Teresa Searcy and SMART Medical Teams in Honduras: Playa de Los Angeles

I am writing what I am writing KNOWING for sure that some people may not believe what I am saying. Others will believe it happened, but not agree with what I feel were the results and why it happened. However, I have watched it happen step by step. To me it is an interesting study in human behavior and an interesting study in how people respond to what they perceive as crisis.

The land in question a view from the beach... 300 feet of beachfront

A young man offered to buy a piece of Honduran beach property in February of 2009. He and the owners had a long conversation and made a decision on the sale, the price, the requirements, etc. Two weeks later he made a formal offer in writing with a “Promise To Buy and Sell”. This offer included all of the requirements previously agreed upon. The seller’s son read the contract to them word for word and there was a two hour discussion regarding terms of sale. The contract was amended a little and then it was signed.

Fast forward to after the “buyer” had spent money on attorney to draw up contract, more money to have property surveyed, more money to have a study done to see what exactly could be built on the land, approximately 20 trips to the beach to check on the property and continue to talk to the “seller”, more money given to the “seller” as down payment money along the way as he asked for it. After all that fast forwarding, you arrive at a date about a month ago.

The “seller” decided to renege on his “Promise To Buy and Sell” saying that he had not understood the contract, saying that he changed his mind about the price, saying that all his friends said the property was worth more than he was being paid, saying other people had offered him more money.

Pelicans fishing off of Playa de Los Angeles, Amapala in the background.

The young Christian “buyer” went through a plethora of other emotions. He was angry, devastated, saddened, disillusioned and yet he refused to be mean with the “seller”. On top of refusing to sell the land to him, he also was told that he would have to “wait an indefinite amount of time to be paid back for all of his expenses”. He wanted to file a suit against the people, but he decided not to do so.

When I was made aware of the problem, I began to pray… I clearly felt that he was not to file a suit, even though what had happened to him was not correct. I felt led to continue to pray for the “seller” to do what he had promised to do, where the young “buyer” would not be hurt in any way and where the “seller” would not reap a bad harvest from the bad seed which he was sowing when he refused to keep his written and verbal promise to the “buyer”.

A week after refusing to complete his contract, the “seller” called and threatened to sell the property to someone else that very week if the “buyer” didn’t pay double what he had contractually agreed to. Again the “buyer” refused to do anything more than the contract stipulated.

The following week the “seller” called again to give his final warning. Meanwhile the “buyer” and I continued to pray along with several other friends.

Monday morning after several weeks of refusing to sell, the “buyer” received a telephone call at 7:00 AM telling him that the “seller” wanted to sell to him after all….. THIS WEEK…ASAP!!!

Final papers were drawn up… money transferred from buyer to seller and then an interesting story surfaced… Sunday before the Monday 7:00 AM telephone call, the “seller” fell out of his boat somewhere out in the middle of the Gulf of Fonseca. He was alone… the boat died and when he tried to start it, he stood up, pulled the starter and fell backwards as the motor started. The boat circled around him for several hours, but he was unable to reach it. He took off his shirt, his shoes, his pants, his belt… but was really tired… This man is in his late 60s… After four hours in the water, he finally was able to catch hold of the side of the boat… but by that time he was too weak to hoist himself up into it. During that four hours several boats passed him by and some even saw him and passed close enough to check out what was in his boat, but left without pulling him out of the water.

He said he was “sure he was going to die”. He also said he “made promises”. He never said, “One of those promises was to complete his contract to sell the land.” The old man "seller" knew the young "buyer" is a Christian. He knew what he was doing was wrong.

Why am I even writing about this? I think many times people know that they are doing something wrong, but they tell themselves they really don’t care about the consequences. They barrel ahead with whatever it is that their conscience pricks them about, but when it becomes a life and death matter, they really do know that what they have been doing is wrong.

Do you have anything like that going on in your life? Have you refused to do something you promised to do? Have you justified your own actions with all the reasons why? If you were in a life and death situation and knew that in just a few short minutes you would be meeting your maker, is there anything which you would do differently? Have you broken fellowship with a brother, a sister, a mom, a dad, husband, wife, a child or a friend and if it was your last hour would you want them to know that you loved them? Have you cheated on a business deal and if it was your last minutes of life you would want God to forgive you where you would have a clean slate? Why wait until the last minute?