We enjoyed having Neysa Fuller here helping in the school this past term. She has returned home to Ohio since our school is closed for the winter.

Brother Andy has been in the Cayman Islands for several months working with the rebuilding effort after the major hurricane damage. He can make money much quicker there than he could here where unemployment is high and wages are low.

After a Bible Study on the conduct of church services, the congregation has begun having the children say memory versus at the end of Sunday School. I have been surprised at how many children participate and at how well they have done, especially considering how bashful so many of them are.

Some money was given this past summer to buy Bibles for the young people who had never had a Bible before. We took down ten Bibles and cases and needed more. More were ordered and sent down with some who came to the Sept. meeting. It is so nice to see the young people following the message with their own Bibles. We have given Bibles to the young people down to the age of 12. We felt that they needed cases to help protect the Bibles. They all either walk to service or ride in the back of the truck. Many of the adults wanted cases for their Bibles. We have tried to give them all one too. It seems that the young people are making a more serious effort to live right now. Thank you to all who gave for this burden.

We went to Sandy Bay to have service with a family that worships in their home on a Friday night not long ago. We plan to resume going on Friday nights after the holidays. Most of the congregation remains behind for prayer meeting in Politilly. We are interested in finding anyone hungering for the truth.

We are building a 28 ft x 28 ft two storey addition to the chapel and school. The lower level expansion is to allow room for more students, a computer area, bathrooms, a school storage room, a work shop, and badly needed storage for mission supplies and tools. The upper level expansion is to increase the chapel size, add Sunday school rooms, and a bathroom. The Sunday school rooms could also be used for sleeping quarters when groups come from the States. A water tank is to be mounted above the roof level to provide water during outages.

Doing earthwork during the wet season is a real challenge - especially in the low lying, wet ground of the mission property. The original plan of pouring the stem walls, foundation piers, and slab all in one pour was abandoned. Instead, we are mixing concrete by hand and pouring one pier at a time. We have to fill a hole with concrete soon after it is dug due to rain and mud collapsing.

I was about waist deep in a stem wall ditch and noticed it seemed narrower than before.  I had a hard time turning around.  I was bending over digging for a corner pier, so my chest was below the surface level at times too. I noticed the wet earth moving, and got out of the ditch.  It collapsed where I had been within about 2 seconds.  I am thankful for the Lord's protection that day.  I could have been seriously hurt.

The project schedule is:

Jan 1st - foundation completed
early Jan - pour slab
mid Jan - lower level block walls built
early Feb - begin framing upper floor

It is in the framing part that we can use help from the States. Please keep in mind this schedule is tentative - rain delays us during this time of year, but I think it is achievable.

The mission truck has become a maintenance problem. A drunk driver put a major dent in the side of the truck. Another driver was over the center and forced the truck off the road, causing damage. Fortunately, no one riding in the back of the truck was injured. The pot holes in the paved road and the roughness of the rocky, washed out dirt roads have taken their toll too. The truck was in the shop recently for electrical work and new shocks. The bed is so rusted in this salty environment that there are holes in it. We had been jump starting the truck or rolling it to start it quite a bit lately before I took it to the shop.

During the wet season, our ability to carry passengers in the backs of the trucks is limited due to downpours. I keep a plastic tarp in the back of my truck, which helps the passengers stay dry. Keep in mind that the vast majority of Hondurans do not have their own cars.

Brother Dennis and I went to cut palm branches with machetes to repair the roof of a shed. Before we went, he checked to make sure we were in the right sign of the moon so that the branches would not rot too quickly for being cut in the wrong sign of the moon. While we were there, I heard unusual bird noises. "That's a parrot" he told me, recognizing the sounds they make in the wild. I looked up and saw two parrots flying high overhead. It seems so unusual to live in a country where parrots, monkeys, and iguana are a part of the wildlife, and where mangos, bananas, cashews, and oranges grow. I know some of those fruits grow in the States, but not necessarily in my home state of Oklahoma.

People come in dories from the mainland to the island to sell produce. A dory is a wooden boat shaped somewhat like a canoe. Some dories are smaller than canoes; others are much larger. A man and a boy made the trip to Roatan from the mainland in a "paddlin' dory". That means they paddled over about 40 miles of open sea. The man had killed six hogs and was taking his profit to return home not many days before Christmas. A robber asked for a ride and began beating the dory owner with a paddle and chopping him with a machete. The man was killed, but the boy managed to jump overboard and swim away. Many crimes like this happen in Honduras and go unsolved. Buses are stopped on the mainland and people are massacred for money.

I installed two hundred feet of black irrigation tubing on the roof of the mission house and piped it to the bath. It is nice to have warm shower water sometimes instead of having it cool all the time.

Brian McLaughlin needs your prayers. He has dengue, a mosquito borne illness. He has been staying downstairs in the mission house during his illness.

Please visit our website. We have a number of new photos added - the tent meeting, building project, school activities, etc.

We deeply appreciate the prayers and financial support from the Saints. We also appreciate the Christmas gifts that were sent down. They made a number of children happy.

Douglas and Lenita Wall
dwall@churchofgodmission.com
http://www.churchofgodmission.com