Tuesday's Saga

Tuesday's saga actually began on Monday evening.  What began as a gentle early evening rain shower during dinner turned into a torrential deluge during our evening group meeting and devotion time.  The rain was so loud as it pounded on the roof of the meeting hall that it was highly difficult to hear each other speak as we reflected on the day's activities.  Not knowing that the gentle shower would become a deluge, I didn't bring my rain gear to the meeting.  As such, I had to manuever about 1/4 of a mile from the meeting hall to my hotel room in the pouring rain.  I was ready for that warm shower upon my return.

The rain continued to fall for about six hours overnight, shifting from a steady downpour to its torrential storm counterpart.  After leaving the orphanage on Monday, part of the team transported all of the plastic tubs of medicine and children's craft materials to the local church for Tuesday's clinic session.  At breakfast Tuesday morning, our group learned of a serious complication which was caused by the "mansoon" rains.  The church had flooded and water got in to "some" of the tubs.  But we were told not to worry as members of the church had spent much of the night (after the rain stopped coming down) cleaning out the two-foot flood in their tiled sanctuary and then began going through each tub to slavage what they could.

The "some" tubs idea I had in my head was transformed into the reality that well over half of the tubs had received some form of leakage and thus some damage to the contents.  Most of the damage ended up being, in the grand skeme of things, rather insignificant...boxes of medicine which actually contained sealed bottles inside.  The primary damage to medicine included a small handful of large plastic bottles that had previously been opened and without their protective seals and a large bulk box of multi-vitaimin pills for children (we were packaging smaller kits from this box).  Nearly all of the remainder of the medicines survived...WOW.

We were able to serve well over 250 people from the Pena Blanca community today, ages ranging from a 19 day old baby to a couple of women in their late 80s.

After the work day and a return to the resort for clean-up and dinner, we returned to the same church for their weekly Tuesday night service.  Most churches in this part of Honduras hold a Sunday eveneing, Tuesday evening, and Thursday evening service each week (no Sunday morning services).  It was full of lively music and dancing and lasted a little over 2 hours.

Wednesday will take the clinic and children's teams to another village about a 45 minute drive away while the construction teams will continue at the orphanage and building a house.