At the Airport

Hey, it's Vicar!

Just writing quickly to let you know that we've all made it past security at the airport just fine, and our flight from San Pedro Sulas to San Salvador is on time. From San Salvador we have a direct flight to Orlando. God-willing, we and all of our luggage will arrive at this evening around 7:30. Please pray for a safe trip for us, and, more importantly, for health and strong faith for the children of the foundation!

-Blessings,
-Vicar Larsen

Sunday

It's time. I hate this day. It's time to pack up all our stuff, load up the bus, pray together, shed a few tears, give MUCHO hugs and kisses and go back home to Florida.  As I write this it is Sunday morning and I am enjoying a final cup of Honduran coffee and some time talking with the ninas.  And we are exhausted. J

Saturday was incredible.  We woke to find that there was no electricity in all of La Paz.   Oddly enough things like that don't slow down much of anything around here.  We barely even noticed except that the TV spot that Mama Doris had was cancelled and we had to postpone the baptismal service for an hour in hopes of being able to play music on the CD player. In the morning we worked on some bicycles and then took many of the kids for a walk to the market.  We had a few coca colas, met some of their friends and family along the way and then headed back to the Foundation to prepare for the main event of the day—the baptism service. 

There were 10 children baptized and one adult. It was beautiful.  Pastor Lehenbauer did a beautiful job of using his Spanish skills to do a short Gospel message/magic trick. He took a broken egg and made a chicken appear!  You should have seen their faces as he brought the truth that God gives us NEW LIFE in baptism from our brokenness. It was awesome. One at a time the children, their parents, and their new American godparents came forward and the words were spoken:  you are baptized in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. 

We took pictures of each baptism and were able to print a copy of the moment of their baptism for each family/child. Pamela, one of the Foundation children, took her picture from me and literally stared at it for a full minute with this huge smile on her face. In my own life those moments that I have pictures of are moments that are sometimes more vivid. The pictures help to re-tell the story.  Pamela and the others now have those photos to help them remember again and again that they have new life, a new family. They belong to JESUS!  (On a side note, I asked Alejandra if she remembered her baptism from just a few years ago.  And she did!  We retold the story about Papa Wally falling down in the river with her.  She remembers. She knows she is His.) 

Another highlight of the day was watching Mary get baptized. Mary works in the kitchen here. She has not been at the Foundation long and in the first few days we were here she was very quiet.  By the middle of the week, she and Doris had talked about baptism and trusting Jesus with her life. She prayed with Pastor Abel on Tuesday night and spoke into the night with Doris.   On Saturday, Mary carried her Bible with a big smile on her face to the front of the church and became His child. There were many joyful tears from all of us.

We celebrated with ham sandwiches and coke and much jump roping as the godparents got to know their little ones.

Then we went back to the chapel to have a communion service. We celebrated first communion for Thelma, Alejandra, and Angela.  It was beautiful. Pastor Lehenbauer led us through a service from the Spanish that felt so familiar. We even sang This is the Feast (ok, so its Lent, but how could you not sing Alleluia at a first communion!?)  It was awesome.  There were many tears as the service ended and the Americans and children were given the opportunity to stand and share anything with the group. Much love was expressed.  Two special moments were when Mary stood and thanked us for coming and helping her to get to know God when Marilyn, a 14 year old who was so quiet when we arrived, who stood and tearfully thanked us for being her family. When Tio Brian stood and told the children how special they are to him and how much he loves to play with them, the children really cried. Even Kevin who is "too cool."  J  It was wonderful and painful so what else was there to do…..FIESTA!  We turned on the music and danced and played in the church until we were too tired to move and then we headed off to bed.

Now…we are almost ready to go.  I hate this part, but we don't say good-bye, we only say "until later."

Thank you, Jesus for this incredible week. You are amazing.

 

 

Leah Abel / Director of Christian Education
P 407.365.3408
www.stlukes-oviedo.org
2021 W State Rd 426 Oviedo, FL 32765


To proclaim Jesus Christ so that all may know God and grow in faith toward Him and in love toward one another.

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Buenos Dias!

Good morning, everybody!

Today is the last day of our trip, and tomorrow morning we will leave bright and early for the airport. It's been an amazing journey so far! We've painted a lot of desks, tables, and window slats (as well as a few school uniforms, but we tried REALLY hard to keep the kids away from everything), met the mayor of La Paz, been involved in two television shoots, shared God's story of love with upwards of 50 kids and some of their parents, met Pastor John and Renee Lehenbauer, played many hours of games with the kids, and eaten lots of beans and rice.

Today, as Steven said, we'll be off to the market in the morning, and we'll be sure to return in time for the Baptismal service at 2 PM (3 PM Eastern time). Other than that, our day is pretty unstructured, although Mama Doris is having another television interview in the morning that will be broadcast in many neighboring cities, including the Honduran capital Tegucigalpa!

Thank you all so much for your prayers and support while we've been down here. The looks in the eyes of these children as they play with us and laugh with us and hug us is truly indescribable, and the unconditional love that has bound us together in spite of our language barriers is a beautiful real-life picture of heaven breaking through right here on earth. Everyone here is so happy to see us, and God's work here is having a tremendous impact on the community. Did I mention that the city of La Paz is donating something like 600 or 800 pounds of food to the Foundation? People are starting to take notice of what God is doing in this place! And none of it would be possible without your prayers and support of this mission.

Please pray for the work that's being done here, as well as for the children who live here and the adults who work here, that God may be glorified in every corner of this place. Please also pray for us, as we say many tearful goodbyes to the children and fly back to the United States, that we would have a safe journey and that our lives back home would be changed by our time here. Thank you again so much, and God's blessings!

-In Christ,
-Vicar Larsen

Steven's Blog

Friday was the last day for VBS for the kids of La Paz. They got to hear how Jesus took away their sin, rose from the dead, and ascended into heaven. It was an 'epic' conclusion to the 4 day VBS session. The meals today were the best I have had on this trip. For breakfast, we had ham and cheese sandwiches,for lunch, we had chicken tacos, and for dinner, we had macaroni and cheese and then cake for dessert. Today we also finished the work on the school :) and the director of the school was very grateful for all the work we did. Tomorrow, we are planning to hit the marketplace in the morning, have baptisms at 2:00, and have a communion service in the evening. The plan is that there are supposed to be 8 planned baptisms, but after spending a lot of time in Honduras, you will realize that nothing ever goes according to plan and that we will probably end up with 80 baptisms, not that that is a bad thing. Tomorrow is supposed to be our last day with the kids :( and I am not looking forward to saying goodbye to them again.

-Steven Duda

Technical Difficulties

At some point during VBS today, the internet in the chapel gave out and our video recording was lost. Thankfully we have videos taken both by the La Paz news crew and by our very own Alex Domka! We will hopefully post Alex's video later this evening, and we will even more hopefully fix the wireless routers here before we depart on Sunday so that the folks in the Foundation can rely on them more. Stay tuned!

Videos and Pictures

Hola everybody!

We have a new video posted on UStream from today's VBS, where the kids got to learn about the fall into sin and God's plan to rescue us from it. Later on this evening we will hopefully post pictures from all of our cameras from the last few days, so be on the lookout for those! Thanks again for your prayers and support!

Good Morning from Vicar

Buenos dias!

Yesterday was an amazing day of service and Bible school, and today is shaping up to be even better! We have paint thinner now, so the paint should go on the desks and chairs at the school much more easily. We will also hopefully begin work on painting the area around some of the windows--while class is in session! That'll be an experience! The ceiling panels in this school don't come out as easily as they do in American schools, so that ceiling fan that was mentioned some time ago may or may not get installed on my watch. We'll see.

Bible school yesterday was great, as well! I'm very sorry I forgot to push "record" when we took the video, so only those who were watching live could see us. Today's video will hopefully be saved for everybody to see it. We talked about the Bible and God's creation of the universe yesterday; today we'll talk about the fall into sin and God's plan for saving us from it; tomorrow will introduce Jesus; and then Friday will be the big day where we tell the story of Jesus' death and resurrection. It's such a blessing to be able to share this Good News with all of the children here (and their parents)! Please pray that their hearts would be open to the Gospel, as well as that our hearts would be open to how we can best love all of these people as Jesus does. Thank you so much for your support--Dios le bendiga!

-Vicar Larsen