Happy Birthday Maely Bonita Sarai Hernandez!

Today is Maely Bonita Sarai Hernandez’ 12th birthday and thanks to her host family, she will enjoy her very first birthday party.  It has been a busy week for her.  She left the hospital just over a week ago after a very successful surgery, and has quickly  learned how to walk on crutches.  Which is a good thing because the original plan called for her to be in a wheelchair for a couple of months.  Picturing Maely in a wheel chair brings back scary memories of my near death experience as she bore down on me in my John Deere mower laughing gleefully as I scrambled for my life (see previous episode).  I doubt if there would have been much left of Kevin and Gaby’s house by the time she graduated from a wheel chair to crutches.  

She recently attended her first Halloween party (dressed as an Indian Princess) and we can only imagine what must be going through her mind as she continues to discover the wonders of our world here in the 21^st century.  You know, I have always been fascinated by the dimension of time and the prospect of time travel.  Presented with that opportunity, some would choose to go forward in time in order to return with insight that could be converted into instant wealth via the stock market or the lottery.  Call me twisted, but if I had the chance, I would choose to go back in time and see history as it really occurred and not just as it was recorded through the lens of human bias.  Perhaps that’s why I have been so moved by Maely’s story.  Here is a little girl, that up until a few weeks ago, lived in a world that has been pretty much unchanged for the last 300 years.  No electricity, no indoor plumbing, no phones, no vehicles, no computers, cell phones, television or radios.  Her life is no different than was her grandmothers, or her grandmothers, grandmother.  And now she has been transported forward into time,  into a world that she couldn’t have imagined was possible.  Her wide eyed wonder at our world has given me a new appreciation for all that we have, and all that I have taken for granted.

I mean, stop and think about it for a moment.   When was the last time you stopped to marvel at the world around you?  We get so caught up in the hustle and bustle of our fast paced lifestyle that we fail to stop and enjoy the moment.  It seems we are always looking ahead to some event in the future, or reminiscing about the past and fail to realize that Today, is the Tomorrow, we were worried about Yesterday!  We can learn a lot from the Maely’s of the world, but only if we make the time to focus on what really counts.   For example:

It had been raining here in Northwest Washington for the last two weeks straight and after living here for 10 years….you get used to it…..more like you learn to tolerate it.  Anyway, its that time of year when the days are getting shorter, the mornings are getting colder and the leaves are turning their timely shades of red and gold.   I had just come home from a long day at work and immediately began working on next years plans for The King’s Storehouse.  There I sat at our home office desk with my back to the window and my face buried in my computer screen.  Suddenly the sun broke through the clouds and shafts of light burst through the window and filled the office with a warm glow…but I was too busy to be distracted by it.  I continued to focus on spreadsheets and word documents until I was forced to pause for a moment while waiting for a file to load.   I leaned back in my chair, stretched my arms over my head and just happen to glance out the office window.  Words cannot describe the beauty of what I saw, so I have attached a photo and will let that explain why I did what I did next. 

I grabbed my camera out of the desk drawer and bolted out of the office, ran down the hall, charged into the garage and shot out the back door into the back yard….all the while yelling for my wife to come take a look!  Before me, was the most beautiful double rainbow I had ever seen in my entire 53 years upon this earth.  It seemed close enough to touch and the colors so bright, I could almost hear them!  I was so awestruck by the beauty of the moment, I almost forgot to start taking  pictures.  By the time I had taken a half dozen photos, the clouds moved back in covering the sun and the brilliant hues of the rainbow quickly faded as if they had never existed. 

You know, life is a lot like that!  How many times have we missed out on fleeting, yet life changing glimpses of God’s creation,  because we were too caught up in the man made cares of this world to look up from our computers, blackberry’s, TV.s and Ipods to notice?   If I have learned nothing else from our little time traveler, Maely Bonita Sarai Hernnandez, I have learned that memories fade and the future is uncertain….but the present is ours…but only for a moment….to seize, or to squander.  Life is short, MAKE IT COUNT!

Next entry – A letter for Maely and our hope and our prayer for her future

In search of the summit - Maely's long road to recovery

Have you ever hiked up a mountain?  Do you remember when you started at the base and looked up at the distant summit and maybe felt a little intimidated by the task before you?  Did you perhaps take some of the pressure off yourself by saying, "I'll just climb until I get tired, then quit and come back down"?.  Well if you have answered yes to all three of these questions, you will appreciate what I'm about to share.  For those of you who haven't,...I;ll try not to ramble too much and I promise, I will eventually get to the point.

Having lived in Alaska for 20 years, I often took advantage of "The Great Lands" majestic solitude by climbing in the Chugach and Brooks mountain ranges.  On one occasion, while working for Alyeska Pipeline Company (the company that operates  the Trans-Alaska Pipeline) I was working at Pump Station #3 which is located 103 miles south of Prudhoe Bay near the northern base of the Brooks Mountain range.  It was early summer (July) and since the sun never sets in the summer time at that latitude, there was plenty of daylight left after I got off work every day around 5PM.  My work required frequent travels along the entire length of pipeline.  During this particular tour, I had driven the haul road between Pump Stations 3 and 4 quite often and was impressed by some of the rugged foothills at the base of the Brooks range.  I had often thought, if I ever find the time, I would like to see the view from the top of them.  Sound familiar? 

Well, I finished up work a little early one afternoon and decided that was a good day to make the climb before winter began to set in.  I drove about 10 miles south of Pump Station 3 to an area the locals (three guys who manned the Dept. of Transportation outpost in Chandalar pass) called slope mountain.  I parked my truck on the pipeline right away and began hiking towards the base of the mountain around 5:30pm.  Although the ground was relatively flat, it is extremely difficult walking through tundra which is like walking across a 2 foot deep, wet sponge.  Each step would sink down into the tundra and suck at your feet when you pulled it out.  After 30 minutes of steady slogging, I was surprised to find a creek separating me from the base of the mountain.  Having already invested an hour of my evening into this effort, I was reluctant to turn back.  I took a long hard look at the width, depth and the speed of the creeks current.  It appeared to be only knee deep with a moderate current and it wasn't more than 30 feet across....and thought to myself.."that doesn't look so bad".  10 feet into my creek crossing effort, I suddenly reached several startling conclusions.  First, the water was actually about waist deep and second, the water was so cold, it felt like I was being stabbed by a thousand ice picks.  I had never hurt so bad in my entire life, and only one time since then...but that's another story!  By the time the icy water's message had reached my brain, my forward momentum had already carried me to midstream...the point of no return.  Not wanting to turn broadside against the current and go back,  I made a quick decision to keep plowing forward and hoped the water didn't get any deeper.

Einstein once explained his theory of relativity  by saying a minute sitting in a porch swing with a pretty girl seems like a few seconds...but a minute sitting on a hot stove might seem like an eternity!  I can relate to that because according to my recollection, it took me three weeks to cross the last half of that 30 foot wide creek.  My watch said it was only a few seconds....but I KNEW BETTER!  The last few steps weren't so bad because my legs had already tuned to wood and I couldn't feel them anymore anyway.  When I emerged from the other side and started up the base of the mountain, my blood finally started circulating again and the feeling started to return to my frozen limbs.  That hurt almost as bad as the first time and all I could think about was I still had to cross that creek again when I came down off the mountain.

An hour later, I reached what I thought was the summit..only to discover another peak just beyond it that wasn't visible from the base of the mountain.  After enjoying the view from that vantage point for a moment I pondered whether or not to continue climbing.   Before I could make a decision, my body had already started pressing on toward the new summit.   I justified this mutiny between mind and body by attributing it to my strong desire to see the summit but in reality, I think my body was just wanting the delay my second creek crossing for as long as possible.  Another 45 minutes of steady climbing finally brought me up to the summit....or so I thought!  There to my dismay and disgust was the most beautiful meadow I had ever seen and it stretched several hundred yards beyond right up the base of another summit!  By now its almost 8PM I still had a two hour climb back down the hill and still had to cross that 400 foot wide, raging,  freezing creek before I could walk the half hour to my truck and make the 30 minute drive back to my warm bed in camp.

I looked up at the summit, and then looked down the mountain.  Looked up the at the summit again...then down the mountain again.   To this day, I don't know why, but for some reason I couldn't turn back.  I turned back towards the summit and began climbing again.  It took an hour to cross that meadow and reach the next summit.  Just before I reached the top, I was almost afraid to look over the top for fear of finding another peak just beyond it.  Just before I crested the ridge, I felt a cold wind hitting me in the face and I knew that  had indeed reached the summit.  I stood on top of that mountain for what seemed like seconds but my lying watch said it was more like half an hour.  Turning slowly in a circle, I could see for miles in every direction.  I could see the permanently snow capped peaks of the Brooks range to the south of me and I could see all the way to the far northern horizon where the arctic tundra meets the Beaufort sea.  The view was breathtaking and I'll never forget the majestic solitude of that moment.  The pain of crossing the creek and the disappointments of all the false summits were temporarily forgotten.  All I could think of at that moment was that all my efforts had afforded me a view that few, if any had ever seen before.

I wish I could say the warmth and splendor of the moment made me forget all about the long difficult climb back down and the pain of crossing that 2 mile wide, freezing, piranha infested creek..but it DIDN'T.  I reached the creek just before 1AM and it seemed twice as cold, twice as deep and much faster than the first time I crossed it!  I was still shivering by the time I reached my truck 30 minutes later and with the heater cranked up on high my teeth had barely stopped chattering by the time I pulled back into Pump Station 3 around 2AM.


 Okay..so what does all this have to do with Maely?  I'll try to explain.  When Pat and I first found Maely hobbling along that dusty trail high up in the remote mountains of interior Honduras, we saw one of God's beloved children who was suffering un-necessarily.  We saw innocence held captive by a physical deformity that was unable to quench her spirit.  We saw in her eyes maturity beyond her years, born of a lifetime of rejection and hardship, yet her smile towards us as strangers was genuine and instantaneous.  In essence, we saw a summit that God wanted us and Maely to climb.   God put a burden on our heart to start the wheels in motion that would lead to her being healed of her deformity.  And now...a year and a half later, that miracle has come true.  During this time, Maely overcame numerous false summits to get here.  More importantly she has successfully crossed the first creek of culture shock in transitioning from the primitive conditions in her village into the ease and comfort of our modern world.   By God's  power and grace, Maely has crossed that creek and crested the mountain, but her journey if far from over.   She has many months of painful healing and physical therapy ahead of her.  Her mobility will be greatly restricted and she will still be away from her family for a long time living in a foreign land. And the....she has one more creek to cross and that will be to transition from our modern world back into the world she was born and grew up in.  I fear this will be her biggest struggle and her greatest challenge. 

As she convalesces under the loving care of the Morgermans, Pat and I will be seeking God's will in what HE would have us do to prepare Maely for this final leg of her journey.  We will be looking at means to improve the conditions in her village in order to lessen the impact upon her.  We have discussed commissioning local builders to add on to her family's two room house to allow her family more living space.   We have also discussed means to set her family up with a small "tienda" (store) by which they can earn a better living and perhaps have electricity run to their house.  We are also discussing having The King's Storehouse fund a teacher for the small  school in Potenciana and set up a program to encourage parents to send their kids to school.  We deeply appreciate your prayers in regards to all of these matters as we seek to manifest God's will for this child whom HE dearly loves.  Please be lifting Maely up in your prayers as she gets closer to crossing the final creek in her journey.

We will keep you posted on these and other efforts God has under way in Honduras.  We will be returning Maely to Potenciana as soon as she is released from the Doctors care in approximately four months.  God has also opened up the door for us to coordinate a mission team of about 20 college students to spend 10 days on Roatan in late March meeting the needs of the HIS people in Colonia.  in addition to these two trips, Pat and I were just recently asked if we would coordinate a second mission team to Honduras in July or August 2011 and we would probably take this team into Potenciana.

In the meantime, remember that Life is short, and we must make it count for eternity.  This world, and all that is in it, is just rental property.  Our permanent homes (mansions) are in heaven so we should be about doing the Father's business while there is still time.

Please feel free to share this blog with your networks of friends and family so they can see what great things our God is doing to meet the needs of "the least of these" that Jesus refers to in Mathew 25:40

Maely's Pink Cast

Maely emerged from surgery around 10AM this morning and as of now 3:57PM, she is resting comfortably in her hospital bed.  The doctor said things went exceptionally well and Maely can expect to be released from her doctors care in about 4 months.  As you can see in the pictures below, she is sporting a pink cast which she will have to wear for a couple of months and then may be fitted for a brace for the last two months of her rehabilitation.  Through it all, she has exhibited a courage and resolve I have seldom seen in people 3 or 4 times her age.  Maely's life has been forever changed now and we must begin preparing for her eventual return to her village early next year.  She has gone places the people in her village can only dream about.  She has seen things her mother and grandmother can't even begin to imagine.  She has experienced the love of God revealed through HIS servants like Terry and Cheryl Hindman who have been supporting our efforts since day one.  Due to the faithfulness of people like Ruth at Hoagland Pharmacy, Mary Jane Wilburn, Mary Ann Jacobs, Vinnie and Rick Rawhada, Les Moren, Felix Anderson, Shirley Storm, Miguel and Wendy Mathis, Wilfredo Mejilla, Tom and Ginger Smith, Ken Kelso, Stacey Malloy, Gene Deady, Ronnie Havard, Aymee Mallory, Jason and Jeremy Richards, John and Liz Munnerlyn, Jack and Linda Chew, Dr. Chamberlain, Heathe Fey, Al Warnas, Natalie Bergeron, and Mike North, Maely will return to her village walking straight and tall.  A testament to the power of God's love and His Peoples prayer.  Thanks to Kevin and Gaby Morgerman for taking care of God's precious little girl while she heals from her surgery.  A special thanks to Mending Kids international for their excellent ministry in providing God's less fortunate children with a chance to live a normal life and to Children's Hospital in Los Angeles, as well as Dr. Kay and his staff for the excellent work they did for Maely.

Maely should be able to leave the hospital tomorrow morning and begin her long recuperation under the loving care of the Morgerman family.  Pat and I will return to Washington and begin praying about what role God would have us play in Maely's life once she returns to her family in Potenciana.  We will be heading back to Honduras in January or February and then again in March and maybe again in July.  We will keep everyone posted on Maely's recovery and the events/issues leading up to her return home.

Maely showing off her new cast!

Pat and Cristina trying to figure out how the tray works.  Maely is waiting patiently for her food and must be wondering what is taking so long!

Maely's big day - Surgery

Pat and I arrived in LA around 5:30pm yesterday afternoon and pulled in to Kevin and Gaby’s house around 7:15pm.  They are the most gracious hosts and Maely has been truly blessed by their kindness and generosity.  Maely will be living with them for the next 3 to 5 months and couldn’t be in better hands…which is no surprise.  God loves this child and will provide only the best for “His little girl”

Gaby and Pat have escorted Maely to Childrens Hospital this morning for her surgery which is scheduled for 7:30 am.  They got up at 4am to make sure she arrived in time.  Within a few hours the deformity she has lived with all her life, the mark that has made her an outcast in her village and within her own family, will be erased forever.   When I look back over the last 16 months, its clear that God’s hand has been firmly steering  events in a multitude of peoples lives between here and Honduras, just to lead us all to this perfect moment in time.  When you consider the events and circumstances that had to align to make this happen, then compound that by the variable of human nature which intervened at every turn, it becomes abundantly clear that it is truly a miracle that Maely will be healed this morning.

I wish I had the ability to go back and analyze each chance encounter, each conversation, each decision, each seemingly irrelevant “coincidence” that has ocurred from the day we first decided to travel to Honduras and then view those events through the lens of 20-20 hindsight.    By doing so, I think we could begin to grasp the smallest measure of the wisdom, power and love that IS our Creator.  All that has transpired, and all the will continue to unfold over the coming months will continue to be a testament to the Majestic Glory of our God and King and HIS willingness to be the center of our universe if we will only let HIM.

It will be several hours before we get an update from the Doctor, and I feel God leading me to share my testimony while we wait.  In doing so, I hope to reveal how God began preparing todays events more than three decades ago.

Next December 3^rd will mark 37 years since I became a child of the King.  I was 16 at the time I accepted Jesus Christ as my personal Lord and Savior but in the two years leading up to that decision, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob had been continually tugging at my heart.  Each time I was confronted by the Living God, I pushed HIM away.  After all, I was only 16, I had my whole life ahead of me and didn’t want to have to give up all the fun I was going to have.  So if I may, allow me to provide a little background to the story so you may better understand the significance of all that transpired that night at 10:04PM as I walked down Ave. A in Surfside Texas and the events that are unfolding today with Maely.

My father worked in the oilfield all of his life, as did his father before him.  We travelled a lot going from one construction project to another and it wasn’t unusual for me and my older brother to go to three different schools in one school year.  This transient lifestyle exposed us to a wide variety of people and cultures but also kept us from ever truly fitting in.  When I was 14, we moved to Surfside Texas and I thought I had died and gone to heaven.  Having grown up in South Texas, right on the border of Mexico, the largest body of water we had available to us was Mr. Longoria’s cow tank which we would sneak into for a swim when we knew he wasn’t around.  Living on the beach opened up a whole new range of activities I had only dreamed about.  Surfing, fishing, snorkeling, crabbing, floundering…and then…there was this Baptist church called  “The Anchor”  Keep in mind this was the early 70’s and the few times I had darkened the doorway to a church it was to hear the old gospel songs accompanied by a piano and organ and quickly followed up by sermons of hellfire and brimstone that used to singe my socks!  Unlike those churches I attended as a kid, The Anchor Baptist Church had “A band” with electric guitars, drums and they were singing songs like “Jesus is just alright with me” and did it better than the original rock group that made it famous.

In addition to this new type of worship, they also had a program called Royal Ambassadors ( or R.A’s as we called it) which was run by a wonderful young man by the name of Billy Proske. The R.A.s not only sponsored sports activities like basketball and baseball, they also took the kids on the beach on campouts, to Astro-World and all kinds of places that a country boy like me had never had the chance to enjoy.  Let me tell you a little about Billy Proske. Billy devoted his entire life to the youth ministry and now almost 40 years later he is still at it and going strong.  He sacrificed his hearts desire to get married and have kids of his own because he knew that wasn’t God’s will for him.  Due to Billy’s faithfulness and obedience, he has now literally touched the lives of thousands of boys and girls over the course of his life.  I am one of those whose life was changed as a result of his love for GOD.

So from the age of 14 to 16, I was a regular participant in RA activities and frequently attended services at the Anchor.  Regardless if it was a campout, a canoe trip or a baseball game, Billy would always give an invitation at the end of each event and ask his kids if they wanted to accept Jesus into their heart.  The first time that happened, I felt the gentle touch of my God tugging at the strings of my heart and I bolted like a jackrabbit in the other direction.  I knew without a doubt it was the Spirit of the Living God that was speaking to me, but I wasn’t about to miss out on all that life had to offer a young man growing up on the beach.

So for next two years, God continued to tug at my heart during RA activities and Church invitations, each time I pushed HIM away and said not now,….maybe later.  Then in November of 1973 my dad came home from work and said start packing everything up, we are moving in a couple of weeks back to the Rio Grande Valley in South Texas.  He had been offered a job as the head operator of an oil and gas facility located just outside San Isidro Texas.  My whole world came crashing in, I couldn’t imagine leaving this place where for the first time in my life, I felt like I fit in.  I had friends, I had activities, I had opportunities…and like a hundred times before, now I was going to have to leave it all behind and hit the road again.

When Billy and the rest of the RA and GA (Girl Ambassadors) heard that I was leaving they planned a going away party to be held right after the Wendesday night RA/GA meeting.  Believe it or not, 40 kids (including some of my closest friends and cousins) managed to keep a secret for two weeks and I was totally surprised by the party.  I was overwhelmed by appreciation for their friendship and at the same time devastated by the realization that I would be leaving them all behind.  In writing this story, I just now realized that Billy didn’t give an invitation that night.  Odd that I should think about that now, but I believe that God wanted this moment between He and I to be private.  So after the party, I was walking the 11 blocks back to my house around 10 PM that night.  Somewhere between 3^rd and 4^th street, God began to tug on my heart again…only this time it was different. This time, I felt like it was the last time He would call, the last time I would hear HIS voice and sense HIS presence.  That terrified me even more than surrendering my life to HIM, not because I was afraid of going to HELL but because I couldn’t bear the thought of missing the opportunity to get to know the GOD who I knew loved me unconditionally.  I sensed that this would be my last chance to make the decision that I had known all along that I needed to make.  So somewhere between 4^th street and 11^th street, in the tiny little seaside village of Surfside Texas, I invited the CREATOR of the UNIVERSE into my heart and was immediately transformed from the inside out.  Not that I was physically changed and became a saint, but for the first time in my life, I was complete, I was whole, I was what God had intended all of us to be….I was a child of the KING.  I cannot describe the joy and the peace that flooded my soul.  In an instant I knew HIM, and was Known by HIM to core of my being.  I was one with Father and experienced a love that washed over me like a tidal wave.  I belonged, and that God shaped hole in my heart that I was born with was now filled by the God who spoke the stars into existence and gave each one a name.  For the first time in my life, I had meaning, I had purpose, I had joy and now I had the security of knowing that nothing could snatch me out of the hand of Almighty God.  He would never leave me, or forsake me..He became my redeemer, my tower of refuge in times of trouble, my hope in times of uncertainty, and my comfort in times of despair.

That was 37 years ago, and my life since that time has been a journey of preparation for HIS service.  I have been truly blessed with a wife who shares my faith in God and who is my best friend, my strength and the love of my life.  Together we are embarking on a journey of discovery as we plumb the depths of God’s love, and surrender our all the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords.  It is this degree of surrender that led us to travel to Roatan Honduras in December of 2008 where we met Miguel and Wendy Mathis.  It was obedience to HIS calling that led us to begin working with Miguel and Wendy to help the poor in Wendy’s home village of Potenciana.  It was trust in God that allowed us to travel to Potenciana in June of 2009 where we first met Maely.  It was God’s prompting that started us on the path to find a means to get Maely to the US for surgery.  Over the last 16 months, God has done amazing things to bring about the events that are unfolding before us today.  And the beauty of it is…..He had all of this planned, before He placed Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden.  He knew me, He knew Pat, He knew Maely and He knew Kevin and Gaby Morgeman, HE KNEW ALL OF THIS BEFORE THE BEGINNING OF TIME!  His love stretches from eternity past, through the present and into eternity future.  Life for all its brevity or longevity, it but the blink of an eye in the midst of eternity and our GOD is in control from the beginning to the end. 

If you have never asked Jesus Christ into your life, then that tugging your feeling in your heart right now is none other than the voice of God the Father, your creator calling out for you to come home.  To accept HIS free gift of salvation that HE has made possible through the death of HIS sinless son Jesus Christ.  The bible says that He who knew no sin (JESUS) became sin so that he could die in our place and his death could atone for our sins, making us holy and righteous before our perfect Father in Heaven.  Jesus is the only door through which we can pass and regain that fellowship with our creator that was lost in the Garden of Eden when Adam and Eve rebelled against God.  In this life, we have no guarantees for tomorrow.  I truly believe that had I pushed God away that night on Surfside Beach, I would not have had another opportunity and my fate would have been sealed for eternity.  Don’t let that happen to you, life is short, so make it count by embracing that which has been ours for the asking from the beginning of time and which once recieved, can never be taken away through the end of time.

I will follow up later with details on Maely’s surgery, but in the meantime, keep in mind that the God who brought her from her tiny village in Honduras to Childrens Hospital that she might be healed, is the same God that is dancing across the strings of your heart right now and urging you to come home to HIM.

Maely's Pre-Op Meeting

Maely's pre-op appointment with the doctor went well and her surgery has been confirmed for Tuesday morning October 19th.  If all goes well she should be released from the hospital the next day and begin her recovery period which is expected to be between 2 and 5 months depending on what the doctors find during her surgery.  She will be in a cast for two months and will need a lot of support during that time so please be lifting her up in your prayers.   God has provided her the best care possible staying with the Morgerman family and we are so greatful for their willingness to continue Maely's physical, emotional and spiritual healing process over the long months ahead.  They appreciate her wit and courage, but I have also warned them about her talent for practical jokes so they should stay on their toes.  Pat and I will be back in LA for a couple of days for her surgery.  Kevin and Gaby have graciously invited us to stay with them during that time so we are deeply greatful for their kindness and generosity.  We will post more information once it becomes available.

Changing gears a little, I would like to share what God is doing through The King's Storehouse in Honduras.  Aside from Maely's Miracle, we have three other mission efforts ongoing in Honduras.  We are providing medical supplies and equipment to Clinica Esperanza http://clinicaesperanza.homestead.com/ which is run by Mrs. Peggy Stranges.  See that attached link, or you can go to our website http://www.thekingsstorehouse.org/ and click on the Central America tab, then click the Clinica Esperanza tab for details on Peggy's mission.  In addition to Clinica Esperanza, we are also providing medical supplies, water filters, shoes, clothing etc to two villages.  One is Potenciana on he Honduran mainland (where Maely is from) and the other is on the island of Roatan and is called La Colonia. 

Allow me to share with you what The King's storehouse is doing in La Colonia.  Colonia is a village of about 4,000 people perched up in the steep and rugged hills above Sandy Bay.  This area was too rugged for commercial development and remained uninhabited until Hurrican Mitch devastated the island back in the 90's.  Because of the hurricans destruction, many people fled to the highest part of the island and began clearing brush along the steep hillsides and building shacks.  Over the years, more Hondurans came to Roatan in search of work and with no place to stay, they too began clearing homesteads on the steep hillsides.  The area was without electricity until just a few years ago.  The area was totally without water until  Henry and Francis Zittrower started Living Water 4 Roatan.  http://www.lw4r.com/  five years ago and began drilling wells and installing thousands of feet of water pipe. 

Pat and I traveled to Colonia several weeks ago in order to meet Henry and Francis and see what God wanted us to do for LW4R.  We immediately connected and knew that it was God's will that we work together to support the needs of HIS children in Colonia.  I will go into more detail regarding the needs that we will be addressing in his village over the coming months, but for now, let me show you the type of houses that are being built there, and the conditions these people are living in.

  This house is perched on the very top of the highest hill in Colonia.  There are no roads up here so every one of the pallets and pieces of sheet metal you see here, were hand carried up onsteep rugged trails from the base of the hill 500 feet below. This is one of the better homes in Colonia.

Henry was surprised to see this new dwelling which had just appeared within the last two weeks.  We stopped by to drop of 5lb bags of beans and rice but no one was home.  We left the bags of food inside the tent flap and noticed there were baby clothes inside.  Keep in mind the temperature is in the mid 90's, and these people are raising a baby inside a black visquene tarp tent.  This is just one of many such dwellings all over the Colonia area.

More tomorrow on Colonia and the people that live in this rugged region.

October 10th - Maely arrives in Los Angeles

10-10-10 4:30 PM

We are sitting in the San Francisco airport right now waiting on our next flight which will take us to Los Angeles.  We will be handing Maely over to her host family who will be God’s hands in her life for the next few months.  It has been a wonderful experience for us as God has used us to hug and hold this child that HE loves. 

Its about 7:00PM and we have arrived at LAX.  Maely is only minutes away from meeting her host family that will be taking care of her for the next 2 to 3 months.  I have to admit I was extremely impressed by her courage as she boldly stepped once again into the unknown.

We met Maely’s host  family at the LAX airport at 7:30PM and it was immediately apparent that once again, God has provided only  the very best for HIS child.  Maely will be staying with Kevin, Gabrielle Morgerman and their two children for the next 2 to 3 months as she goes through surgery and a lengthy physical therapy program.  We were praising our God last night after we dropped her off, confident that Maely is good hands and that she will continue her journey of physical, emotional and spiritual healing. 

 

Over the next few months, we will be seeking God’s direction on what HE would have us to do once Maely returns to her village.  We feel the need to provide her family with the means to support her physical and educational needs.  At present, she and 12 other family members share a two room house that has no electricity, no running water, no phone, and no septic system.  There is a school but no school teacher in her village. We have talked about the possibility of funding a school teacher for the village that would not only benefit Maely, but all the other children in her village as well.  Please be praying for guidance and direction that we may stay in the center of  God’s will on this matter.   Pat also had the idea of setting up her Grandmother and Grandfather with a small inventory of supplies they can sell in their village.  We can bring in the initial supply of items on our next trip and set  them up in a small business that will allow them to sustain a steady income.  They can then take the revenue from the sale of this original inventory and begin buying their own supplies for future sale.  This is something else that we will be praying about and seeking God’s will. 

If you look on the The King's Storehouse website and click on the Central America tab, you can click on another tab called Potenciana and see more about her village, including a google earth link that will take you to the area in Honduras where she lives.  If you have google earth loaded on your computer, you can search "Potenciana, Honduras" and google earth will not only take to the exact location of her village, but will also show some photos we took there back in 2009.

Tomorrow, we should have the result of her first Pre-op meeting with the doctors and find out the date and time for her surgery.

October 10th - Maely's Life

As Maely has become more comfortable in our presence, and our Spanish comprehension skills have improved, we are gaining insight into what Maely’s life was like back in her small village.  Based upon her comments and the background information we have received from Miguel, its apparent that Maely’s deformity has made her an outcast within her family and within the village in which she was born and raised.  We have been told that Maely’s mother shunned her at birth because of her handicap.  As a result, Maely has been raised by her grandmother whom she lovingly refers to as her mommy. 

On her second day at our home in Washington, Maely was missing her grandmother so we pulled up the pictures that Pat had taken of her and her grandmother in Roatan the day she left.  Maely  got excited when she saw the pictures on the computer screen and was elated when we started printing them.  She quickly asked for something that she could keep the photos in and a large manila envelope quickly  became her photo album.  Over the next few days we printed lots more pictures and put them in her album.  When we would look over the pictures with her, we were heartbroken when she kept pointing to pictures of herself and say "Feo"  which is Spanish for ugly.  We began to tell her she was not ugly but we could tell 11 years of rejection, first by her mother and then by the rest of the people in the village, has left a terrible scar on this little girls self image.  We have told her that her new name is Maely Bonita Sarai Hernandez which means pretty.  We explained to her that she is a child of God and NONE of HIS children are ugly!

 Maely soon opened up about her village life and it became very clear that the children in her village often made fun of her deformed foot  and didn't want to play with her.  So think about this…here is a little girl, born into the poorest  family, of a very poor village isolated high in the  mountains  of one of the poorest countries in Central America.  Born with a deformity that caused her mother to abandon her at birth and shunned by everyone in the village, she has lived her entire life as a flawed and forgotten outcast in one of the most remote, corners of our world.  By the worlds standards, she is invisible, insignificant and unworthy of our attention.  Her story might cause the average person to pause briefly in the midst of their busy day and say “isn’t that a shame”,  and then quickly forget all about her as they become immersed once again in the important things in life, like business deadlines, dinner parties and vacation plans.

So who is this little girl named Maely?  Who cares that she is a lonely outcast, in a poor village in a remote corner of todays busy planet?  Based upon her story that is unfolding now, the answer to that question is none other than THE ALPHA AND THE OMEGA,  THE KING OF KINGS AND THE LORD OF LORDS, THE CREATOR OF OUR UNIVERSE AND AUTHOR OF ALL LIFE THEREIN.  God almighty HIMSELF, has heard her lonely cries and seen her suffering and has reaching into her tiny little village to lift HIS child out of her despair.  If you look into the story of how The King’s Storehouse began, and how God has formed it and steered us to this tiny village that doesn’t even appear on a map, you can begin to see the effort that God has put to address the needs of HIS little girl.  You will see how HE has made it possible for Maely to get a birth certificate, a passport and a visa to come to the US for surgery.  You will see how HE provided an organization like Mending Kids International to coordinate her surgery, provide for her rehabilitation and provide a host family for her to stay with during her 3 month recuperation.  You will see how God is not only rescuing and healing HIS precious child, HE is using her story to inspire dozens of others to re-examine what is, and isn’t important in life.  Maely’s story is still being written as we speak but she has already changed some peoples lives forever.  Only an Omnipotent, Omniscient, Omnipresent and all loving God could accomplish all of these miracles through the life of this one little girl.  As you follow Maely’s story, you are seeing the fingerprint of God HIMSELF as he reveals HIS LOVE and POWER by overcoming every obstacles to rescue this precious child.   Think about it…God has taken the “least of these” by the worlds standards and has taken her out of her tiny village, flown  her  to some of the largest cities in the world, provided her with surgery that will undo the physical deformity of her birth, and blessed  her with more clothes, shoes and personal belongings than the richest person in her village.  She will return home, walking upright and tall, with knowledge and experiences that others in her village could only dream about.  Every time she walks through her village now, she will be a living testament to glory, power and goodness of our GOD.

Here is a video of the first time we met Maely Sarai Hernandez near her village in the highlands of Honduras a year and a half ago.
http://www.youtube.com/v/gysfmGpfgy0&hl=en_US&feature=player_embedded&version=3%22%3E%3C/param%3E%3Cparam

Here is a video clip of Maely Bonita Sarai Hernandez a few days ago

As you can see God is already healing the scars of rejection but it will take a lot of love, over a long time to finish this step.  I can't wait to see the child that will emerge once her loving God has wiped away her every tear, healed her physical deformity and filled her heart with the joy and peace that comes from a personal relationship with our CREATOR!

Next....Maely arrives in Los Angeles and prepares for her surgery on the 19th.

October 8th

This morning 11 year old Maely experienced one of those firsts in life that we would all like to forget...her first trip to a dentist.  I for one, remember in vivid detail my first trip to the dentist...it was a terrifying experience that may have emotionally scarred me for life.  Did I mention I was eighteen at the time?  Anyway, Maely's first dental appointment was one that the rest of us could only dream about.  She went in with a tooth ache, and came out an hour later with one less baby tooth and one less impacted molar.  She also had no pain, AND also scored a rubber ball and a water gun to boot...more on the water gun later!  Anyway thanks to the extreme kindness of Dr. Chamberlain and the Creekside Dental Clinic, Maely no longer has to live with the constant pain of a toothache and risk the complications that would have developed from this condition later on.   So here are pictures of Maely's first visit to a dentist.

A little apprehensive...perhaps?

The before picture..Dr. Chamberlain obviously has put her mind at ease..

And the after picture...there is nothing wrong with her left eye....its just camera glare.

Okay, so now about the water gun.  I didn't accompany Pat and Maely on this trip to the Dentist so when they got back home, I could hear them whispering among themselves but couldn't hear what they were saying.....now that should have been my first clue that something was up.  I mean, lets face it, when women whisper....it never turns out good for us guys!  The second clue...(which I also failed to recognize) was when my wife (of 33 years, 10 months, and 12 days) called sweetly and said, "Honey, can you come into the kitchen?"  Now our anniversary is coming up next month, aqnd I was anxious to please my wife so I could possibley sweet talk her into renewing my contract for another year.  With those thoughts in my mind,  I came around the corner into the kitchen completely oblivious to the fate that awaited me!  Suddenly, without warning, I was mercilessly ambushed by an 11 year old with a water gun whose deadly aim would have made a Marine Sniper proud.  The first shot caught me square in the eye!  As I threw my hands up in a defensive posture, I took two more hits in the shoulder.  All of this of course was accompanied by the same peals of laughter that still haunted me from my near death experience with the John Deere mower the day before.  The worst of it was that my loving wife who lured me into the ambush had a camera waiting and captured the following photo.

Tomorrow, Pat, Maely and I will travel to Seattle to spend the night with our oldest Daughter Niki and her husband Justin.  Sunday we will catch a flight to Los Angeles where we will hand off our precious cargo to the Mending Kid International (MKI) social worker (Cristina Farrut) and the host family that will be taking care of Maely for the next 2 to 3 months as she undergoes surgery and rehabilitation. 

Let me share with you a story about how MKI came to be involved in Maely's life.  Almost a year ago, out of the blue, I got an e-mail from the man that baptised me in the Gulf of Mexico almost 37 years ago.  His name is Jack Chew and him and his wife Linda now live on the outskirts of San Antonio Texas.  They are heavily involved in social work with the children of illegal immigrants who are being detained or seeking asylum in the US.  I had not heard from Jack in over 30 years and was surprised to hear from him after so long a time.  Prior to recieving Jack's e-mail, Pat and I had been searching for several months for an organization that could provide the corrective surgery that Maely needed.  A few days after I had re-established contact with Jack, we were e-mailing each other back and forth and I happened to mention our search for an organization that could provide corrective surgery for Maely's condition.  It just so happened, Jack was watching a special on television about an organization called Mending Kids International when he got my e-mail, so he sent me a note back suggesting that we look into MKI.  I looked them up online and a few days later, submitted Maely's story along with video clips we took on our trip to her village the year before.   To make a long story short, MKI accepted her case and has done a tremendous job in coordinating the multitude of details necessary to make this happen.  I have been very impressed with their mission, their organization but most of all with their people who really care about making a difference in our world.  Please be lifting this organization up in your prayers as they continue to be the hands of God in ministering to the needs of HIS children around the world.  Take a look at their website and see what God would have you to do to support them.  www.mendingkids.org/

If we have time tomorrow, I want to tell you what Maely's has told us about her life in the village of Potenciana.  I will warn you ahead of time, you will need to keep a box of kleenex close by.  I just hope I can write the story without letting my tears short out my keyboard.

October 6th, 2010

Today was another day of firsts for Maely. Having lived in a village with no electricity all of her life, she had never experienced the joy of eating ice cream.  Pat took her to Edalynn's in Lynden which serves the best ice cream in all of Whatcom county.  Here are some pictures of Maely's first ice cream experience.

Decisions, decisions....

And now the sampling (thats my favorite part)

After sampling every flavor in the store....she's getting close to making a decision....

And the winner is.....STRAWBERRY!

Up to now, we have been focusing on Maely's experience but I would like to take a moment and focus my lens briefly on the responses of those she has come into contact with.   Everywhere we go, people are moved by her story and the outpouring of love and support they have shown her makes me so proud to be an American!  The day after she got here (last Sunday) we discovered that Maely had a very bad cavity that was causing considerable discomfort.  Judging by the size of the cavity, she must have been in pain for quite some time and had just learned to live with it .  When we explained to her that it could be fixed she was glad but wanted to know if it was going to hurt.  We assured her the dentist would do everything he could to make is as painless as possible.  Pat checked around Bellingham today to see if there was a dentist office that could fit her in.  Within minutes she called me at work and said that Dr. Chamberlain at Creekside Dental Clinic had not only squeezed her in for an appointment Friday morning but also said he would do the work for free. I tried not to be jealous of the fact that it took me six weeks the last time I had to get a dentist appointment, but I consoled my wounded ego with the fact that I was just going in for a cleaning and this little girl was in pain.

 Over the last three days, complete strangers have given this little child of God hugs, costume jewelry, put money in her purse (yes, she now has a purse!) and bought her enough clothes to fill a suitcase.  Some of our family members have committed to providing her family with long term monthly support once she returns to her village.  In short, she has just been overwhelmed by everyones kindness.  The beauty of it is...as much as she has been blessed by the kindness of perfect strangers, those people have walked away with a look of joy on their face, peace in their heart and a spring in their step that money can't buy.  God is using this child to remind us all there is more to life than making a living, and its better to have nothing, than to be possessed by our possessions.

This afternoon after I got home from work, Maely wanted to ride on the tractor again..only this time she wanted to DRIVE!  My excitement over her willingness to try something new, was quickly overshadowed by visions of her driving my new John Deere mower through our three rail vinyl fence and into the pond.  So thinking quickly,  I compromised....and made Pat ride on the mower while Maely drove.  Now you would think that was a brilliant decision on my part and the look on Pats face below would seem to confirm that.... except for one little fact.  Notice the mowers direction of travel?  Notice the angle this photo was taken from?  Now consider this mower was traveling aproximately 15 miles per hour when this photo was taken from....15 feet away.  Okay, you do the math. That look of concern was NOT out of fear for her own safety!  Fortunately I managed to dive to safety with nothing injured but my dignity.  Of course her peals of laughter as I frantically dove for cover did't help much either!



Okay, tomorrows adventure, hotdogs at Costco, a meeting with Grandpa Al and who knows what mischief will result from that encounter..

October 4th, Maely's first two days in the US

I picked Pat and Maely up at the Seattle airport a little before midnight Sunday night and although she was wore out from the long trip, Maely stayed awake most of the way home.  She was in awe of the skyscrapers and the space needle in downtown Seattle.  The night was fairly clear and she got a wonderful view of the city. In spite of being up until 2:30am, she was up at daybreak ready to explore her new world.  I had to go to work but Pat kept giving me updates all during the day as Maely discovered one magic moment after another.  She learned that by turning the silver handle in the bathroom should could not only produce water she didn't have to haul to the house in a bucket....but it could be HOT as well.  She couldn't wait to go outside this morning and see the horses.  Pat gave her the tour of the property and she was excited to see ducks in the pond behind our house.  She asked Pat whose ducks they were and since they were wild, Pat said they belong to God.  I wish I could have seen the look on her face when she must have come to the conclusion that God kept HIS ducks in our pond!

Later in the day Pat took Maely to Costco and she stood in awe of an entire section of the market that was nothing but cheese.  She had never seen so much cheese in her life.  As they walked up and down the aisles shopping for groceries, they came across the kids toys and Pat discovered that Maely had never had a doll.....never had a doll  Here is a little girl almost 12 years old who had never had a doll of her own.  Needless to say, she walked out of Costco with a barbie doll but she refuses to take it out of the box.  Instead she set the box on her dresser and just admires it from time to time. When I shared this phenomena with a friend over lunch today, he said "its because she doesn't know how to play with a doll, she probably doesn't know she can take it out of the box and create imaginary scenarios with this toy"

I have been sharing this story with you in real time from my vantage point but allow me to tell you some of Pat's experiences while bringing Maely from Honduras to Seattle.  The first night in Roatan, Maely and her grandmother stayed at the hotel with Patt and since there was only one King size bed, they all slept in the same bed.  Pat awoke early the next morning with the feeling she was being watched.  She opened her eyes and found Maely's face only a few inches away as she was staring intently at her while she slept.  As soon as Maely saw Pat was awake, she quickly closed her eyes and pretended to be asleep.  We can only imagine what was going through her mind.

While sitting in the Houston airport waiting for the flight to Seattle, Pat noticed Maely had what appeared to be a worn out dishrag on her head.  Puzzled  by this, Pat asked what the rag was for and Maely shyly refused to answer.  A fellow passenger seated nearby who spoke very good spanish, chatted with Maely for a few minutes and then explained to Pat that this was like her security blanket.  It was then Pat realized that this rag was her only possession and it served as her last link to her family and village.  Thanks to my daughter Niki, I now have the knowledge to post pictures on the blog so you will be seeing a lot of them from now on.  Here is Maely's security blanket.

Pat told me later that everyone they met while flying from Honduras to Seattle was intrigued by Maely's story and captivated by her smile.  Her journey has just begun and she has already touched the lives of more people than we can keep track of.  God's hand is evident in this girls life and we are blessed to be a part of it.  Here is a picture of her with one of the flight attendants she met on the flight from Houston to Seattle.

This afternoon, I had to cut the grass in the backyard before it got too deep.  When I fired up the John Deere riding lawnmower, she asked me what the machine was for so I told it was to cut the grass.  She looked puzzled for a minute and then asked "Why?"  Now I have been asking my self that same question for years and still don't have a good answer!  I was trying to think of a way to explain to her it was just so the yard would look nice when she suddenly lit up and said...oh I know its to feed the horses the grass right?  Relieved that I didn't have to painfully construct an explanation in my less than conversational spanish.... I quickly agreed that was the reason and left it at that.  Here is Maely and Pat on the mower.

 

October 3rd, 2010 Maely comes to America

In about two hours, Maely will board an airplane for the time in her life, and begin the first leg of a journey that will change her life forever.  Over the last year and a half, my wife and I have been following God's will and guidance in getting Maely to the states for surgery to correct her deformed feet.  This has been one of the most rewarding times of our life as we pushed forward into the unknown, confident that our God has a perfect plan.  I will have to capture each of the hurdles that God has allowed us to clear during this struggle just so I can look back and grasp the magnitude of Maely's Miracle.  I must admit before we started this endeavor, the geographic, cultural, financial and language barriers seemed insurmountable.  But our God has been faithful and has great plans for this little girl.
   Pat and Maely are due to depart Roatan at 1:00pm today and arrive in Houston around 4:30pm.  They will have a four hour layover which will make sure they can get through customs in time to catch their next flight. They are scheduled to depart Houston at 9:00 and be in Seattle at 11:30PM tonight.  I can't wait to see my darling wife who has been in Texas for the last 3 weeks preparing for this journey.  The next few days will be full of a lot of firsts for Maely.  Having lived her entire life in a small remote village in the highlands of interior Honduras, she has never experienced the most basic benefits we take for granted here in the US.  Her home has no indoor plumbing, they still use an outdoor latrine.  They have no electricity, no phone, cook on a wood burning stove and her entire family lives in two rooms not much bigger than a small bedroom here in the states.
Pat and I have spoke often of the cultural shock Maely will experience and we want to try and minimize that as much as we can. But how can you do that?  This little girl had never ridden in a vehicle until we gave her a ride last year.  She has never seen an airplane and she is about to leave all her family behind and fly to a foreign country where she doesn't speak the language.  Please be lifting Maely up in your prayers as she not only copes with the extreme culture shock but also prepares herself mentally to undergo surgery.
We will post more later and update our website with photos of her journey.  In the meantime, I had better finish cleaning the house!