We left for Honduras on July 13, 2002 and returned to the USA on July 20, 2002. The mission trip to Honduras and the village of El Quebrachal was emotionally and physically challenging, but very rewarding. The trip was organized through Honduras Outreach Inc. (HOI) and our church, Grace Presbyterian Church, which is located in Springfield, Virginia. HOI provides support services to villages located in the Agalta Valley, Honduras. HOI 's Mission of Ministry is "Helping Hondurans Help Themselves" and they do achieve that mission very effectively.

Grace Church, through the leadership of Charlie and Conoly Barker, decided in 2000 to adopt a Honduran village through the HOI model village program. The village adopted by Grace Church is named El Quebrachal (Pronounced: El Kay -bruh-shal) close to San Esteban. Grace Church committed to the two-year model village program for El Quebrachal, which is solely sponsored by Grace Church through HOI. The HOI model village program supports a selected village by helping missionary teams from the United States travel to the adopted village in Honduras so improvements to the village can be achieved. The model village program's goal is to equip each dwelling in the village with a concrete floor, a chimney, a latrine, and additional rooms and roofs as needed. Some villages ask for additional support to help build a school and/or church. Additional support can be given to HOI through the Scholarship Program and through special donations to help HOI continue to fund the ranch facilities in Honduras. The Scholarship Program provides monetary support to needy high school children in the HOI support area of Honduras. The ranch facilities are called Rancho El Paraiso and these facilities provide housing accommodations to missionary groups from the United States. One to three US missionary groups come to the Ranch every week. They arrive on Sunday afternoon after spending the night in Juticalpa and leave on Friday. HOI provides a Honduran guide for the missionary group, daily transportation to and from the village and full sleeping and eating accommodations for the week.

The 2002 Grace Honduras Mission Team was composed of fifteen individuals. The team member names are Sarah & Theresa Cipriano, Erin Druetzler (Manassas Presbyterian Church), Ross Fugill, Topher Generazio, Erik Hawkins, Beth Ann & Kathleen McClelland, Joe & Greta Miller, Kendall Morris, Heather Potter (Nancy's daughter), Judy Riekse, Nancy Sterling, and Randi Wise. The HOI guide was Martha Espinoza and our driver was named Ubaldo. The 2002 Grace Honduras Mission Team flew into Tegucigalpa, Honduras, which is the capitol of the country, on the afternoon of the July 13 ^th. From Tegucigalpa, we were bused to Juticalpa where we spent the night. The bus ride was about 3 hours long and started our trip into the Honduran countryside. It is interesting how HOI initiates the missionary group to the Honduran culture. We spend the first night at a hotel in Juticalpa, which had a shower and most did not have any air conditioning. Then we were bused to the ranch from Juticalpa. This trip was over some fairly rough roads for about three hours. We spent the second night at the ranch, which has no TVs, no telephones and no air conditioning. This integrated us further in to the Honduran village culture. We actually stayed at the ranch for the next five nights, but every morning we would leave for the village, which is located about 1 hour and 20 minutes from the ranch over some very rough and muddy roads. July is wintertime in Honduras and it rained almost everyday. The village, El Quebrachal (San Esteban), consists of about 400 people and 70 families. They have neither electricity nor telephones nor clean water. Their main mode of transportation is by horseback. Honduras is a third world country and is one of the poorest countries in the Americas.

On Sunday, July 14, 2002, we arrived at El Rancho Paraiso where we unloaded our bags and were assigned room accommodations. During the afternoon, the team discussed the El Quebrachal (San Esteban) village water project. In October 2001, the Grace Honduras Home Team started an effort to raise money for the El Quebrachal water project. The water project at the village was put on hold two months ago because it was determined that digging a well was not a viable alternative. A local farmer drilled a well close to the village and within a month it was contaminated with salt water therefore it was decided that a salt-water aquifer ran through the area and thus drilling a well would be risky. Alternatives were evaluated and the best alternative as proposed by the government was to provide water to the village through a gravity drain system. The gravity drain system has been used successfully in Honduras for many villages. The proposed project is to build a dam in the Rio Chiquito River, which is located in the Cocalita Mountains in the Agalta area. Two to six inch plastic pipe will be used to route the water from the dam to the village over a distance of about 22-km (14 miles). The cost and viability of this project will be determined in September 2002. To help understand the project, the team rode into the mountains where the proposed dam is to be constructed. After careful review the team decided that the gravity feed water project would be the best alternative to get fresh water to El Quebrachal and the team would recommend this approach to the Grace Presbyterian Church.

The time at the village of El Quebrachal was from Monday (July 15, 2002) through Thursday (July 18,2002). During the four days at the village, we conducted three major Projects. One was the support to the school by teaching Bible lessons, the second was to mix concrete and sand so we could provide concrete floors to 18 houses and the third was to install stovepipes into 29 houses.

One of our four teams spent the morning in the elementary school (grades 1 through 6) and provided Bible school lessons, crafts and English lessons. During the first morning at the elementary school, hygiene kits were distributed to all the students. The other three teams helped the villagers mix 154 bags of cement with 11,550 full shovels of course sand and 2,618 gallons of water to produce concrete for the floors of 18 houses. The concrete was created on the ground by building a crater out of cement and sand mixture (1 100 lbs. bag of cement with 75 full shovels of course sand) and mixing the concrete and sand mixture with water. In some cases a large crater was created with a mixture of 3 bags of cement and 225 full shovels of sand. The cement and sand would be thoroughly mixed before creating a crater like mound of the cement/sand mix. Next, water was poured into the center of the crater. To create the final concrete mix, the dry cement/sand mixture was taken from the edge of the crater and put into the central area of the crater with the water. As the workers proceeded to mix the dry cement/sand mixture with the water in the crater, they moved in a counter clockwise direction around the crater. This is referred to as the crater dance.

Once the cement/sand mixture was mixed with the water, a concrete mix was formed with the proper texture for pouring onto the floors. The concrete mix was transported from the concrete mix mound to the house floor in buckets. The buckets are filled with cement, carried into the house and poured onto the floor where workers used hand tools to make a flat and even floor.

In addition to the concrete floors, we placed stovepipes into 29 houses. In some cases we replaced old stovepipes, which were rusted and usually the stovepipe exhaust was too close to the roof causing the roof to be damaged. In most cases, the stovepipes were new additions to the stove. The stove was built of mud and clay in the corner of the house and the exhaust was allowed to exit into the room causing very unhealthy condition to exist in the house.

The village is currently building a new Kindergarten with money provided by Grace Presbyterian Church. The Mission team spent time at the Kindergarten construction site by hauling dirt from the building floor area to prepare it for laying a concrete floor. The village is also building a church through a Catholic organization. Many special things are occurring in God's name.

Last year was my first trip to the village. We were putting tin roofs on buildings and constructing mud walls. We broke into 4 teams. Our team went to a building that was recently constructed. I looked around and there was only one villager there and he was an older gentleman that could not climb on the roof. So it was left to our team and to an HOI person to install the roof. In the afternoon, another young villager helped us and then another joined us later, but it seemed like they did not understand teamwork and the spirit of helping others. I had the same experience when we made the mud walls, many of the villages stood around and watched and did nothing.

This year it was completely different!!! The work was primarily mixing, pouring and leveling concrete, which is very hard work. From the beginning, the villagers were there in large numbers. All members of the family were actively involved in helping complete the tasks and it was very exciting to see the enthusiasm of the whole family working as a team and also helping other families finish their projects. With God's help for our Mission Team's nurturing as Disciples of Christ, the village was transformed, in a very short time, into teammates working together to improve their own lives. I can't think of any better way to spend my time in sharing God's love and peace for mankind.

On our second day in the village, Sue Church, Executive Director of HOI accompanied the team to El Quebrachal. I believe a special angel was with us on that day. Sue has special abilities in physical therapy and she happened to be working at the house where two small children lived that could not walk. Their mother had taken the two children to a doctor in Tegucigalpa whom indicated that they would never walk. Sue was informed of this and she worked with the children for a few hours and said that they needed more physical therapy and eventually they would begin to walk. It was certainly God's will for Sue to be at that place at that particular time.

We only spend four days in the village, but the net effect is that the villagers did most of the work. The overall result was that the village was able to grow significantly and gain in knowledge with just a short visit from us. This is certainly God's will.

On the last day at the village, the team organized a Fiesta for the villagers. At the beginning of the Fiesta, a special ceremony was conducted where we provided a speech to the villagers and they provided a prayer of thanks by the lay Holy Person of the village and speeches by the teacher, Anna, and the Lay Holy Person of the village. The teacher said that we had helped the children with new lessons and materials in such a way as to raise the self-esteem of the children. The lay Holy Person said that we were a real blessing for the village and that they would remember us until the end of their time. We presented the village with two crosses for their new church. In addition, we presented them with the water shirts, which symbolized water for their village and a 16-inch tall angel that was created by the children of Grace Presbyterian Church. There were 70 angels, one for each family that also contained the photograph of the child who designed the angel at Grace. Cookies and Coke drinks were provided and an instamatic photo was taken of each family. The family photo and Family Care Package was given to each family and personal notes from a member of the Grace Presbyterian Church congregation was placed in each of the Family Care Packages. The personal notes were written in English and translated into Spanish by Kent and Julie Buckley-Ess. The villagers had a wonderful time dancing and celebrating with the mission group. The villagers were all wonderful and delightful to know and the time spent with them was a "grande" experience.

The 2002 Honduras Mission group flew out of Tegucigalpa, Honduras on Saturday July 20, 2002 and landed at Ronald Regan National Airport at about 10:00 P.M. Saturday night. The Honduras Team 2002 is an outstanding mission team and it was a real pleasure getting to know and working with them.