In Loving Memory of Reymunda

Reflection from Jarrod Brown.

She was crippled, blind, deaf, dirty. She had a broken hip, she was extremely malnourished, and she was being consumed by cancer. Her name was Reymunda (Ray -moon-du). She was in her mid nineties when we met her almost a year ago. The cancer that had consumed the entire right side of her face, her right eye and about two thirds of her nose was so painful to look at. It constantly oozed a clear liquid that her long beautiful white hair would get stuck in and matted to her face. She could not have weighed more than 60 or 70 pounds. Her dwelling could not be a home, water streamed through the old clay tile roof when it rained, the mud adobe brick walls were dissolving like saltine crackers in a glass of water with each new rain storm. She lived alone.

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Fish and Loaves: God's Provisions

photo by @chelsearobersonIn Matthew chapter 14 we see an amazing example of Christ taking a limited resource and using it for unlimited possibilities.  The 2 fishes and 5 loaves fed over 5000 people that day.  God’s provision is perfect and awesome.  Mission Lazarus is constantly looking at ways of providing for herself to help offset the cost of providing for the basic needs of some of the poorest in Honduras.  In particular the Mission Lazarus Hacienda has had the unique opportunity to be able to grow crops and raise livestock to help offset the cost of running the Mission Lazarus Refuge children’s home.  On the ranch some of the finest quality and best tasting coffee is grown.  However the coffee growing on the ranch is very old and does not produce a good yield due to the size of each plant.  From our 35 acres of coffee plants only 3000 pounds were harvested in 2009.  A well maintained coffee plantation in optimal conditions will yield around 1000 pounds per acre.  With this in mind we made the decision in 2009 to prune our coffee trees back to about 18 inches tall, a far cry from the 10 – 14 feet that they were growing at previously.  This would mean that we’d drastically reduce our production yield for at least 2 and most likely 3 years.  It was a necessary effort to eventually increase our yield exponentially.  In early January 2010 I met with Gustavo our ranch manager to discuss our forecasted harvest of coffee for the year.  He felt comfortable estimating that we’d harvest around 1200 pounds off coffee, less than 25% of the coffee plants  would even be  producing this year.  As with all of our ministries, programs and projects, we pray often for our farming ventures including our coffee production.  Last week we finished the 2010 harvest with a total of exactly 3000 pounds of coffee harvested.  There is no way to explain this yield except to give the honor and glory to God for providing a great harvest that will care for hurting children in Honduras.

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The Importance of Education

I received the following note recently from Emma Siria, one of our Early Childhood Development Center (ECDC) Directors.

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In 2008 I met a woman named Rosa.  At that time she had 7 children and no husband.  Suany 10, a boy 9, Angelica 7, Cecilia 5, Lisseth 4, Cipriano 2, a baby a few months old and she was pregnant again.  After visiting Rosa's home and realizing the extreme poverty that they lived in we invited her to enroll her children in the Early Childhood Development Center but she did not want to.  Her excuse was that her children had to take care of her house because she and her 11 year old son worked.  We kept insisting and we visited her numerous times until we were finally able to convince her.  She enrolled the three young girls since the older children had to take care of the 2 year old and the baby.  Sometimes Suany would show up at the school to ask for food.  Rosa, the mom, did not attend a single parent meeting during the entire year. 

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Country Road, Take Me Home

I drove up the mountains, away from Choluteca, towards San Marcos de Colon it began to rain. By the time I had reached 4000 feet the rain was steady and the fog was thick. The rain was not pounding but steady, I immediately knew that this rain would not be passing too soon and that this was the kind of rain that causes the rivers in the mountainous region of San Marcos de Colon to overflow their banks with no warning. I immediately began contemplating my options. I needed to leave for Tegucigalpa at 5 AM Saturday morning for a flight to the US. Would the rivers keep me locked in to our remote paradise we call home? I got home around 5:30, it was still raining. I got Sol and Levi out of the truck, then Ally called and told me she would be home soon but that the fog and rain had really gotten bad. When she got home I told her of my plan to leave that night, around 8 PM to do the unthinkable.

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Out of Context

As a missionary in a third world country I have much to say, experiences to tell, and Good News to share. No amount of school, no amount of reading could prepare one for the mission field. You might get an idea, but it’s the day to day life that educates you on what to do and not to do. More than that it’s the day to day prayer life that will make the work a success or the lack of prayer life that will allow the evil one to succeed.

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