Spiritual Warfare

So here's the deal. I just spent the better part of two hours blogging about Honduras, fighting for GOD and how satan is a pissant. I was just about to hit the "publish post" button and my entire blog disappeared. Gone, kapoot, no where to be found. I guess I really pissed the enemy off with all of my blogging against him.
Well guess what. I don't quit that easy. This is my second attempt which is actually better because now I am clearer as to what I want to say.
Bottom line...the devil sucks. He is a loser. God has called us to be warriors. We are His warriors. This is a fallen world and we are at war. Jesus didn't come just to be a crutch. He came to be the ultimate warrior. He came to destroy the enemy. For the past couple of weeks, I have been stressed, anxious, angry, depressed and I have had a lot of headaches. A lot of people at our church have been experiencing the same thing. I'm quite sure a lot of this has something to do with the enemy and his pathetic attempt to disconfigure the church. Too bad it's not going to work for him.
Tim's message today was about fighting. Only at Vineyard West Side are you going to hear a message about fighting. It was a great message and good timing too. I love how God speaks through Tim. It's beautiful. Our church is not your normal church. We are a bunch of rag-tag, been there done that, sinning Jesus freaks. We have all been called to this place to do one thing and that is proclaim the name of Jesus Christ. We are His warriors and will fight for His Word. He loves us and He loves you more than anything and He will stop at nothing to show you.
I have been back from Honduras now for almost five weeks. I almost feel as though I am lost. I want to do so much for what I was given in Honduras, but I don't know where to start. Part of me feels like the enemy has his grubby little hands in this as well. I know God has a time for everything and that He still has big plans for me and my journeys with Honduras. I have to remember that His timing is different than ours. What seems like an eternity to us is a blink to Him. I can't wait to see what He has in store for me. I want my mission trip to continue even though I'm here at home in the states. A bunch of us are trying to figure out ways to raise money to build homes over there. Especially now, after this weeks 7.1 earthquake in Honduras, our support is needed.
In closing I just want to say "Rise up, rise up, you are a mighty warrior". And, please pray for all the people of Honduras, including our fulltime missioners. Your prayers our powerful. Peace!

Family VACATION

FLORIDA OR BUST!

So we loaded up the SUV and headed for Destin, Florida. We have been going there for the past 8 years. Every year, I feel like Chevy Chase, I just want to provide a fun filled family vacation experience for everyone.

But, somehow (just like the movie) it never goes as planned. I really don't think my kids GET IT! They get a week out of school to go to FLORIDA, spend some time on a BEACH and have ICE CREAM every night. Instead, there was complaints as to where we were going to eat out, dislike of sand, wanting to go to the pool versus the beach, having to drive somewhere to get ice cream, etc..... Aren't vacations supposed to be stress free?
There were some good memories from this vacation. We adopted a pet squirrel and named him Cheezer because of his love of Cheeze-Its, Lanie braved the waves while body surfing, Anthony actually loved the sand, we built a huge sand castle, Ann and I got to have a nice evening out...ALONE, and my dad got to play with the kids in the pool.

In the end, it was all good, but it's always great to be home.

Worry, after Honduras

So, I woke up at 4:30 am.....again.

And immediately, my mind started racing about things I need to get done on the house if we were to sell, what I would need in a new house, and stuff I want to do to my truck.

How pathetic am I?

What was I just witness to?

People with nothing...no electricity, no plumbing, no shoes on their feet...nothing! And yet, they were happy.

I started praying. "Lord, get me out of this house! Free up the money so I can build the people of Honduras the homes they need. It's your money anyway, have your way with it!"

Philippians 4:4-9 says,"Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable - if anything is excellent or praiseworthy - think about such things. Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me - put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you."

My request is simple. I want to have less so I can give more.

I received an awesome gift from God last week in Honduras and I want to honor Him and praise Him for that. I want to serve the people that I met. I want to continue this journey that I've started with God. That week in Honduras doesn't just stop there. There is more to do. More to see. And, more to learn.

All of my life, my dream was to become a home builder. I have become so adjusted to America's standard of living, that I thought that is where I was supposed to be focusing on pursuing my dreams. Maybe God gave me those dreams for a particular reason. Maybe I was meant to build those homes in Honduras. After all, a house is just a house. A means of shelter from the elements.

I want to worry less about the crap I have and focus more on what God has planned for me to do. It took a great deal of trust on my behalf to travel to Honduras. I believe that if I can continue to trust Him, then my worries will be less.

So, what are you worried about? Seek Him and He will give you peace from your worries.

Honduras Mission - Day 7

God painted some beautiful pictures on the morning of day 7. This was our last day in Honduras. It was a day of relaxation and of play. We slept at one of the beaches on the North coast of Honduras. The sunrise was spectacular and it felt as if God was saying "You did well this week and I love you".

I'm not really a good swimmer so I decided to stay out of the water and take pictures. I did stand in it up to my knees, and was surprised at how warm it was. Definitely a lot warmer than the water of Florida's gulf coast. The waves were pretty choppy, perfect for body surfing, or just letting it beat the crap out of you. Ryan, of course, somehow managed to step on a jellyfish. He seems to be that one person who always attracts injury. He only experienced a minor sting.

Even though we were still in Honduras, I felt like we were miles away from being on that mountain. Images of kids faces were still racing through my head. Moments of bonding with my brothers were still playing out. I was thanking God for all of the past weeks activities and the opportunity he gave me to be on this mission. God worked on me and walked with me every day of this trip. He showed me everything and opened my eyes. I just hope that I saw everything that He wanted me to see. If not, I know He will be calling on me again to return to Honduras. And again, without hesitating, my response will be "Yes, I will go".

Dios te bendiga! God bless you!

Honduras Mission - Day 6

So, do you remember the blog about the hike in? As soon as I got to the bottom of the part they call "Jurassic Park", it dawned on me, we have to climb this to get out. And that's after a 2-3 hour hike going up.


We were making good time and I was feeling pretty good considering all the hard work we had done the past couple of days and the lack of sleep as well. I wrapped my ankle for some extra stability and was praying for strength to finish without injuring it this time.


I decided that I wasn't going to chase Carlos this time, and that I would hang back and support my brothers who were having a hard time. My main concern was Bob. He was the largest of the group and had not much exercise previous to the mission. His determination was incredible and he kicked that mountains ass! I have to say that he made it on to my hero list that day.


We were told that it normally takes about an hour to climb up Jurassic Park. We did it, as a group, in just over 30 minutes (packs and all). The rest of the hike went by pretty smoothly and we finished the entire thing in 4 1/2 hours. That's an hour less than it took us to get in. The whole experience was AWESOME!


After some lunch and a little bit of rest, we attended a children's worship service back at the base. There was close to an hour of worship music (all in Spanish), and then we were invited to the front for the kids to ask us some questions. Some of the questions were - "Are you married?", "Do you have kids?", and "Do you fart?". The marriage answer was especially important for the girls to hear. I mentioned in one of my other blogs that women are the minority of the country. This is due to the fact that they are mostly just used for having sex and then they are forgotten. Left behind to raise multiple kids with no income and almost zero support from the men who put them in that position. They needed to hear that it is possible for a man to love a woman for more than 15 minutes at a time. It is possible for a man to be committed and to support his wife for years. They got that message from us! And of course I was happy to answer the question about farting. I think I farted more than anyone else in the group.


We were giving the opportunity to ask the kids some questions and one that came up was "What to you want to be when you grow up and what are your dreams?". Two thirds of the group were girls and every single one of them said that their dream was to graduate and to become a teacher. Mercy International's main focus is the women of Honduras. They are dedicated to getting the girls an education so that they can support themselves and not have to depend on the men who crapped on them. They experience freedom from bondage. That country's whole dynamic is going to change when the numbers of powerful women rise up. All because God called on Mercy International.

Contact Mercy International at merciusa@earthlink.net

Honduras Mission - Day 5

Day 5 brought home sickness. Being around the local kids for a few days made me miss my own. I felt as if I was loosing my focus on what God wanted to show me, and was starting to make everything about me. What started out as a slow miserable day turned into a pretty physical event. Jon decided that he wanted to dig up a stump/root that was 3 feet in diameter and a few feet tall. It was an irremovable object. We dug, chopped, cut and pounded at it for the better part of three hours. The team work and the willingness to not give up was incredible. Who would have thought there could have been so much to be learned from digging up a stump. We finally got it down to a 12 inch in diameter-2 feet high stump when I decided to tackle it. Four of us hit that thing and pushed with all of our strength until...VICTORY! The irremovable object was removed. Doesn't God do that all of the time?


In the afternoon, we had another futbol game followed by a sermon on the hill. Bob gave his testimony to the Hondurans which I believe was the first ever. Ryan gave a message from the book of Mathew and then we handed out clothes and shoes to everyone. It felt like a story from the Bible. I wonder sometimes if stuff like this will end up in a history book in the future.

Honduras Mission - Day 4

The first day in the mountains was a work and play day. The church building we were staying in was a structure that previous mission groups constructed on their trips. The recent addition of a pastor's office needed to be roofed and also needed the concrete floor poured as well. Since I know more about construction, I volunteered for the roof project instead of the floor.
The walls of the room were constructed out of adobe brick and they were still pretty fresh, so we had to be careful not to collapse the walls. The materials we needed were already there, so all we had to do was put them on. Sounds easy, right? The first thing we realized is that none of us had any knowledge of building things the way they were supposed to be built in Honduras. We started laying out the rafters and then the locals told us it was too sturdy and that we had to minimize our efforts. We actually built the roof three times (and took it apart three times) before it was all said and done. Once the structure was built, we began screwing down the corrugated metal roofing panels. This process went a little quicker because we had done it before. The whole project took about two and a half hours. We were still done before lunch. It was an awesome learning experience about their roofing construction methods.


After lunch, we all headed down to the village soccer field where we met up with some of the locals for a game of futbol. I could not participate because of my ankle, but did enjoy sitting with the kids to watch. A little girl named Esperanza and her sister Buncha (I have no idea how they spell their names) seemed to latch on to me the whole time we were in the mountains. The game seemed to be evenly matched since most of us were larger than the Hondurans, even though they were exceptional soccer players. The girls and I enjoyed some laughs while watching a pretty physical game.


We finished the game and headed back for camp to get ready for dinner. Here is the part that I knew would be a challenge for me. After a long hot day, the only way to get cleaned up was to walk down to the creek and wash off in one of the springs. The water was about fifty five degrees and was surrounded by wildlife. I was told that there were a lot of leaches and snakes in the water, but I did not see any. I actually enjoyed putting my feet and ankles in the cold water. We all decided to go for it and dunked ourselves in a 4 foot deep pool of water. WHOAH, COLD is what we all came up saying. I declared that once baptized in this water, my new name is now Nicodemus.


We headed back for dinner and I was already looking forward to the next evenings plunge. Ryan cooked up some awesome grub for us, as usual. I drew some cartoon characters for the kids while I waited. Something so simple amazed them, and they had no knowledge of who SpongeBob was or any of the characters I drew for them. We ate dinner and then sat around a campfire singing worship to God lead by Jon Price. Singing worship under the stars...words can't even describe this.