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0:39Yeah, one guy. Yeah, one guy, one of the students, we heard from a different student each night. And one guy showed up, he and his wife and their little boy. And I saw him come in, and I knew they were getting ready to talk, so I went to the restroom. We'd just eat and I was going to wash my hands or whatever. And they were, he and his little son walked in there. And so I looked at the little boy and I said, hey, come on, and he looked at me and said, see?

1:06And I looked at his dad and his dad grinned and said, we speak English. So he was Honduran, but he moved to California when he was 17 and worked for a while and now he found his wife in California and she was the adventurous type and now they're living in a literally a shack on the mountain in Honduras and he's learning at Meta and then they're going to spread the gospel. to his people in any way they can. And it's a pretty neat story. Okay, so anyway, that's where we are in Ciguatepeque, is kind of in the middle of kind of central Honduras. It's up in the mountains, small town. This is the campus of Meta.

1:48There's the dining hall where we would eat. This was the dorm building that we were working on. We were working on this section of roof right here. And we stayed in this house here, and this is their classroom area. So this they have kind of a really pretty campus. It's beautiful. The local soccer team, football team, practices there. And so when we put the address where we're going on all the forms, the customs forms and things, we put it's next to the field where the Panthers practice. Of course, it's in Spanish, but that's their street addresses. We're next to where the Panthers practice. So that's the kind of they don't have nine one one addresses.

2:27This is the church. This is Iglesia Bautista Batania, Bethany Baptist Church. And this is their classroom area where we did the kids' program. And then this is Clínica Batania, which is run by the church. They started out, they built this nice three-story building. They started out just doing some basic medical services in the main floor. And they have because of what we've been doing, they are now going to be doing dental. In the top floor, and they're adding some optical stuff up there. And then they're talking about making the bottom floor into an outpatient surgery suite because they have access to the road for ambulances and things. And so that's a it's one of it's quickly becoming one of the premier medical facilities in that area, which is just fantastic. But that's that was the those were the two locations where we were. We're on the campus of the seminary and there at the church and the clinic.

3:34How many of you have been before? Okay, so you've you know you know Kenny, Kenny Fuller. We've always been concerned about him because how is he going to find a wife if he's down there in Honduras and and he found one. The Lord, the Lord provided. Jasmine, we were Kenny's first group when he became the group's coordinator, and now we were Jasmine's first group as Kenny's wife. She came down in a group that was doing some doing some projects. She was interested in the internship programs and things. So she and Kenny ended up staying in touch. They got to know each other better and better. She came down a couple more times, and the rest, as they say, is history. I like to say that she came down and then he worked something to get her visa revoked so she had to stay in country.

4:25But they just got married in January, so. That she was still, she's, you can pray for her because she said, you know, she doesn't know Spanish, she's learning Spanish, she's trying to just hit the ground running in this new role. So, all of a sudden, she's Kenny's help meet, and she's doing a great job. But she's got a big, big pair of shoes to create and fill. So, all right, so our projects, we continued the student dorm renovation, which we started last year. We did the kind of laid the groundwork for it, or the roof work, and so we just kept going with that. And I've got some slides that kind of show the basic process that that involves. This room is the one that we started on last year. Here's the roof we were working on this year.

5:18So, the metal, the roof, it looks like terracotta, but it's actually metal, which is much easier to deal with. So, we have to take out all the old wood that is becoming termite-infested, which involves sawzall and a lot of hammering. The walls are all concrete, and they tend to fall apart when you start hammering on them. And then we go back in with a metal structure, which involves my welder and a bunch of cutting. People get to use the grinders and the cutting tools, which is fun.

5:55And then we go in and we put a ceiling grid in, we pull all new electrical wire. Thank you, John. And yeah. And then the doors, the two doors, there's a screen door and a solid door on the room. And so we got to refinish those, and that was, was that a lot of fun? Was that fun, Leah? So that was big project number one. Now, who Langston was kind of in charge of that, but who really worked on that that would want to, that has like some thoughts on that project.

6:34Anybody? You got to learn how to weld. Yeah, what do you think? I liked doing it. It was interesting to see how different their construction methods were. But I did get to learn to weld, which was fun. Did Langston do a pretty good job with superintendent? Yeah, he was. Anybody else? Okay, now this was, I think, my favorite one was the kids program. We had 20 to 30 kids depending on what day it was. I think this was our best kids' program we've done down there by far. And Angie and John really just knocked it out of the park. And I got to say, the first day, John steps up there. Front of all the kids and just strikes off in Spanish.

7:34And he says it was terrible Spanish, but the kids all understood. And I mean, they just took to him like duck on Junebug. It was, they loved that. And I just, and we're all looking like, wait, you speak Spanish, you know. So, and yeah, he did. He was, ended up witnessing to our bus driver and gave him a Bible. Yeah, he made good use of his Spanish skills. So, what do y'all, what do y'all, who wants to talk about the kids' program?

8:00Kids program, queen? Yeah, you're the queen. Oh, I was just going to say something that really was impactful for me as a planner and doing VBS here, Pilgrim Days here, is that before I was kind of, you know, leading up to any VBS, you get a little high strung, you get a little anxious about things. And I just decided, you know what, the Lord's going to provide, and I just have to trust that He's going to meet their needs. And it was really cool to see how God totally did all of that and more. I couldn't have even imagined how it was going to go. Stacy and I and Janelle, every night were just kind of putting our heads together with Kimberly, and it just worked. It was really neat. And it reminded me of the last night when we were learning about TMAI and how they all, they have 17 different sites like this one. And something that I remember they said was: they don't decide, hey, we want to go plant a seminary here. They have needs. They're asking for it. So it was just another way to see how God truly meets the needs of his church and he builds the church. So it was great that I had John to help me lead so that I didn't have to kind of worry about trying to wait to speak Spanish. I think it was really beneficial for him to be up there with them. And it was awesome to see the kids just so excited every day and put up with all of our silly object lessons and glasses. And I don't know, what else did we do? Crappy-wise, Amanda? Something? Yeah, Rainbow Loom. I mean, we just kind of cobbled it together, but it worked. And it worked really well. Yeah, I thought earlier that was going to text me. The songs were pretty cool.

9:50I just want to make a clarification that my Spanish really isn't that good. It sounds good to maybe people. I probably talk like about a five or six-year-old in Spanish. What's that? Oh. Anyway, so the kids were about that age, so there was so one of the full-time missionaries there that operates at the seminary facility made a name is Kimberly, who y'all heard her name mentioned a second ago. She's fluent in Spanish and English, and so I talked to her the day before we started the VBS program, and I asked her, I said, I could try in Spanish, but I don't want to. I want to make sure it's not a distraction, you know, to the kids, and that it's actually something that helps, you know, kind of enhance the program and not distract. And so she made the recommendation. She's like, if you want to do some introductory stuff in Spanish and, you know, try that out. And, you know, that way they at least know that they could come up to you if they wanted to and speak Spanish to you, then that would be great. And then I could lean on her as a translator for the more the things that you want to be precise about and not get twisted because I'm trying to think of the right word or something like that. So that's exactly how we did it. I thought her advice was awesome. And it really, I think, achieved what we were trying to, where it was the type of thing where it helped us connect with the kids more because there was, you know, I was using the Spanish that I know, but at the same time, using the translator for the things where you wanted to really communicate the truth to them. And I think it just really struck the balance well. And so it was neat to see God minister that way, you know, kind of cobbling these skills together and again, making it so that it was something that enhanced the connection hopefully that they had with the truth and God's message and not a distraction.

11:39Anybody else? All right. Yeah, it was you know, people some people I talked to had said, well, you know, can't the church just do their own VBS or whatever kids program with, you know, why do they need us? And it was really neat to see the way the Lord used. Just a bunch of willing gringos to go down there and reach these kids in a way that was fresh and new and kind of different and unique.

12:10And they just, they really, the kids really enjoyed it. I mean, you could just tell. They had a big time with all of the games and just all the visuals. I think my favorite visual was the one they had a white sheet of paper, really simple stuff, white sheet of paper on the floor, taped down. And they said, okay, that is the holiness of God. It's pure white. There's no sin, there's nothing evil. He's all good. And then they had a trail of dirt down the floor and a bucket, a five-gallon bucket of water. And they had Arwen Seaton, Kelly and Arwen, went with us. They had Arwen Seaton step into that bucket of water barefoot. And they said, okay, now she's going to walk, see if she can make her way, her own way to God. And she steps out, and of course, her feet are just filthy. And so they've used that as a lesson: say, you can't get to God because of your sin. And then they took a red sheet, a red.

13:05Yeah, and the water was supposed to help them see, like, even if you try to clean yourself up. Even if you try to clean yourself up, you can't do it. Yeah. And then they just laid this red piece of plastic sheet or whatever over the dirt. And so then she was able, by the blood of Christ, of course, to overcome sin and make it to God. So it was just simple things like that. That was a really, really neat thing. Okay, another thing we did at the clinic had a couple of things going on, and we'll just run through everything. We delivered a bunch of pharmaceuticals to them. Dr. Amy here did OBGYN services and did some training on their ultrasound machine. We did the plumbing and electrical upstairs for the dental office. That involved, I think, two bathrooms. We put in two toilets, two sinks. There's Tucker cutting a hole in something for something.

14:07And then they needed that for the dental office, they needed electrical to the chairs. They have three chairs. They needed electrical and they needed compressed air. And they needed a house for the air compressors. And so we built that house, a little shed on the back side of the clinic. And so, who wants to talk about? Why don't you share about what you saw, the Lord doing? Okay, well, a couple of things stand out to me as I think about the trip.

14:37One thing is that this is my third year to be there, and they've always asked if we can bring medications, prescription medications that they can't get easily. And I've never been able to find a pharmacist who was comfortable providing bulk medications. But this year, God really provided. John mentioned at our preparatory meeting that he had a contact. At one of the HEB pharmacies, and I immediately knew who it was. It's someone I knew from another church. Shane Leckler is the director of pharmacy at HEB Tower Point, and he said, Hey, send us your list. So we had a list from the clinic manager, and I passed that on to Shane, and he not only was able to get most of those medications, but he only charged us a quarter of the cost. So HEB donated a portion of it, and he was able to give it as a discount. So I think one thing that stands out to me is God provides, and I was also a little worried that it wouldn't get through customs. I could see myself in Honduran jail, you know, trying to get medication. But it was a little tense, but John took care of that, and the Lord provided. And it was a little tense, maybe.

15:52But that made it through. And the other thing I'll mention, not necessarily of the clinic, is that I'm always most thankful to see is when I go and interact with the people who are serving and living there, a really common phrase you'll hear is, I sold everything I have to be here. And my interpreter at the clinic was a nurse there from Tennessee that I had not met before. Her name is Nicoa. She actually was a women's health nurse. She had been to Honduras on short-term mission terms, fell in love with the country, sold everything she had, came down to language school, and is working there at the clinic, which, you know, every day is a nurse.

16:30And then she translated for me. And so it was a blessing to get to know her. And she, and you know, in the U.S., everything we do is very fast. You know, in my clinic, I'm seeing patients very fast, and you're always thinking about having to get to the next thing. But working with Nakoa, she would translate and be talking to the patients, and she kept asking them, they'd come in with their physical complaint, and she kept asking them, Do you have any other questions? And again, do you have any other problems? And in my mind, I'm thinking, stop asking. We don't have time, we've got to move on.

17:05But it was such a blessing for her to keep asking because that is when all the layers of the physical kind of fall away, and the spiritual issues or the emotional issues that we really need to be able to pray with them and share scripture things, their anxiety, their fear, their family troubles, those things come to the forefront. And you have the opportunity to really kind of be there with those folks and pray with them and cry with them. And so that was a blessing to me. I think I'll always remember that and bring that back here.

17:40We'll talk about the. So, yeah, I worked on that shed structure for the compressors for the dental. And so I didn't know exactly what to expect. Usually we work as a team from the church. And so in the morning on the first day of work, I got a couple. Of guys together, we went up there. I thought I was gonna lay out the forms and work on this slab, but there was a senior member of the church there already working on it. He had formed it up, and the way we ended up splitting up is the people I had brought with me went upstairs to work on the plumbing with those guys, and then it was me and this member from the church. I don't speak any Spanish, I speak German, but I don't speak Spanish.

18:27He didn't speak any English, and I wasn't exactly sure what his plan was. I knew what Kenny had told me my plan was supposed to be, but I just kind of followed him along. And so it turns out that he's a mason, but I didn't know that at first. So I was told to mix up the concrete, and I was told that it's one bag of concrete to one bag of to one measure of aggregate equal, but it's not, it's three aggregate to one concrete. And he knew that, and he was doing that. I'm like, this can't be right. We've got way too much sand. Is this how we do it in Honduras to make the concrete stretch? And so I had to go find somebody and ask. But you start to gain confidence in him once you learn, oh, he's a mason. He does this every day. He looks like he's 75. I don't know if he's 65, but he drove me into the ground. He can put a five-gallon bucket of cement on his shoulder and carry it down around the corner. And I measured, we moved an entire cubic yard of concrete from the playground to behind there. And then we started building that metal in five-gallon buckets, about one-third full.

19:36And so then we started building this structure, and it's out of metal, and we're using a hacksaw. And it's an old hacksaw. So then, after doing that for a day, I remembered to bring the grinder the next day, and he's like, cheque, which means kind of cool or neat. So we used that. We also, for drilling holes, we were using a self-tapping screw with his hand drill, which doesn't go backwards. And so once you put it into the hole, you have to take it out by hand. So we brought other tools. But really getting to know him over that time, even though I didn't speak Spanish, it ministered to me a lot. Maybe I didn't minister to him that much. I hope we did. But that relationship and then knowing that I might never see him again in this world, and he lives in a different country. But if we're both in Christ, we'll spend eternity in heaven. And that really draws you closer. You're like, wow, that's nice to get to know someone here who is a true native. So that was really touching to me. And in the end, we did get it all built. And he moved on to that awning up three stories. He's up there on the ladder and cutting the awning off. And I'm asking, is he safe up there? Oh, yeah, yeah, no problem.

21:01So I was glad I didn't have to go up there. Yeah, we did going through the airport with the drugs. You know, I ended up with the open suitcase with all the drugs, and they're looking at me, and I'm showing them the little letter I have on my phone. You know, I'm just kind of playing stupid, friendly gringo, and that usually works. And they did. I was supposed to have some other form that I didn't have, but they let me off because I was a stupid, friendly gringo.

21:36So, anybody else have any? I don't have any slides on here on Sunday. Do y'all want to say anything about Sunday? What was it like? Oh, I mean, it's not as long as everybody has been saying, but I just thought it was really cool going to a church that was all in Spanish and just when everybody was singing, it was really cool to hear everyone singing just a completely different language than that we were used to and talking.

22:13And it was really cool to see that people in a foreign country, completely different language, still like our believers in Lord Jesus and singing the same songs as we do, just in a different language. And it's really cool to see how Despite the fact that language could separate us, we were still brothers and sisters in Christ. I guess a cool way God ministered to me was giving me a really cool, solid friend, his dad. He was a very cool person. And later, during the mission trip, I really looked up to him a lot because with the plumbing and all of the jobs that we would have to do, like people said, the jobs do not go as fast as they do in America. They move way, way slower.

23:12So this guy would be our supply runner. His name is Jorge. And I would go and ask him in the best Spanish I could do what we needed. And at certain points, he would be busy with stuff and he would stop what he was doing just to go get the supplies that we needed. And so I really looked up to him for that. And his son, Jorjito, I made really good friends with him and we gave each other our addresses.

23:42And it was just a cool way God ministered to me by giving me an awesome friend to talk to and all of that. Are you still talking to him? Yeah, yeah. We exchanged email or no, no, addresses and phone numbers. So we stay in touch, and it's really cool. Pray for each other. Practicing. So you can practice Spanish with him. He can practice English and pray for each other. That's good. That's good. All right. I've got a little short one on our fun day.

24:26So we'll just run through this. This was at Pulhapanzak, which is, this is actually, let's see, who made this? Did you make this video? Who made this video? No, this was. I think that was zipping. Yeah, so that's a zip line going across this thing in front of the waterfall. So these are our intrepid zip liners. We've done that before. One thing we haven't done before was the waterfall tour. And they said you go behind the waterfall. You don't go behind the waterfall. You go under the waterfall. And it's like, I told Kenny afterwards, I said, don't ever tell someone they're going behind the waterfall anymore because that's, you are not behind the waterfall. You are one with the waterfall.

25:16And you know, I got to say, getting up on the zip line, you know, that's like a thrill. You know, there's some adrenaline. Getting under that waterfall, there was a point at which I was like, I felt the panic rising. I was like, this was a bad. Bad idea because Kelly was in front of me. He got to be GoPro guy. He had the GoPro. He was the one that had the GoPro in his helmet. And he was in front of me, and I was this close to just shoving him downstream and getting out from under that waterfall.

25:45But yeah, he made it. And then we went to an ice cream place, and we all made it. You were the funniest, though, because when we got under the waterfall, you had to go through the waterfall, and then there's like a photo op area that you're up in this little grotto. Where you did it, you got a minefall. Well, you're sort of, but it's like being on the deck of a ship in the worst storm imaginable, and there's just water everywhere. And yeah, Angie was all the way back up as far as you could get, wedged back up in there, and just sort of looked like a wet cat. It was just up there just found. This is not.

26:22Oh, yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah. You'll love this. So we're going through, and I'm thinking, I'm going to die. I'm going to drown here. This is it. And, you know, we all get over there. Well, John is, he's just having a spiritual experience, and he's just overwhelmed with the power of God and, you know, his creation. And he is quoting loudly from Job 38. He's just quoting, just, you know, waxing eloquent. And finally, Angie turns and says, Would you shut up?

26:56I said, You go, sister. All right. So. So that's, and then that was our last day. So what, any, any questions or anything, any, anything anybody has to ask or say? Oh, yeah, here's some links. If you're interested in learning more about Meta or the church or the clinic, those are the links. You can jot those down, or if you don't have time to write them down, ask me and I'll give them to you. But any questions or thoughts or anything?

27:32I didn't hear you mention much about the students this time. Well, they were in session while we were there, and so they were having classes, and each night we heard from a different student from different places, and it was just, yeah, it was, I would love to, we should have videoed all of it. We might have snippets of them. But the one guy that was originally from Honduras and had, you know, spent time in California and had moved back with his wife and kid, that was just, that's the kind of story that you hear. These guys, it's like, they're just going to give it all up. And most of the guys are coming from countries where they're not, you know, they're third world countries anyway, or they don't have a lot. Well, this guy could have stayed in the U.S. and they gave it all up to go back to Honduras because that's his heart is for his people there and sharing the gospel. One of the really fantastic things about Meta, it's not just the They're training pastors for the Latin American countries, or there's Latin-speaking countries, the Spanish-speaking countries. But it's one of the few places where these guys can go and get Greek and Hebrew. And so then they can go back and they can actually translate for some of the unreached people groups that are in, because every one of these countries has pockets of unreached people groups that have their own language. But these guys that are locals, they're more familiar with it, and it's sort of a crossover culture, if you will. And so teaching these guys Greek and Hebrew gives them the tools they need to then go in and help translate scripture and do some very practical things to help further the gospel, getting the Word of God translated into more languages and things like that. So that's sort of a little hidden benefit of the education that is being provided there at Meta.

29:22John, coming out on that? Yeah. So kind of bouncing off of what John was saying, one of the things, one of the ways that God ministered to me and kind of opened my eyes was, like John was saying, you know, by the seminary being there, they can train pastors to go out and either plant churches or help with an existing church, and they've been taught in a very well-grounded way in the truth. And so, like, for instance, when we were working on the roof at the dorm, that dorm room is unusable. And once it becomes usable, now that's four or five more students that can live there in that dorm and learn there at the seminary. And five more pastors that can go and pastor five more churches and spread the truth and the gospel throughout Latin America. And so it was kind of neat to have my eyes open that way because it's easy for me to focus on just the task and accomplishing the task and not really see beyond that. But seeing how that was going to increase and have this potential effect of multiplying 30, 60, or 100 times over the years of people coming through there and being able to stay at that dorm was really, again, just God ministering to me and showing me how this wasn't just like a mission trip where you went and maybe painted a wall that didn't really need to be painted. I mean, it was actually sowing seeds that were going to bear fruit in that area and not just sort of evaporate after we left. It was the same for the clinic as well. When we were running like electrical power, plumbing, you know, like electrical power for these dental chairs, those were going to be powered up so that people could get dental exams. And the clinic was so cool because it was a ministry of the church that was right there. And one of the requirements that they had for all of their people who came to get treatment was you had to sit down first and basically listen to the gospel be laid out for you. And then you could go get treatment. So by having more dental chairs that were functional, they would be able to serve more people for their not just their tooth issues, but to present the gospel to more people that would be wanting to come through that facility to get treatment. And so it was, it was just.

31:30The the setup and the the way that this that the that the church and the clinic were set up to do that and the way that the seminary is set up and us helping them kind of increase their capacity to be able to do that was uh was really eye-opening for me and again a way God ministered to me. Yeah, you can fast. Okay, so something that I didn't realize going there, and we got to watch a great video and Kenny helped us understand like the full scope of what these guys do when they come to the seminary. It's a two-week period where they're in school, they're in class, and then they have four to six weeks, right, where they're on break. And so guys like Luis, who is the first testimony that we heard, he is from Peru. And so he lives there permanently because going back and forth like that from Peru just isn't you know feasible. So unfortunately for him and other guys from out of the country, they can't work while they're there.

32:32So Kenny and well, Meta, they provide ways for them to make a living by helping them around the grounds or putting them in other churches or homes. And so I asked them, because he has a cell phone and things like that, like Kenny, how does he pay for his cell phone or things like that? And he said, well, you know, people can donate to sponsor some of these guys that literally sell everything. And come. And so the reason why I remember Luis is because he had said, you know, had actually gone to seminary in Peru, right? That he said.

33:09But he was like, my eyes were totally opened when I learned the preaching the way that they do it here. And so he had shared a story about being in Morocco as a missionary. And he kept saying over and over, How well do you love your Bible? How much do you love your Bible? And it really got to me because he shared a story of a guy that was an older man who, just by all of these events that were kind of scary, and you know, Morocco is a closed country, so it's really dangerous for them to have Bibles and be there. He received the Bible and he said, I've been looking for this for 16 years.

33:53And he just shared story after story about how God protected them from all the guards that would have just arrested them because they had Bibles in their cars. And so, anyway, that was just such an impactful thing for me to hear and convicting, you know, thinking about probably every one of us in this room have maybe five, four or five Bibles at least at home. How well do you love your Bible? It was really neat for me, just to close out. Having been down there a few years, I'm seeing not just the individual problem. Projects that we do and the impact that those things, that that experience has on our congregation here. But I'm seeing the sort of the longer term, I'm getting a better picture of what the Lord is doing over the long haul down there, kind of where He is moving them and the things that are going on, like the clinic, the way that that is sort of snowballing into just a tremendous blessing, not just for the church and the people in that little neighborhood, but the entire community. And the seminary just continues to grow and the impact that that has. So that was really a neat thing for me to see sort of the long term, you know, that the Lord is using these little things that we do as stepping stones, if you will. You know, He's building that bigger thing down the road that we may never see the end of it before we get taken up to glory, but He is always at work. So that's all I have.

35:28I think that's all we have.