Progress Aug 26, 2008

For those asking about info and progress of the Children’s Lighthouse. It will be a home and eventually a school for abused, neglected, abandoned and orphaned children of Choluteca. The Lighthouse works through the government and all children are placed by court order. The home will grow in number of children as the LORD provides the resources to do so. The facility being built is capable of 50-100 children, as the LORD paves the way. Our temporary rented house in the city is “cozy” with as many as 18 living in it. We may build small out buildings(homes), housing families as well in the future. Our desire is to keep it formed as family units, so the children coming in, can learn to replicate how they lived in the lighthouse, out in the world as adults. Why? Because God ordained the family to train up children not an institution and this is the model we will strive to uphold. If you would like a heart wrenching dvd presentation of some of the children in the Children’s Lighthouse just click on the “Ways you can help” link and email us. And please share it with your church, family and friends. We need the prayer and support to continue day by day in faith.


The current progress is:


1 Foundation, Walls, Floors poured and Roof are on the dorms, classes, kitchen and great room (That’s more than 500,000 lbs of cement, sand, gravel, steel, mixed and poured by hand)
2 Dorms/kitchen electric has been wired just waiting for the appropriate time to have it turned on
3 Septic system is built and plumbed to building, rough plumbing is in
4 Water is to building(but not drinkable due to open well)
5 Retaining walls are 90% complete
6 Water drainage/runoff is 90% and functioning
7 Site work is completed
8 Center courtyard and entry is poured


The things yet to complete:

1 Doors and Windows (a major undertaking)
2 Water well for drinking water
3 Fixtures, sinks, toilets, fans, A/C lighting ect.
4 Appliances, stove, fridge, utensils, ect
5 Pour concrete floor above kitchen and wall in office space
6 Stairs to living room and office area
7 Build walls layout in dorms
8 Furniture and bedding
9 Complete driveway
10 Finish Retaining wall and drainage behind building
11 Outdoor wood kitchen- Needs roof and oven built (this saves on electric for daily cook needs)
12 Tile floors
13 Wall in/divide classrooms
14 Wire classrooms
15 Not including the daily housing expenses food, clothing, schooling, electric…

A heart felt thank you to all the ministering saints who are making this possible
unworthy servant to a Worthy Saviour
Barry Ritchie

Just Living by Faith

Just living by faith and following.

News Bullets:

*The doctors left Colonia and Carlos returned and used their testimony to preach a strong message Saturday. During the invitation three women who had been feuding fell under conviction stood and confessed it before the congregation and hugged each other…So the doctors left fruit that remains.

*We also started a boys ministry to teach the young men the ways of the LORD. The goal is to work them and teach them. In this way the boys learn skills of living and Biblical precepts. The young men are the first ones a church looses to the world…and only a few return. We hope to ebb this flow. Our first project is to get the donated raft going and use it for some outreaches. If it goes well then we will use the boys to do projects for church members, ministry ect. Ie. fix a roof or clean or plant or? This allows some of our men to teach what the LORD has done for them as well.

*The children were washing dishes and Julie stepped back, stumbled and sat in a 5 gal bucket. She playfully yelled she was stuck and needed help so I grabbed the bucket and put her in the shower to fill the bucket with water and float her out…Wasn’t what she expected but everyone enjoyed the show. Bessy and Iris both sat in other buckets and started to yell help me!

*We finally received a donated box that came from NH. Filled with all kinds of stuff. Lisa has yet to search through it because she is still under the weather not recovered from pneumonia.

*Pastor Santos in the mountain called last night panicked. The church building they are in is borrowed and the owners said they either had to buy it or move out. They will meet with the owners Wednesday to find out details Santos and Carlos think it should only be $2-3000 dollars for the building and land but the church is as poor as they come and could not even come up with two hundred dollars.

*The drunk man a few weeks ago that was yelling in our windows demanding food and money...Is sueing us for non payment and filed a case with the labor department, saying we never paid him his wages. No one had ever seen him before but he came to church a couple of times and we thought "wow great", but he was only fishing for information to file his claim. We were served papers and now must make and appointment and possably hire a lawyer...oh joy. Just another attack looking for weakness in the armor. We always need prayer.

*The Children’s Lighthouse project will stop at the end of this week and begin to wait on the LORD for the next step. We have expended the funds designated for it and cannot keep the men working. I have been amazed at how much the LORD has done to this point and know he will provide. They were pouring the center courtyard pad of cement and we had the children put their hands in the wet cement as a reminder. Lisa wrote

3 John 1:4

I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in truth. Amen…

The last few days of the month are the hardest because the money runs out before the month does. With all the price increases our bills this month still got paid, but it shorted us in other areas. Today was a new experience we had to tell the bread and water man not to leave any this week…So just living by faith. What the LORD has done here is so far beyond us and our ability. To God be the Glory.



Unworthy Servant to a Worthy Saviour,

Barry

Blessings Abounding

The ORH (Operation Renewed Hope) medical & evangelism team returned to Honduras to help with the mountain outreach in Colonia. They came in a small plane provided by Dave Spangler (http://www.flyn4god.org/). 220 sat under preaching on Friday, 160+ were cared for by the Doctors on Saturday, and over 50 adult professions of faith. There were blessings abounding. How many medical doctors issue actual prescriptions for prayer? These do. Our ladies ministry from La Cruz came with us to fill that need as well as a few men and teen workers. The church folks worked the crowd comforting, witnessing and praying, just taking care of any need big or small, whether it was a cool drink of water, prayer, lunch, clean up or set up. It was a great joy for me to see them walk in truth and grow so much, giving more than taking. Ermita the dentist in our church came along side the USA doctors and performed flawlessly. The doctors and helpers worked till they dropped, doing so joyfully and selflessly, till every need, both spiritually and physically was cared for. And the medicine they gave Lisa is bringing her back up to speed. She had pneumonia.
The plane had to leave a day early due to the storm in the gulf so they left this morning. It is obvious now why we had so many spiritual battles last week, just trying to take our eyes from the goal. But LORD was glorified Amen!

Sasha is also leaving us today to return to Bible School. Her time here has rushed by and again she will leave a vacuum hard to fill. She has worked and been a blessing daily to me, Lisa the kids and our ministry folks. The LORD is shaping her for His use.

Unworthy Servant to a Worthy Saviour

Barry

Solution to the Satire

Here is the verse remedy to the "Day of Satire" email many of you received... Amen
2 Cor 4: 7 -10

But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us.

8 We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair;

9 Persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed;

10 Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body.

Thank you for your continued prayers

Sweat equity in heaven

The New Hampshire kids are gone. A little worse for wear, but the LORD rubbed off some sharp edges and began to polish them while here. Cami left some sweet comments on the last few blog posts. No rest for the weary though, the work here does not stop, like ocean waves it keeps coming, just the intensity changes. Want to know how much we sweat here look at the back of Javiers' 60 year old dad's shirt.....After "mowing" with a machete.

The roof is now complete on the entire structure of the Children’s Lighthouse. Still need to pour floors. We finally moved the VBS equipment from the container to the bodega (warehouse) on the property. That is a major headache removed. At the old location the container had to be cut open and welded shut every time there was a need to enter it because of the multitude of robbery attempts. Only the LORD kept it from happening. We started welding it, after the 3rd set of 4 locks had been broken off (just the locks were expensive) and they manage to remove all security but could not figure out how or did not have enough strength to open the old rusty door…so we began welding it shut from then on.

The medical team will be here in a week to minister in Colonia. Ermita (our dentist here) volunteered to do dentistry if they could provide meds…Dr. Waller drove 250 miles yesterday to p/u the free donated dentistry meds. Amen. Pray that our support level somehow rises. With all of the rising prices as of late it is becoming increasingly difficult to subsist. Once we are at the Lighthouse property that should cut some expenses, but that is still a ways off. A mountain of things yet to do to make it livable.

And living in the tropics, now we are dealing with malaria in our 4 year old Ericson. Only because a ministering saint gave a little extra yesterday, did we have the funds to test him and buy the meds. Strep infection has been going through the family and church so at first we though it was the same as the others. But his has lasted too long and has many of the malaria symptoms. He was just listless and fell asleep on the tents while we were unloading yesterday.

The lil guy needs a few prayers as do we.

Barry

Visitation, Visions and Romeo

The kids are readying to return to NH and their life of comfort and convienence.

I think they have a lifetime of memories, maybe even changed hearts. At the very least they appreciate their homes and families a little more and see the world a little more like Christ. The girls went visiting to some of our people living along the river in shacks. One young girl, Claudia is their age, just turned 15 and had a baby while they were here. She does not have a home, or a real family, cannot read or write and now must provide for herself and a baby. It was heart wrenching for the girls. Claudia was in Sasha’s bible class before she went off to school. They also visited a few other families along the river and invited them back to church.

Stephen went with us to the new church outreach up in Colonia. 33 adults and 50-60 children meeting under a big ol tree to hear God’s Word. Even a little rain did not chase them off. We have a small medical team coming in 2 weeks to minister to them. They will have a name for the church by then. As with the church in La Cruz I only pray the LORD opens a door to build a meeting place soon. An actual place to meet does ease many of the burdens and will also grow the ministries.
In one home Stephen caught the eye of Heradia’s daughter Juliet.(as in Romeo) I think it has become mutual. Both college grads and mid 20s wanting Gods will…hmm. What a souvenir to bring home. He has been getting a lot of ribbing about it from Carlos. He has been bribing us not to tell the girls her real name(they think it is Julie) because he does not want to forever be called Romeo when he goes home. The bribing/extortion got Carlos a bag of candy and me a bag of cement so far…but that was for yesterday…I need more cement for tomorrow. :) Ya never know what might happen in Honduras.