkeys, macaws, ostriches, llamas, prairie dogs, peacocks, leopards, lions, hippos, zebras, giraffes, and many other animals. They also had a zip line that really flew and the best item for the kids was a LeMans type race car and course that they could drive (Mauricio & Fabiola...the rest had to ride w/them or Will or myself). Once back into San Pedro Sula we had Fabi's birthday dinner at her choice restaurant, Larson's. Tonight we'll have a cake after dinner and give her her presents. She really is amazing...

Will's Honduras Update 8/13/11

Buenas!

These past few weeks have been so busy and I can't really afford to cover every day like I did with the Tullahoma team. So I will just share with you guys my own personal highlights of the week I had with the D.C. team:

1. On one of the workdays 4 men by the names of Steve, John, Papa Gai, Aaron along with myself all built a 100+ yard fence and it was awesome. God blessed us with an awesome view of the mountains in the background so every now and then I would find myself looking out just thinking of how rare a view I had and of how awesome God is. We worked very hard and we had A LOT of fun together. We all laughed at jokes, talked about the bible, God, and alot of other things. It was amazing to see how much work we had done considering how much laughter you would have heard.

2. The group and their V.B.S.'s: It was neat to see how much passion this group had for VBS. Every place we went they held a VBS either in a bordo or in a nearby village. They would have small lessons, games, and would take the kids out to play soccer in fields that may have been nearby. It was pretty cool to see the "gringos" interact with the Honduran children.

3. God had laid it on the hearts of the team members to purchase materials for a church within one of the large bordos. The materials were all meant to build a better church that would not leak and would be a much more solid facility. It was great to see how sensitive the group was to the urgings that God placed on their hearts.

4. One day we took the team to a village up in the mountains named "Maranatha" that had no electricity and while there I translated for Papa Gai and I lead my first person to Christ in Spanish. It was awesome! My spanish was PERFECT! Grammar, vocabulary...ALL OF IT!!! My spanish is decent enough to converse in but I am nowhere near fluent so I could definitely see where God was giving me the words to speak.

5. The second day of work we split the team in two and I took one half to a bordo that I visited with the Tullahoma team and there are two things that stand out to me.

First, A girl in the group named Taylor asked me to go back to the truck with her because she wanted to cloth a naked child. I complied and I had no clue that this was going to be another humbling moment that God would give me. We had to walk quite a way back to the truck so we brought him with us. I asked him what his name was and he replied "booty". I felt weird calling him that in front of everybody so I asked him if I could call him "buddy" (which is how you would pronounce his name in English) and he agreed. We arrived to the truck and Taylor suggested we clean his feet. We grabbed some bottles of water and a towel and I started to wash. His feet were covered in dirt and poop. While I was cleaning I joked with him and told him why we were there. Through all of this, all I could think of was Christ washing the disciples' feet.

Secondly, the team wanted to hand out hygiene packs, clothing, and shoes to the people of the bordo. Things started out well but quickly it started to get out of hand. The mother's started to incite a frenzy and before we knew it we were beginning to get swarmed. Eventually, we had to pack up and leave and that is when it got really interesting. Some of the team was in the back of the truck and the rest were inside with me. I had to back all the way out of the bordo because there was no way to turn around. As I was backing out, I saw some of the mother's yelling at me because we were leaving and they didn't get as much stuff as they wanted. There were people trying to climb into the back of the truck with the team so they could take what they could get their hands on (I later found out that some of the team members were being slapped or hit on the arms and being spit upon as we were leaving). It was literally like a riot scene you would see in a movie! As I neared the exit and turned to leave, someone threw a rock at the truck and after that we were out. I later learned that someone also stole the hitch from the truck! I was disappointed to see the people of that bordo acting the way they did, but I will not let that deter me from ever going back. God has placed that bordo in my heart and I want to return as much as I possibly can.

6. THE DRIVING! I love driving and I got to perform alot of it that week!

7. I enjoyed having Marilyn down. The Richard and Marilyn Parker has been two of the few individuals that God has used to shape my walk with Christ and it was hard to see her go. I really did not want her to leave. Hopefully Richard will come down sometime too!

Current Update:

Bob and I finished the well at Teen Missions and it was awesome to see how the people there reacted when they saw the water shoot out of the hole. When it came out they all clapped and cheered. After all the cheering and clapping all you could hear was "Gracias a Dios!!". It was amazing to see people so excited over potable water....something that we all take for granted back home. We dropped the compressor and drill rig off at the required shops for maintenance and after all of that is taken care of we have 2 wells to work on in Tela.

Fabiola's birthday is Monday and she will be 14.

Sorry for another long one guys!

Thank you all for your prayers!

Your brother,

Will.

Completed...

Today Will, Mauricio, Angel, & myself went back up into the mountains above Santa Cruz de Yojoa to the Teen Mission camp and picked up our drill rig and the rest of our equipment. That means...yes, we finally have water and a completed well...thank you, Jesus!!! It was tough as we battled through lots of equipment problems, but in the end God's will was done and now they will have the "living water of Jesus Christ" for generations to come.

Will and I are totally exhausted, but feeling pretty good about getting this well done for a worthy cause. Now after some 'tweaks' to the rig we'll head to Tela for two more wells.

Will's Honduras Update 8/8/11

Hola Mi Familia!

Since the last update it has been VERY busy!

July 27 Marilyn, Kierra, and Brandy came down and would join in with the D.C. group 2 days later when the group would arrive. Until the group arrived, Bob and I continued to drill for the "Teen Mission's" camp in Santa Cruz De Yojoa. We learned that we had hit water and were pretty excited. The day prior to the group arriving, Bob and I took the 3 ladies with us and we had planned to place the casing in. We dropped a stone done the well to see if we could hear water and we did! But we quickly learned that we needed to ream the hole back out just to make sure that the casing would go down smoothly and so that we wouldn't clog the hole. We informed the camp that we would return after the team would leave.

The team arrived on the 29th led by Michael and Emily Gaitonde (Two individuals that have known the kids from the very beginning). Just like the Tullahoma team, these guys were a complete blast! The original plan was to build a house but that fell through a week before the team arrived so we had to quickly find things for them to do. God provided! Through another missionary we learned of a Pastor in one of the bordo's and when we visited her she showed us where the team could perform VBS and play soccer with the kids of the bordo. Good Seed (a STRONG Christian bilingual school that some of the kids attend) need help renovating. By time the team was here there were a ton of things they could do. I think Bob best summed up all the thinks that we did that week in this paragraph:

"Throughout the week we played in the waterfall, zip-lined across it, planted, weeded, pruned, potted, bagged, built fence, painted, poured footers, mixed cement, moved mountains of sand, held numerous VBS-type bible lessons, played games with desperate children, handed out many suitcases full of clothes and shoes, hygiene packs, school supplies, etc., helped some to make commitments to the Lord, supplied roofing, cement, blocks to build a church, visited an orphanage beyond description, had wonderful early morning bible studies, and made mountains of new friends! There was no idle time; it was all spent in serving the Lord and in meeting new brothers and sisters in the Lord."

When Bob said there was no "idle time", he wasn't joking. We were constantly on the move! AND IT WAS GREAT! (Especially the driving)

I'll cover the week through other updates throughout the week.

Currently:

Bob and I returned to the drill site today and guess what we did? Definitely not drilling. Turns out we ended up using 2 1/2 bags of bentonite trying to seal up the pits and the hole all day! We will let it sit overnight and will return in the morning hoping that we can ream out the hole and place the casing in tomorrow. Other than that...the only excitement that I had today was that I had to bear being bombarded by mosquitoes and unknowingly standing in a fire ant's nest until I suddenly learned that I had a party going on in my pants (DON'T WORRY....THE PANTS STAYED ON).

Saturday I was "Hondurased" for the first time out on my own. I had three tasks (Simple tasks): 1) Have a tire on the truck repaired or replaced, 2) Find a hitch to replace the one that was stolen while I was with the team in a bordo (Explain that later), and 3) Find some chemicals for the family pool. Should taken an hour or two right? WRONG, Took me from 8 in the morning to 2 in the afternoon! I went to Indufesa ti see if they had a hitch and they did not. I then decided to go grab the chemicals. Obtained those with out a problem. It was 9:20. I was on FIRE! Then it happened....the "Hondurassment" comenced!!!

I went to one shop to have the tire looked at. They told me they were too busy. I was then told to go to the large tire shop down the street. I immediately went there. I was there for almost 5 HOURS!!! On the brightside, while I was there I found a hitch! Booyah! Unfortunately, by 1:45 P.M., that was all that I had. I learned that I needed to grab a new tire. I gave them the size of the tire, they told me they had the size, and after trying 4 different tire sizes (haha.) I asked them If I could just have the old one placed back on so I could try another shop. Luckily I found one that had the right size tires! Unfortunately, THEY WERE CLOSED!!! No problem, I then went to the first place I visited, obtained some service, then quikly learned that they did not have those tire sizes there. After that I went home.

So...question: If you were to ask me what I did all day what would be my answer? "Bought two chemicals and a hitch".

WELCOME TO HONDURAS WILL BLACKWELL!!!

Gracias por leyendo mi mensajes, y tu oraciones mi familia en Jesus Cristo!!!

Right back into it...

After the team left Friday midday Will and I purchased 360 concrete blocks for Wendy's church in the bordo and got them delivered. Yesterday Will drove all over town looking for a new tire for the truck (no luck) but he did find a hitch to replace the one that had been stolen earlier in the week.

While Will drove on Saturday I spent the day getting a message ready for today and after delivering it this morning I slipped into the bedroom for an afternoon nap! But now the naps are over...the alarm is set for 4:30 a.m. when Will and I will head to the mountains to finish up a well that we had hoped to have completed before the team arrived. After that it's on to Tela for 2 more wells and then all the kids head back to school.

"Recesses" are brief and infrequent here...

A Furious Week of Activities, Blessings, and Hard Work...

Yesterday marked the end of a week filled with sweat, dirt, heat, long days, and incredible blessings! We were blessed to host two teams, one was a team of three from Tellico Plains, TN. and the other a team of 19 from the Washington, D.C. area.

Throughout the week we played in the waterfall, zip-lined across it, planted, weeded, pruned, potted, bagged, built fence, painted, poured footers, mixed cement, moved mountains of sand, held numerous VBS-type bible lessons, played games with desperate children, handed out many suitcases full of clothes and shoes, hygiene packs, school supplies, etc., helped some to make commitments to the Lord, supplied roofing, cement, blocks to build a church, visited an orphanage beyond description, had wonderful early morning bible studies, and made mountains of new friends! There was no idle time; it was all spent in serving the Lord and in meeting new brothers and sisters in the Lord.

We all grew! Sometimes we struggled, but the Lord never allowed us to stumble! We possessed a unity that can only come from above! By His grace we touched hundreds of lives...thank you Jesus for the opportunities you place before us. Help us to take advantage of them more frequently both at home and abroad!