Anyone else have a tract?

Another packed day. Sunday was another holiday in Honduras. I was talked into entering the train into the parade with other churches. I had concerns on several levels but relented and did so. Fully knowing it would be difficult to get the train, plus our church folks, to the other side of town, and it was.
Sunday was the day of our first baptisms, Amen! Also, one adult lady, Suyapa, came forward for salvation, AMEN! This was the priority of the day but the LORD bless all around for a lot of hard work.
First, put the church up, put together the baptismal, order a water truck to fill it, have church and baptisms, break it all now and put it away then set up the train for parade, and move 100+ people to the other side of town; All in about 4 hours. While the crowd was gathering outside our home with the train, a crazy man in a skull mask came up to scare the children. He wouldn’t leave until I buzzed our stun zapper.
We then hooked a truck to the train, loaded with near 100 people, to tow them to the other side of town for the parade. Try and try smoking the clutch, but the truck would not budge it from our dirt street. The train had to be started to get it all rolling. Off we go and arrived about 15 minutes after the last of the parade had left. We tried to catch up but only fell farther behind. In essence, it was a one church, one float parade, that actually was a blessing. The church folks were great handing out thousands of home made tracts. At the center of the route is the large main Catholic church, upon hearing the train, their people came out to take tracts. 2 hours later, about 3 blocks from home, the transmission broke in the train and had to be towed the rest of the way. We rewarded the kids for helping by shooting the candy cannon, and called it a night. Sleep came easy Sunday night. Thank You LORD!

Honduras Ponderings, Perils and Praises

The LORD always seems to bless most when we are weakest. A short list of blessings:
*A food shipment has been donated and paperwork is now in the works to get it here.
*A 900 lbs donated shipment of medications was approved and shipped. We had been working on this for another missionary’s medical team next month.
*Honduras Missions was also selected for a large team of Ind. Baptist, evangelical, medical doctors, dentist and eye doctors to visit and work. Tentative for July next year.
*A supporting church is planning a group visit in June 2007
*Visa paperwork was approved…Should not be long for actual visas.

Saturday night was an outreach out near Cedeno; A gospel movie, candy cannon and preaching. Easy I thought, oops must be getting senile. I was even told they had electric so we did not bring a generator. As you would expect, a bad storm rolled in as we set up, and CRACK-pow… lightning strike, no more electric. A 50 minute drive in the wind driven rain for a generator, only to return to find the lightning also zapped our amp and speaker system. Honduras is really rough on things. Thankfully a local had one that was made to work. During this time the last natural light began to disappear, so we chose to shoot the candy cannon for the children to buy a little time. Proceeded to pack it full of candy, stuffed animals, and trinkets; go into the dirt road, gather all the kids, boom, shoot it high into the air; only to have a big wind gust carry it all into the adjoining muddy sugar plantation field. Oh well, looked cool, a few persistent boys got a lot. While waiting for the generator, lots of songs were sung in the sweatbox, and the only light anywhere was my single led penlight flashlight shining at a movie screen. How many people can fit into a 26x26 foot space? Now add 50 more to your number. It was a packed house with pouring rain, leaky roof, with mosquitoes swarming like flies on rotting meat. Each person has at least 100 bites(Americans even more) then presto, movie is rolling. I asked Carlos to preach and do the invitation; he did well and a few others even joined in to plea sinners home. Each time one came forward there were cheers and applause. That was a new experience. 13 came forward, 2 men ….and Jeny! I had not confronted her with the gospel yet, just watching her for the right time…The Holy Spirit won out in spite of the difficulties. When we are weak…


Sunday’s church service had its own excitement. All was well until another old drunk man came into the children’s tent swinging a machete. Lisa gathered the kids and ran away with all the kids screaming; over it all I heard Sasha yelled “DAAAD!” I can’t remember the last time I heard Sasha yell. I rushed over and took his machete away. Lisa gave him some bananas and water, then I had to physically walk him down the street. Only to have him return across the street, lay down on the gate of our house and go to sleep in the rain. Oh joy.
Santos, the visiting man saved last week, returned and came forward today for baptism. AMEN! Added to that senora Erica( Aug 22 post) received 10 large sheets of tin to help keep her house dry. It was donated by a local businessman. Thank You LORD.

Sunday evening we had a special service with a movie outreach under the tent. It was a film about salvation and the rapture. At intermission time right after the trump sounded in the movie… we stopped the film and fed everyone popcorn. During this, I hid behind the screen and blew a shofar as loud and long as I could. Stepped in front of the screen and said… “uh oh, why are you all still here!”; This opened the door to teach a bit about the rapture and warned them not to wait. It was a fun way to talk on a serious subject. It rained most of the day so taking the tent down is 2x the work… has to be put up again Monday just to dry out. As we were drawing to a close another drunk with a Big machete sought refuge under the tent as Barry Jr. and I were dropping it. He was big, mean and everyone was afraid of him because he had been yelling and swinging the machete at them. I walked over shook his hand very firm, held it to turn him around and just like a child, told him he was in the way of the Lord’s work, and to go home… so he did. Carlos’ mouth looked stuck open in amazement. He had been so scared "for me" he had the numbers dialed to call the police,(not that they would come) and locked himself in his car with Lisa and Sasha standing outside as Jeny ran screaming into the house. Jeny asked later if I was scared of the bad man. “No” stunned she said “why?” “I only fear the LORD like the Bible says.” Jeny had a look on her face that is hard to describe but gave me an extra tight hug this evening….AAAMEN!
To say we need your continued prayers at this point is an understatement….Thank You

Unworthy servant to a Worthy Saviour,
Barry Ritchie

Needs:
Purchase Church property/building-Souls
Build the Whensawe warehouse
Purchase another year curriculum for institute
Purchase a vehicle
Get more proficient in Spanish
Stay healthy enough to finish the course set before us.
Ability to care for more abused and orphaned children

National Children's Day in Honduras

Sunday was a big national Holiday here in Honduras. Day of the Children, we chose this time to bring out our equipment. Well over 120 came under the tent for church services. Many more visited outside the tent. Everyone in the barrio came out to see the children riding on the train and received tracts as we went around the blocks, up and down the street. We also handed out the prizes for memory verses and one adult and one teen memorized all of them. Carlos returned from a medical trip in the north with reading glasses for all who needed them. And Carlos was able to get a hearing aid for one of the young children we have been working with…She can now hear for the first time. AMEN! The preaching message under the tent was from:

Mark 10:13-16 And they brought young children to him, that he should touch them: and his disciples rebuked those that brought them. But when Jesus saw it, he was much displeased, and said unto them, Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of God. Verily I say unto you, Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child, he shall not enter therein. And he took them up in his arms, put his hands upon them, and blessed them.

Two visiting men in their 40s came forward Santos and Pedro dropped to their knees with tears, "I want Jesus" ....They repented and pleaded for Christ....as little children. AMEN
Unworthy Servant to a Worthy Saviour

Barry Ritchie

Please pray

Please Pray for the children Honduras Missions touches. We need as many as we can near the Throne of Grace.

Great Blessings always seem to come with Great Trials

After several weeks of preparation work, we had our first evangelistic outreach with the bounce houses, games etc, partway into the mountains, to a village called Linaca. There is a pastor up there that Carlos knew and had asked us to help. We explained 5 weeks ago, what we would do and how to do a promotion to allow the children to “earn” tickets by saying verses, inviting friends and parents to church and so on. We knew something was wrong when the pastor arrived to help load equipment and I found his only prep work was inviting the entire village to the event… Uh, oh. Then, five minutes before leaving, Jeny decided after 3 weeks of wonderful behavior, now was the time to steal, lie about it and act up. So we left her home with Sasha, who was glad not to go because she broke her tail bone riding in the back of the truck a week ago and is very sore. It worked out for the better and Jeny had a change of heart when we returned…Amen.

We arrived in Linaca to the open space used for a soccer field. Our first real hint the day was going to very difficult was the huge crowd already there waiting. It didn’t help seeing a Pepsi truck unloading nearby for a little store and had security guards armed with shot guns like a Brinks Bank truck …uh,oh. Unabashed in our efforts, I took our rope and sectioned off an area to set up in. With several workers, but very little help, 2+ hours later in 100 degree heat, all was ready. Everyone came under the tent except a few groups of distant onlookers; men in the so called road and a couple of groups of teen boys watching afar off in the field. After preaching, so many raised their hands for salvation I could not count them, It was wonderful as 50-75 adults, teens and children, asked for forgiveness for sin, help to live pleasing to God and a plea to Christ Jesus to save them. AMEN! and amen. If it was not for salvations, we would have quit doing this along time ago, because as many of you know who helped with events in the USA, it’s a lot of work

Here the difficulty of the work is multiplied. Near the end of the event, with everyone near exhaustion, the teens in the distance saw their chance, became bold, and flooded into the event stealing whatever they could. I caught one 3 times and emptied his pockets. To make matters worse instead of helping correct the problem, some adult church workers started stealing themselves, with a your rich, you can afford it attitude…. ok, time to shut it down. One teen who had been watching, started fighting with Lisa when she would not let him steal…When you hear your wife scream your name in panic… Uh, oh …civility goes out the window. I grabbed him and pinned him on the ground and said I was taking him to the police…the police do not come to you here. His uncle came red in the face mad and ready to fight me. I am glad he did not have a machete or he might not have been as scared of me. While all eyes were on me, the other teens started rolling the go-kart away, Lisa and Barry Jr. ran them down. Then another took the basketballs and Barry Jr. ran him down…it was a madhouse for a while. No one was willing to confront or stop them, not even the pastor. The uncle returned a while later and I had the chance to actually talk to him and calmed the situation. I ended up letting the boy go. We lost about $500 in supplies and equipment. To top it off, while loading the last piece of equipment I was bit by a stray dog…thankfully he did not break the skin.

It is an understatement to say we were glad to get home and see Jeny’s beaming smile greet us. All I can figure is our LORD allowed us to really hit the panic button of spiritual wickedness in high places…in my book, that makes it a good day AMEN! We did learn some things though, like the next event we do of this scale…we need to have a place to lock things up and hire a policeman to come with us, its cheaper in the long run. You won’t lose things, patience or testimony.

Carlos is gone. We allowed him to do some translating work for missionary doctors in the northern part of the country this week. It seemed a good time to let Pastor Enemensio preach. His back is acting up so he has been struggling riding a horse to Los Terrerros. He goes on the days when his back will let him. Just the fact this 60+ year old man walks or rides a horse up the mountain is amazing. So today we let him sit and preach here in La Cruz Baptist Church. Before services a slightly drunk man came in and begged for salvation. Enemensio and I looked at each other with a question mark kinda look. Do we kick him out or witness….I would rather err on the witness side. So he did and led them man through the entire plane of salvation and prayer….Through the fog of his mind if the light came on then AMEN! If not God will use it for Judgment later, either way God is glorified. Later,half way through Enemensio was standing and preaching hard and everyone listening intently. Our baby Christians desire and need much milk. I pray the desire does not wax dull.
Lisa taught about the Tower of Babel today and had me cut up building blocks from the wood used to let down the container. The children had a blast and all went home full of popcorn that Amish Country Popcorn donated while we were in the USA.
Please pray for Jeny she has been infested with worms since arriving, now Barry Jr. may even have them but were are not sure yet. We need to get more medication as funds allow. We have numerous needs, church building and property, car, safety, We may be getting more abused children from the government. And the list goes on....
Thank You ALL!! We covet your prayers.
Unworthy Servants to a Worthy Saviour