Marianna at SIFAT Team - 2011

Marianna is Coming to SIFAT: 

Each year SIFAT has an intensive 10 week workshop at Lineville, Alabama.  What they cover is beyond the explanation of this blog - just click www.sifat.org to see what all the “promoters” learn.  They come from all over the world for this unique, one of a kind, experience.  Not only networking with universities, private businesses, and other promoters, but learning 30 different skills to take back to their own country to then become teachers.

Cruzadas del Evangelico, the church AHMEN works with in Honduras, is planning to send Marianna, the lady who started the Deaf School in Plan de Flores, Honduras to the practicum for this fall.

Why Marianna?  Marianna is the type of person the practicum was designed for. She is a “self starter,” a community leader, a visionary, and a “no-nonsense get, things done” type of person.  In addition, she has been attending the AHMEN-SIFAT Workshops being held in Cosuna by Byron Morales.  (Take a look at the article entitled “AHMEN-SIFAT Initiative” for the work and scope of what has been going on in Cosuna, Honduras over the past year.)  Marianna has evolved as a leader in the workshops, and Byron sees her developing into one of the persons who will expand the depth and breadth of the AHMEN-SIFAT Initiative with this time spent in Lineville.

So, how can you be a part of this exciting work?

Marianna will need a team of supporters.  You can become part of the:            “Marianna at SIFAT Team - 2011”

What will the team do?

1. Prayer support: a daily prayer for all aspects of her getting to Lineville, her work while she is here, and her work when she then returns to Plan de Flores, Honduras.
2. Personal support:  She can have visitors while working in Lineveille, Alabama, as well as free weekends to visit your church or home.  This is a great way to get your church to know Marianna, the Deaf School of Plan de Flores, and the students at the school.  
3. Financial Support:  here is what is needed for this.  These are estimates, not exact amounts.
1. $500 for passport, visa, legal fees, transportation to and from Teguc and American embassy to get these items.
2. $2,000 for the workshop.  Actually, the fee is $3,750 but SIFAT is giving her a scholarship of 50%.  Thanks SIFAT!
3. $1,000 for round trip to and from Plan de Flores, Honduras to la Ceiba to San Pedro Sula to B’ham, Al.  This will also include incidentals like stuff we haven't thought of and to help defray the cost of someone to take over her job while she is gone.
4. Total: $3,500   Take any and all of this with donations from you, your church, your club, etc.

“Marianna at SIFAT Team - 2011”

Contact to join:

Tom Camp: llamacamp@gmail.com

Michael Franklin: frankmj42@gmail.com

Mary and Guf Guffey: hjguffey@earthlink.net

Sponsorships: the "lifeblood" for mission schools

Sponsorships: the “lifeblood” of mission schools.

Deaf School: Plan de Flores, Honduras

Take a look at these kids and hear their story.  Unless they find sponsors, they have to return to their homes, no school, no one to communicate with, and live their lives in silence.

AHMEN and Cruzadas del Evangelica began a school for deaf kids in the coastal village of Plan de Flores, Honduras.  Read the story on the front page of www.honduranmissions.com for more information.  

Now take a look at these two kids who are in need of sponsors.

For $75/month they get food, a place to stay, medical treatment, hearing evaluation, sign language instruction, nurturing teachers, an opportunity to learn to communicate, they will  continue school, go to high school, and learn a trade.  What a bargain.

contact: Lela Aaron: paperlady35501@yahoo.com

Eva Antonia is deaf-mute, she is 17 years old of age, she lives and eats at our house.She was born in the community of Santa Fe, Trujillo.

Her father abandoned the house and her mother lives alone with her other children. They have little economic resources, Eva is studying 1 an 2 grades. We are looking for help for her expenses.

Noel Gerson Cantarero, he is 8 years of age.

He also lives and eats at home. He has come from Olanchito, Yoro The parents are separated and his father brought him and his sister Damaris (deaf-mute also) to this school. He is in 1st.  grade. His father visits them because he works cutting palm near Plan de Flores.

We really need more staff because we have to take care them, feeding the children, and we have to pay a lot of attention to them daily. I hope you can help  us. Thanks  Marianna from the Deaf School in Plan de Flores, Honduras April 2011

for more information contact:

Lela Aaron: paperlady35501@yahoo.com

Sponsorships: the "lifeblood" for mission schools

Sponsorships: the “lifeblood” of mission schools.

Deaf School: Plan de Flores, Honduras

Take a look at these kids and hear their story.  Unless they find sponsors, they have to return to their homes, no school, no one to communicate with, and live their lives in silence.

AHMEN and Cruzadas del Evangelica began a school for deaf kids in the coastal village of Plan de Flores, Honduras.  Read the story on the front page of www.honduranmissions.com for more information.  

Now take a look at these two kids who are in need of sponsors.

For $75/month they get food, a place to stay, medical treatment, hearing evaluation, sign language instruction, nurturing teachers, an opportunity to learn to communicate, they will  continue school, go to high school, and learn a trade.  What a bargain.

contact: Lela Aaron: paperlady35501@yahoo.com

Eva Antonia is deaf-mute, she is 17 years old of age, she lives and eats at our house.She was born in the community of Santa Fe, Trujillo.

Her father abandoned the house and her mother lives alone with her other children. They have little economic resources, Eva is studying 1 an 2 grades. We are looking for help for her expenses.

Noel Gerson Cantarero, he is 8 years of age.

He also lives and eats at home. He has come from Olanchito, Yoro The parents are separated and his father brought him and his sister Damaris (deaf-mute also) to this school. He is in 1st.  grade. His father visits them because he works cutting palm near Plan de Flores.

We really need more staff because we have to take care them, feeding the children, and we have to pay a lot of attention to them daily. I hope you can help  us. Thanks  Marianna from the Deaf School in Plan de Flores, Honduras April 2011

for more information contact:

Lela Aaron: paperlady35501@yahoo.com

Brother John has a long relationship with the new Deaf School

John Taylor writes that he has determined he will only be able to wear polo shirts when it comes to Alfredo, Mariana and Josue.  He has been popping the buttons off his shirts, swelling up in being proud of the Salinas family for their vision, positive action and perseverance in moving ahead in the work God has given them to do.

Just when John thought his chest could swell no more, a new discovery puts the practicality of wearing buttoned shirts at practically nil.  Mariana not only has nine deaf students who live and study at the meagre facilities they now occupy, she also sees another ten students with varying physical and mental disabilities. This includes seven with Down's Syndrome.  These students come to her once a week, or once a month, depending on the distance they have to be brought by their parents or guardians.  Without the help needed to care daily for these extreme cases, Mariana can only work with them on an out-student basis.

Readers may not be aware that Alfredo and Mariana have a son, Josue, born deaf, and Christian, another son born with Down's Syndrome.  What a marvellous couple the Salina's are, that God should entrust to them two children with such diverse and life altering impediments. These two children served to challenge the couple to reach beyond their own difficulties and change for the better the lives of other children and families. 

Alfredo, Mariana, and now Josue, offering bright hope for so many others, deserve all the help they can receive in order to realize this monumental ministry God has given them to do.
________________________________________________________________________

AHMEN SIFAT Initiative: update 4/8/11

AHMEN SIFAT Initiative of Honduras is into it’s second year.  AHMEN (Alabama Honduras Medical Educational Network) and SIFAT (Servants in Faith and Technology) joined forces last year to explore how we could use the contacts and network of AHMEN with the “modus opirendi” and techniques of SIFAT to help local communities develop leadership, identify community needs and facilitate implementation in Honduras.  

What started as a vague idea is blooming into an exciting new era for many of the AHMEN teams.

Byron Morales, SIFAT representative, has been working with 50 community agents, self selected, from the Cosuna, Honduras area for one year.  They have been meeting for 3 - 4 day workshops quarterly.  They will complete this part of their program in August, 2011.

What happens to the AHMEN SIFAT Initiative then?   Two things.  

These trained community agents move into the second of three phases of their training.

But, the second thing is what I would like to describe.

Several AHMEN teams have asked Byron to go on their team for 2011 and look into the possibility of starting a workshop in their area.  Others have asked him to go with them and invite the local community agents he has been working with to work with their team.  Still others have invited his community agents, without Byron, to work with their teams. 

Some examples.

1. April team to La Moskitia has invited Byron to go with them and explore the possibility of having a future workshop somewhere in that area.  Will it happen this year?  Probably not, but Bruce, Tom, Jesus, Bud, et. al. are looking further than just what we (week long medical teams) can contribute to communities.

1. A team with Carolina Honduras will be going to Limon in June and is exploring developing a relationship with the “community agents” trained by Byron in the workshops over the past year.  What we hope will happen is the promoters will become an active part of the team, showing the team not only what they are doing, but also identifying areas of need they can work together.  Byron will not be physically there, this will potentially be the first time the community agents have an opportunity to interact with a team other than AHMEN’s.  They will, in essence, be “ambassadors” for this first time experience of reaching beyond the AHMEN organization to other American missionary groups.

1. After the graduation of the first years community agents, Byron will travel with our August team to Palacio and explore the needs and potential there at Cruzadas’ mission compound.  He will also have an opportunity to reconnect with the potential future community agents in Moskitia he met in April.

1. In June, our La Esperanza team has invited Byron to go with us as a member of our team and to help us explore how we might best interact with a new area of 3 or 4 Indio villages in the mountain region near La Esperanza, Honduras.  This will be the first time AHMEN has initiated a medical mission area with Byron being in on the early planning.
2. Belaire teams, including the Guffeys, Greg Rushton, have asked Byron to meet Evelyn and explore Byron setting up a workshop in that area.

1. Finally, Micheal Franklin, CD and Linda Tripp are “pushing” for one of the next workshops to be in the Yoro area.

Lots of good things going on with the AHMEN SIFAT Initiative in Honduras.  If you have a team in Honduras that would like to explore a relationship with Byron and the AHMEN SIFAT Initiative, let Byron know.  We are in the early stages of what potentially can be a positive force for grass root changes in the communites many of us serve in.

Contacts: 

Byron Morales: byromen@yahoo.com

Michael Franklin: frankmj42@gmail.com

Benny Rowe: bennyrowe@bellsouth.net

Tom Camp: llamacamp@gmail.com

Rev. Ray Crump:RayLCr@aol.com

CD and  Linda Tripp: CTripp@bellsouth.net

Mary/Hugh Guffey: hjguffey@earthlink.net

Spring Container to Honduras - Pray for it!!!!!

Some years ago we, the members of the AHMEN organization, only served the Carolina Clinic in Limon, Honduras.  We  had two medical mission trips per year, and they both went to Limon.  After a fair amount of “harassment” from Sister Eleanor and Dan Isbell of Cruzadas del Evangelio to push our boundaries and serve other areas, our team decided to hold a clinic in Punta Piedra, Honduras.  

 

       Punta Piedra is a coastal Garifuna village in Honduras and did not have any medical presence at that time.  The village was about 3 hours down the rutted, sandy, non-paved coastal road that connected Limon to the Mosquitia area.  They had no electricity, no paved roads, and no clean water source.

 

       The trip was absolutely horrible.  We had two flat tires, lost an axil of one of the trucks, and took inadequate medicine for the number of patients we ended up seeing. The  village was not expecting us, and they were not welcoming.  To make matters worse, we didn’t have enough water for us, many of us got dehydrated, and we all began fussing and carrying on among ourselves.

 

       When we got back our team told Sister Eleanor, the spiritual director of Cruzadas del Evangelico, that we would never, NO NEVER, go back to the Garifuna villages along that coast.  Here is where I had my biggest surprise of the trip.  Sister Eleanor exclaimed:  “O NO, all of your misfortunes just meant you were doing what God wanted you to do and the Devil (personal) was working against you.  The closer you come to doing what God wants you to do, the harder the Devil works against you.  This just means you need to work harder at that particular project and pray more.”  This happened, as I said, some years ago.  Since that time our mission has expanded to include multiple villages and projects “down that road”.

 

       What brings this back to my consciousness at this particular time is the problem we are having getting our supplies into Honduras for our mission work this summer.  As many of you know, the Honduran government has made new rules and regulations in regard to both our container going down (what we call our Spring container) as well as airline baggage supplies.  See the recent blog by Bruce McFadden re this problem.

       If you take a look at the trips AHMEN is either heading up or affiliating with this year, you can see that we need our supplies.  Sandy is working diligently on her end, our container committee is working on this end, and lots of folks are contacting all of their “political connections” so far to no avail.

       As I am prone to do when things seem to be “bogging down”, I called Sister Eleanor in Honduras.  Guess what she said.  “This is great that AHMEN is having so many road blocks, it means you are doing exactly what God wants and expects out of your organization.  Keep up the good work.”  When I asked her for specific advice it was forthcoming: “Keep working and add more prayer.  As a  matter of fact, ask your praying folks to add the entire country of Honduras to their prayer list.”

 

       I was telling “Bucket”, team leader for “It’s a God Thing”, and his response: “Hallelujah, Praise God, Pass this good news to all of the teams and let’s get the prayers going.”

 

       So, get in touch with everyone you know that is a prayer and ask them to increase their prayers for AHMEN, the Spring Container, and for Honduras in general.  Get in touch with anyone who might have a contact in the government of Honduras or the USA and ask for their help.  Get in touch with all of your team mates who might be discouraged and remind them that they are doing exactly what they need to be doing and to keep it up.

 

Signed:

Tom Camp

www.honduranmissions.com

llamacamp@gmail.com

 

       For more information on the container contact: Ivan and Joy Green: Greenei@bellsouth.net