This story starts several years ago when I met a young man in the hospital who's mother had just died from an asthma attack. He was about 20 years old and his father had died when he was 15. He was so good to his mother. He stayed at the hospital with her, for 2 weeks, with just a little money to buy tortillas and then when that money ran out he had no food. The night she died he had been for one week without food but refused to leave her side. That night when she died we happened to be having a medical team. This was in October of 2008.
I was in the recovery room and one of the nurses came in with him and said that he was so attentive to his mother and that she was collecting money for him to try to buy a casket to take her home to bury her. I talked to him for a few minutes and he was a very humble, godly young man. I gave him a little for his collection and then I felt I needed to go buy the casket for his mom. So I did. There is nothing as interesting as being a GRINGA and trying to buy a casket in the middle of the night. All the prices were 3x what they should have been. When I finally bargained and bargained and went to three different places, I found a suitable casket for a suitable price and I bought it,
Then he needed to get from Choluteca to Zuniga Arriba, Coray in the middle of the night with his mother and the casket and he needed a ride. Well, most people are afraid to go to Coray in the day time and more afraid in the night. So I called my friend who was the chief of police in Nacaome and told him my problem. He agreed to place the casket and mom in the police truck and drive them to Zuniga Arriba. But there was a problem... we still needed to get them from Choluteca to Nacaome, another 45 minute drive to meet up with the police truck in Nacaome. So I went to the police station in Choluteca and went to the police station, in the middle of the night and talked to the chief of police for Choluteca and he agreed to drive, mom, casket and son ALMOST to Nacaome to meet up with the other patrol car.
With all this leg work done, I returned to the hospital, casket in the back of my truck and gave it to the young man. Other patients helped him carefully place mom in the casket. She had been laying on a gurney covered with a sheet, with all the people coming by and lifting the sheet to see who she was and what she looked like for these several hours. Meanwhile her son stood grieving at her side. He cried and men rarely cry in Honduras. It is a macho thing.
Several months later on Christmas Day I received a telephone call from Jose Silva. He called to tell me that he would never forget what I had done to "help his mother".
Since that time he has called several times, so I saved his neighbor's telephone number in my telephone and when I heard that Coray was in a major famine and that people were dying from lack of food, I called him. I told him to gather together the poorest of the poor.
We keep in touch by telephone as we drove to let him know where we were. Sometimes there was no signal. We arrived an hour and a half late, because the 45 minute drive on very bad dirt roads was really one hour and a half.
But when we arrived with my pickup filled to the brim with almost 2,000 pounds of corn meal, the people were all waiting. They were all quiet and orderly and they were all thrilled for the help which they received.
Some had neighbors who couldn't make the trek because of age or disability and we gave them a bag for them and one for the neighbor. When someone asked for 2 bags, very quickly the others chimed in saying, "Yes, they have a neighbor who needs this."
Old and young arrived and were grateful.
They all had on their Sunday Best clothes. You would have thought the president was visiting. We shared a little about the Lord and how he loves them.
We loaded them up and sent them home.
It was really amazing to see how blessed they were to receive a bag of cornmeal.
Jose stood on the back of the truck and passed out the cornmeal, which we had packed yesterday with the help of people from Jimmy Hughes ministry.
The cornmeal was donated to us by Robyn and Ernie Breaux, some Cajuns who live and work in Honduras.
We took 300 plastic bags to their warehouse and filled each bag with about 6 pounds of cornmeal.
The local military base arranged a two man military escort for us to Zuniga Arriba, since we were carrying precious cargo.
Jose Benavides used his muscles to load and unload the truck and carefully handed out the bags of cornmeal to each family.
It is such a blessing to be here in Honduras. It is such a blessing to be part of the plan of God for this country.
It is amazing how years before he placed the right people in the right place at the right time, where we could help this group of poor, hungry people. The crops have failed for too many years in a row. It is too dry at the wrong time and then it is too wet at the wrong time.
So these people needed a little help and they received it.
Everyone received their sacks of cornmeal and we left with about 40 extra.
We stopped at a few poor homes on the return trip and then all the rest was given to the Vida Abundante Boys Home in San Lorenzo, Valle.
These people don't beg, they work hard to plant their crops but in the end, they had to eat their seed, in order to live.
Today was another blessing of a day for me in Honduras.
I only wish my mom and dad had been in Honduras to help, they would have loved the day.
They are the people in my life who taught me to give.
Thank you to the Michael Martin family who donated my truck tires, and thanks to the Jack De Loss Taylor Trust who faithfully give me gas money and thanks to Ernie and Robyn Breaux for the corn meal and thanks to Tim Knoesten who keeps my truck running and thanks to Jimmy Hughes ministry for helping me package all this corn meal and thanks to Chepe Benavides who drives me around and helps me with the heavy stuff and thanks to the Honduran Police and to the Honduran Military. Thanks to the man who donated the truck to me in 1999 which still runs and has been used to do a lot of good things.
If we all do our part, then a lot of good things can be done.
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