May 14th - our third day in Honduras.

Apparently God wanted me to take it easy today. I’ve discovered that Montezuma fellow is still around. I was up about half the night – but already feeling better. I believe that this will be mercifully short. As I sit here on the back porch of “staff housing”, I look out over many acres of jungle. The ground slopes radically downward just outside of the building as if we were built almost right into the hillside. Huge trees grow up out of the valley that slopes away from us such that we are looking eye level out into the top of the jungle canopy. Oddly, the jungle is quiet. We were told of all of the noise from the Toucans and the Howler monkeys (reported to be the noisiest creature in the Western Hemisphere) and they are simply absent right now. I’m a little disappointed and a little relieved all at the same time. I’m told that we won’t go much longer without seeing them. For those of you who read the first night’s blog, that noise that I thought might be a monkey right outside of our window was actually a gecko. The small, harmless lizards are everywhere and a great friend to the missionaries here. They do not bite, spit, sting, or in any way offend; they just sit around and eat bugs. What a blessing. I’m told they do occasionally leave little deposits on the counters, but this is a small price to pay indeed for their service. We hear of a few more dangerous creatures, like the scorpion, but honestly – we’ve experienced less bug and insect issues here than we have in Mississippi. Scratch one concern off of the list.
I rested most of the morning and tried to let Montezuma go and find someone else to bother. We spent the afternoon riding around with an absolutely wonderful man named Ian Mackenzie. Ian is the kind of person that you just feel privileged to meet. He and his lovely wife Liz are opening a new children’s home here as part of the hospital ministry. It will not be an orphanage, but rather a shorter term facility for kids to have a loving caring environment whilst another part of the ministry works with the family – with the goal of restoring the children to the family whenever possible. It is clear that God has taken the ministry of this hospital and turned it into a regional center for all kinds of Christian based services that point people to Christ.
We finished up the evening with supper at the home of Jeff and Roseanne McKenny the founding and leading family here at Loma De Luz. They have built an absolutely beautiful home onto the side of the mountain overlooking the Caribbean and the view from this Swiss Family Robinson home is quite beautiful. As expected, we found the McKennys to be a quiet, gracious couple with wonderful children.