LOOKING BACK ON 2023 IN HONDURAS AND NICARAGUA WITH SALT:
January 1 – December 31, 2023 – Nicaragua (Mel Menker)
We are just completing two years of providing a full-time doctor to the village of Kisalaya, a community of nearly 2,000 people, which is a typically underserved village in Nicaragua. Dr. Jeff is Miskito, speaks the language as well as English and Spanish, and is from the area. He is also a follower of Jesus and a man of faith. His work in the village has been nothing short of incredible in providing medical services to the community. We will soon enter into our third year with him and ask for you to keep him in your thoughts and prayers as he continues his faithful service. (Your donations provide a full-time doctor for $450 per month, which is an incredible blessing to the people of Kisalaya.)
December 30, 2022 – Honduras (Mel Menker)
Yesterday we finally arrived in Puerto Lempira and got started on putting the pieces of the puzzle together. I still marvel at the reality that we can make what we think are the right plans only to find out God has a different play book in mind. We have learned to make 90 degree turns in a moment’s notice!
We spent part of the afternoon visiting Mama Tara’s Miskito Orphanage where Kolby serves and were overwhelmed by the love of the children for us. We are still exploring how SALT and the orphanage can connect.
Finally, we were able to spend time with Pastor Bertin and his wife Dolly which helped us immensely as we await the arrival of the pastors from Kisalaya coming in next week for a great time together of teaching and learning. God is so good in that the Church of God has a dormitory with bathrooms and showers where the visiting pastors can stay for free. This extra money this gives us will be so helpful to use for them.
Today we’re preparing to try to get to Sirsirtara to repair bailer buckets and check the two wells installed by our brothers from Nicaragua last May. They taught the men of Sirsirtara how to make the wells themselves. We will also be working on the solar system at the clinic and hopefully be able to meet with the leaders and the pastors. Thanks for your continuing prayers!
January 7, 2023 – Honduras (Mel Menker)
Beginning with well work at Sirsirtara, we were able to make modest repairs to the bailer buckets and they now work perfectly. However, the well at the school has filled with clay for reasons unknown. We’ll have to contact WasterStep upon our return for advice. Your donations provided the supplies to repair the bailer buckets for the wells.
We had a lengthy meeting with the leaders and some of the people of Sirsirtara and are working on plans for the future regarding seed availability, research of their well needs, getting with the pastors on the next visit and problems with the solar system in their clinic that we had seen in our last visit in March. We were able to repair the solar system and the clinic now has lights, which have been out for a year! Your prayers and donations provided a new solar battery for the clinic. Your prayers and donations provided a new solar battery for the clinic.
We made arrangements for the pastors of the churches in Kisalaya to come to Puerto Lempira for pastoral training. The Church of God offered to host the pastors and did such an excellent job from sleeping quarters, showers and toilets, clean drinking water and an air-conditioned meeting room with coffee. We were so glad to have the precious part of three days with them and they all requested more training. The pastor of the church sat in with us and was impressed with what we are teaching and how we do it. There may be consideration of us coming to teach larger groups of Miskito pastors in Honduras. Your donations provided for their meals and the expenses of materials (writing books, pens and a donation to the church) and the transportation costs to bring them from Nicaragua and return them.
We went to Wampusirpi, one of the very remote villages in which we had provided rice seed earlier in the year (your donations provided about 20,000 pounds of rice seed for this village and 12,000 pounds for Krausirpi, which is further upriver by four hours.) that is only accessible by a two-day canoe trip or a 30-minute flight. We flew in the six-seat Cessna 206 which had just enough room to get us there and back for an overnight stay. We met with some of the pastors and many others to discuss their needs and if we can assist them. They are praying about it as are we as we had to leave the morning meeting to catch the plane back to Puerto Lempira and we both chose not to decide yet. This village has nearly 3,000 people, which is by far the largest village with which we have been in contact and we solicit your fervent prayers along with us as we want to be certain that God is at the very center of this. (NOTE: We agreed to take a number of different purses and computer cases made from the bark of the Tamarind trees and sell them stateside with all proceeds going to the women who made them. We sold all of them and paid them with the donations we received from the buyers when we returned in September.)
Finally, we engaged in meaningful conversation with an attorney about becoming an umbrella organization under the organization of Mama Tara Miskito Orphanage, which currently serves 36 full-time in-house children and more that 100 in day programs. Becoming an organization under them opens the doors for us to begin creating works groups who might be willing to come and do construction, repair, renovation and pour lots of love on the children of the orphanage. We will begin planning for some open doors as this unfolds.
God has been so good this trip (He is always good!) and we have been blessed in so many ways and have had the opportunity to bless others as we have been blessed. There is SO much more to share, which we’ll be doing upon our return in just a few days. Again, thanks so much for all your prayers!
January 9, 2023 – Honduras (Mel Menker)
Today begins the multiple day journey home to the United States. We have been blessed beyond what we deserve. We have renewed relationships, created new ones, watched doors open to new possibilities and deepened our walk with Him. Thanks for all your prayers.
January 17, 2023 – Honduras (Mel Menker)
For a couple of months our Nicaragua translator and I had been conversing about the men of Kisalaya coming to Honduras to spend time with us. During the past three years we have been unable to take teams to Nicaragua and we were able to bring a water well-drilling team from Nicaragua to drill two wells in Sirsirtara in April. Your donations allowed us to purchase the well drilling kit, purchase all the materials for the two wells, pay for transportation to bring the well drilling team from Nicaragua and provide rooms and meals for them.
Pastor Bertin and Dolly pastor a large Church of God church in Puerto Lempira. This is the church that the children of Mama Tara’s Miskito Orphanage attend and we have been attending with them since we started working in Honduras. The church has tremendous outreach ministries into the community. We are working with them to see where this relationship may take us in God’s plan for us in Nicaragua.
Once again, thanks for all of your prayers and financial support. What those pastors learned will impact hundreds in Kisalaya as they unfold the new learning from the Word of God for their congregations. It is money well spent to enable people to see and respond to the living Jesus, the Savior of the world.
September 8, 2023 – Honduras (Mel Menker)
Having left on Tuesday, it’s been a dead run and the first time I’m able to post an update. It’s a shame as to how much we take things like internet for granted! Arriving in San Pedro Sula on Tuesday afternoon, the next step in getting me into La Mosquitia was a four-hour taxi ride to La Ceiba. Overnighting there, I was able to catch my plane around 11 AM to get to our staging point of Puerto Lempira. Immediately upon arrival, Kolby Palmer and I had to get tickets for the flight on Thursday to Wampusirpi, knowing that return flights were always suspect. Having tickets in hand, we arrived at the airport at 7 PM as required, even though the thirty-minute flight didn’t leave until nearly 11 AM.
Arriving in Wampusirpi, we were able to connect with Pastor Carlos for a late afternoon meeting with leaders and others at his church. His church, however, is under total reconstruction and the services are being held under his house (remember, their houses are on stilts). They brought out some of the pews from under the house and formed them into an oval, making it so easy to have eye contact with everyone. We discussed the unresolved issues remaining from our last meeting in January and were able to discuss their current needs. The one we could address would be the need for clean water wells. They agreed to our micro-financing of the village providing free labor in exchange for a well drilling kit and the materials to make each well. They will begin to get all the information together as to cost, including shipping – which means a two-day trip down the Patuca River – for the materials. (Your donations have purchased the will drilling kit for Wampusirpi and the future supplies needed when we are able to return with a drilling team from the men of SALT who are trained to do this teaching.)
In addition, we discussed our work at creating a collaboration with two other churches – The Refinery and The Bridge – both in Wilmington, who can bring numerous additional possibilities to this community. We will work together to coordinate all of our trips with Kolby and Jacob Rose – a full-time missionary in Honduras with special projects in Los Mosquitia – so we are working as the Lord leads without duplicating services and doing projects inadvertently on top of each other. We are very excited about this possibility of the three organizations – The Refinery, The Bridge and SALT – being able to do incredible things for the Lord in the region.
Finally, I offered to do pastoral training that does not revolve around theology. Rather, it focuses on various passages of Scripture to which we provide the historical context and meaning to expand the full meaning of the passage. After giving them an example, Pastor Carlos decided he would like me to do that with the pastors there and this was affirmed by everyone. The bottom line of this meeting was that it was an incredible experience seeing God at work. His hand was certainly on every aspect of the evening gathering.
Having gone late into the darkness and using flashlights to get home (there are no streetlights and the village only has electricity from 6 PM until 9 PM) it’s really pitch dark to the point you can’t see your hand in front of your face. This morning we prepared for the plane trip back but it was delayed for many hours before we were notified it was on the way.
Back “home” in Puerto Lempira, in the morning we’ll meet with Linda Collins, Director of Mama Tara’s Miskito Orphanage, to discuss some work for teams in February that can be done for the orphanage. Thanks for all your prayers and thanks in advance for your prayers yet to be presented to the King of kings and the Lord of lords.
September 10, 2023 – Honduras (Mel Menker)
Yesterday was an amazing day with Linda Collins, Director of Mama Tara’s Miskito Orphanage. It was about walking with her through the orphanage proper as well as the entire property as she shared her long-term vision of the possibilities that could be done to not just provide the orphanage, but a host of other community services to the school next door and a possible clinic for the community and even a counseling outreach to the area people. It was awesome and exciting to hear what God has laid upon her heart while facing the reality of what it might take to make it happen.
This is where SALT might come in. There are a myriad of maintenance needs there that need to be addressed. There is no way the small staff can ever address anything beyond some very simple basics. This is not, nor will it ever be, like some “mission” opportunities in which we know of the exterior of one church was painted seven times in one year to give “mission” groups a short-term mission experience. These are legitimate concerns that are going to require the willingness of more groups than SALT to fulfill, but we can be a starting point.
We are looking for people who would be willing to share in caring for the children and staff at Mama Tara’s Miskito Orphanage. The work, which will be done side-by-side with locals will be channeled toward your abilities – what you bring to the table – as best as we can arrange. It will be hot and humid and uncomfortable, but being surrounded by these children who will want to love on you and with whom you can love on them, will be an unbelievable life-changing experience. We are hoping to have a team ready to go in February 2024 for two weeks. Please pray about this and, if you feel called by God to embark on this journey with Him into the lives of the children and staff, please private message me through Facebook with your name, phone number and email address.
For all of us, let us all join in prayer that God answers our prayers and His team for us will come forth. Thanks in advance for all your prayers.
October 6, 2023 – Nicaragua (Mike Jones)
This message came from Tony Llorente of Tuburus, Nicaragua, who is managing the seed distribution there. This is a very remote village along the Rio Coco. As you can see, they have done an outstanding job of self-management, which is our goal.
Hello, brother Mike,
Please say hi to everybody on behalf of our board of members and program members. Our people are sending heartfelt words of gratitude for all your support. We’re very thankful with our Lord Jesus for your generous assistance.
So, here’s a little update of what we have done during the last couple of months. We bought more rice seed and expanded to 51 new families from two neighboring (smaller) communities.
We were able to test our existing seed and the newly acquired seed. As I had mentioned earlier, we had enough seed from last year to expand but the germination effectivity of the seed poised a lower productivity. However, thankfully – with the help of our Lord- not all the crop was lost. Many of our members were able to collect at least 60% of the rice expected compared to last year (where rice production was better). It was not the best year for many but not bad either.
We’re grateful for all this result we’ve achieved thanks to your generosity and assistance in times of need. (things are constantly creating) threats to our crops but our prayers and hard work and commitment have helped us to arise despite the hardships. For this year, we, the program are working with 112 families now! That is almost as twice as much as we had last year. Of course – the new 51 members did not get the same amount of seed but they were able to become part of the program and they had a very decent chance to work their own rice-fields.
And I really hope that you or someone from SALT could visit us in the future and become witness of what we’re doing for our people, walking the path you helped us to clean, helping our people to have food for their children. You’re very welcome to visit us anytime. I hope to see you very soon.
God bless you!
Tony
(This is a result of the intensive work God has done through Mike in his work with the agriculture.)
October 6, 2023 – Nicaragua (Mike Jones)
Today we made a trip to the cacao fields and the plants are growing well. Chesman said that about half have been planted. It looks like it will take another year to finish. This is a long-term project, but many people are working. It was a very hot day but work goes on. Life is hard here and I always wonder why we were born in the states and not here. Please be thankful for all you have and continue to pray for these wonderful people. (This project is to provide work for many people of Kururia and will be a year-round source of work for them for years to come.) (NOTE: The donations being made for this work will ultimately provide full-time work for the workers from Kururia.)
December 5, 2023 – HONDURAS (Mel Menker)
Though the work is sometimes slow and tedious, God is still at work. Today begins the canoe journey of 67 100# bags of planting beans from La Ceiba to Puerto Lempira, from where the seed will be loaded onto trucks and be delivered to the Miskito people of Sirsirtara. December is the bean planting month and these 6,700 pounds will go a long way to helping stabilize the food situation in the village. Please pray for safe travel of the seed as it has to come from La Ceiba by multiple canoes traveling into the Caribbean to Puerto Lempira, which can be a hazardous journey. Please pray the seed will arrive dry or they will mold and not be able to be used. Please pray for our new working companions in Puerto Lempira – Maxs and Jeremias – who are committed men of service and managing this task for us. (Your donations have paid for this seed and the transportation to get it on site.)
Plans are still unfolding for taking a well drilling kit to Wampusirpi where they have agreed to partner with us to construct wells in the community. The tentative plans are to go later in 2024 and train the men of the village on how to drill the wells. Please pray this will unfold, especially getting the material and supplies to this remote village as they can only come by canoe, which takes two days to get there. Thanks for all your prayers and support. The work goes on!
December 28, 2023 – HONDURAS (Mel Menker)
Good news, the seeds made it!
Finally, I solicit your prayers as two of our SALT team members will be leaving on January 30 for Puerto Lempira, Honduras. The plans we had made are quickly dissolving into nothingness as the Father presents a new one that is unfolding day by day. Please pray for all the logistics involved and our complete submission to His will that we will accomplish His desires and not ours. The picture attached is one of Mama Tara’s Miskito Orphanage from where our team will base and serve in meeting the needs of the orphanage. (Your donations have allowed us to send $1,000 toward supplies and materials that will be used to make repairs and do renovations.)
UPDATE ON NICARAGUA