A still small voice...

It has been a very difficult week here in Honduras. We had the mother of two of the Lighthouse children make a surprise visit after more than a year. The result was devastating. She secretly convinced her two daughters to run away and she picked them up. She found the only neighbor with a grudge against me because I put an older teenage family member in jail a month ago for breaking into our home in the middle of the night. Jr and I tied him up and took him to the police. The two girls convinced a third to girl who is mentally slow to go with them. The mother then went to the police and made all kind of charges against us. She also called the tv stations to air her complaints. Which aired all weekend. It required getting a lawyer and they put me in a secure location till the dust could settle. The LORD protected in many ways but the damage was costly. This lady lost her children years ago because she led her older daughter into her life of prostitution at 14, and tried selling the two younger children when they were 5 and 8 years old. Her sister is in jail for the same thing. She had come to our home 4 years ago with a gun threating to kill Lisa. Every contact has had adverse affect on the girls. Our names have been cleared both in the criminal court and the children's court. So it will not affect our residency status. But our names and faces have been plastered for days on TV. The father of the girls went to the judge and called her an idiot in court for even listening to this because only she was unaware of the character of the mother. He did the same on a call in tv program with the news reporter who had broadcast the story. Then many called in to verifiy the fathers words and tell of their family history. After the working of the lawyer, the police investigation was dropped, no charges filed and refered to child services. Child services did a very detailed investigation and found all the claims were baseless. Plus the girls recanted their stories once they were out of the hands of the mother. They are all now crying to come home, but that can no longer happen. Child services actually took some of our child care ideas to promote elsewhere. The collateral damage is our name is mud outside of our churches, the girls have lost their only real chance to have a family home and will be moved to a far location undisclosed and all contact with family will terminate. They will be instituionalized and the one who was mentally slow was diagnosed by the court psycologist and will go to a state facility for the mentaly handycapped with little hope for a future. It breaks my heart because she had trusted the LORD and she had grow so much with us and was becoming a self sufficient young lady. All our church folks rallied around us in wisdom advice, support., prayer and help which was very humbling for me. Many ministering saints prayed stateside and the destroyer was stayed, but not without injury. I was not able to fight this battle and it was totally in the hands of the LORD. I was wisked away against my desires by church members and the laywer to the mountains, fleeing the words of a jezabel. I read about Elijah while sitting and waiting on the mountain top for the LORD to fight the battle. The parallels were striking. All the while being fed by a widow woman and her 12 year old son... While there I received heartbreaking notes of affection from the children with Lisa. They brought tears reading them. When I returned home I was overrun by the children crying and giving me hugs. Please keep us in prayer the attacks seem more insidious as the years go on.

After coming off the mountain, I got a chance to stop by La Cruz Baptist as they were starting their first VBS, 250+ in attendance. They revived the old 15 passanger van and brought in over 120 children on it, 79 on just one trip 40 plus on the second... Even I was alarmed, but had to laugh as they drove in. Thankfully it was a short trip not over 15mph. But for those that know our bus ministry antics in the past 25 years, know that it takes alot to suprise me. The fruit does not fall far from the tree I suppose.

We started on building a room to meet in for church at the Lighthouse, because teachers are coming in just a couple of weeks and will occupy the other space. Also trying to finish the classrooms and ready for school to start then too. Still need to pay our upcoming payment ($2600) feb 1st to electric company, but with the storm of trials this week it now seems like it is impossable unless the LORD breaks the hearts of our already broken hearted and overburdened ministering saints

Lisa just returned this morning from a visit to child services because Jenny wanted to ask why her adoption process is going so slow.(uhh ok Jenny) Jenny has a dream of going to China as a missionary. I contacted someone I knew there yesterday and asked if they would entertain the idea of her there and they said absolutely, Jenny was jumping around the room in joy, hence why the urgency. So jenny went and asked and told them they were holding up her plans for the future. It was funny. Child service then turned to Lisa and asked us to take back at least one child plus 3 new ones... Noteing to Lisa they had seen many empty beds and more capacity when inspecting... Hmm. The need of Christ is great...

Photos, upper is the VBS, sorry for quality but taken with a phone cam. The second is the new room for church services, the last is the view from the mountain top. A 100 acre property that you could see all the way to the ocean 40 miles away. Would be very peaceful under normal curcumstances. Water there is by an underground fountain that flows and makes a brook that is pure to drink from. No water pump needed just pipe it down to the house. The birds would literally shake the tree branches and mangos would fall right at your feet where you sat. Every morning after I prayed on a rock, the lady went out to gather sticks to make coffee and give me a small piece of sweet corn cake from the corn her son picked. It was a humbling experience but very insightful from a still small voice... may be time to look for an Elisha... 1 Kings 17-19. Though in a remote area, by means of modern comunication, I was also given the opportunity to at least get a father and son to consider the heart of the other... another hmm, Mal 4:5-6

Unworthy servant to a worthy Saviour,
Barry