jj and i have our own room with an excellent AC, and we each have our own
bed. much better than sharing the room with a stranger, because you don{t
have to worry about walking around the room naked if you need to.

lee powell, senior pastor at cedar from cedar creek was here with a
different team last week ... he wrote a blog entry with some photos,
including people we got to see yesterday. the people he mentions from new
orleans are the leaders at the church that jj and i helped in october
2006: http://www.cedarcreek.tv/PastorBlogs/tabid/56/EntryID/247/Default.aspx

when lee talks about surprising the mother that the church is giving her a
plot of land and will build her a house ... we met the mother yesterday
... we are the team that is building her a house ... local church guys
poured the foundation yesterday, and we will finish the (very) little
house today and tomorrow. she has been evicted from her old house due to
inability to pay rent. she has been in the church for a long time and is a
sweet lady. I was concerned that making it too easy for single moms could
create a welfare class like in the US, but I learned yesterday that they
only help those mothers that they know very well, and who were already
working (long hours). So they give them a job where they can work
half-days and be with their kids more, and while they are working the
church cares for and teaches their kids, whereas previously the kids were
left unattended at home, where they were frequently the victims of rape,
abuse, and malnutrition.

honduras has a huge problem in regards to pre-marital, sex, infidelity,
and couples not staying together. Nearly 50% of all children are born to
single mothers. Although a small country, 70% of all cases of HIV/AIDS in
South America are found here ... sounds like a big contributor to this is
the fact that it has three borders, and whereever there are borders, there
are prostitutes spreading aids to truckers who bring it back to wives and
girlfriends.

the problem is further exacerbated by the terrible stigma attached to
aids, like we had in the us back in the 80s. it is like leprosy ... if
found that you have it, you will be disowned by your parents, spouse, etc
and kicked out onto the street. so when someone finds out they have it,
they keep it a secret even if it results in passing it on to their spouse
and never letting them have the opportunity to be treated.

so the local church here has several initiatives going, and several more
on the way ... they are gearing up for major education to help people understand how HIV is spread, encourage abstinence before marriage and fidelty after marrigage ... in the
face of the government's safe-sex and condom-distribution program which
apparently even the UN is admitting has failed to stop the increasing rate
of AIDS ... i'll tell more about this later, but i just realized that i'm
late for breakfast.

(later) On a more localized level, the church is building up already broken families in order to provide the mercy of Christ and to stop the cycle from continuing to the next generation. The malnutrion clinic and educational day care are provided for carefully screened families, where the mother was already working hard, and the children are not only kept healthy and safe from abuse, they are taught the Word of God, basic hygiene, reading, etc. The mothers are given jobs at the non-profit tortilla micro-factory, and fathers are given jobs at the non-profit bread micro-factory or selling the tortillas and bread or building homes ... or the mother or father is given assistance with establishing a home-based business ... that pays them a wage allowing them to spend more time with their families. These jobs appear to be truly self-sustaining, not just hand-outs. As these families continue at the church, they learn God's design for the family. At the center of everything the church teaches is Christ ... because He is everything. The church is very passionate about seeing people born again ... you never saw people so focused, and so excited about serving the Lord.