Greetings,

The girls are in school and we are as busy as can be.  The girls work on their schoolwork in the morning and afternoon.  They work on their coffee project an hour before the evening meal.  We are now selling the coffee, which they are energized to work harder because they see the rewards of their labor.  I am really proud of the work they have put into the whole coffee process. 

This month we have gotten the library and books organized.  Haley Harris has been the dynamo that has taken that as a personal project.  She plans to organize the clinic next.  She has also taken over the accounting.  Hallelujah!  She told me she just loves to organize.  I just said "Welcome, blessed of the Lord". 

While Haley was directing the library, it freed me up to get our workers organized and directed to getting the farm in order.  The men have dug 2,000 holes for coffee trees to be planted in May. The vegetable crop is up and 1,500 strawberries have been planted and are thriving.  We have also been planting more peach trees. We have three mini orchards that are now fenced in to reduce both the girls eating green peaches, and their picking flowers off the trees to put in their hair. We have new baby rabbits, turkeys sitting on chicken eggs, and we are selling our baby hogs this weekend. The vision has always been for the farm to be self-sustained.  Because of the minimum wage passed in 2009, the workers salaries have more than doubled. We hope that with these different projects we will be able to keep fresh vegetables and meat for the girls plus enough monies from the other projects to pay the salaries of the workers. Please pray for our crops to reap a huge harvest.

We also are making adobe. We have about 700 adobe block that are on site right now and hope to have 3,000 in two more weeks.  While the workers are waiting to plant the coffee plants, they will be working on a duplex apartment that is close to the mission house. We have had some interest for potential interns, so we need to get a place ready for them to stay. The workers have told me that they will get almost all of the materials for this adobe structure from our farm.  

Tonight we had our devotions.  We had spent most of the day in La Esperanza and were very tired.  We unloaded our groceries, and we gave a short devotion.  Afterward, we gave the girls goodnight hugs and they started filing out of the door.  Then I noticed that my three companeros were still hanging around. These three have been giving us problems for weeks.  They wouldn't do their homework, or their chores; they were teasing our littlest ones continually, not to mention aggravating the other girls by using their personal items. When I gave them the discipline of raking or writing sentences, they would do part but not all of the discipline. They were completely showing out and had the whole farm, including the workers, irritated with them for one reason or another.

 Last week I wrote on my blog, that on that particular Sunday I was down in my back, and the all girls were in and out of my house. The kids were playing on my porch and in the front yard. Most of the older girls were on the trampoline and they noticed that there was two little girls  (they were 8 and 11) were walking down the path outside of our fence, when they realized it was our girls!  Well the two of them had found a corner of the fence that they could scale up on each side of the cement post. They had gotten over the cyclone fence and through the barbed wire.  Now our fence was not made to keep girls in but deter others from coming in. When the older girls raced in to tell me what was going on, I jumped up to find out how in the world they had gotten over.  I spoke to the through the fence and asked them what were they doing. They said nonchalantly that they were looking for guavas, which are equivalent to wild green hog plums.  I walked them back and had them show me how they got out.  I told them how dangerous what they did was, and told them never to do that again.  The next day, Don Chilo, our head foreman, fixed the fence where the girls had gotten out. However, right before supper the next night, the three companeras, decided to go over the wall again, but this time they were going to visit a friend.  Unfortunately they waited to late and stopped at a neighbor’s house because it had gotten dark.  I had to report them missing to the local police.  Through cell phones my neighbor who was hosting the three, gave them a nice little supper.  Then stepped outside to call Don Chilo who had worked for us for years.  He called the authorities and then me and I went and picked them up. 

The next day we were told to go and talk to the Children's Defense office and let them know what happened.  They said because the girls had left twice, they would probably move the girls, because they didn't want them to have these three influencing the others to do the same.  This was a serious situation.  I was struggling with the girls having to go.  They were not seeing the seriousness of what they had done.  They were continuing to act up, and so I was resigning myself that this was going to happen. The authorities said let them know if the situation changed. I was so frustrated because I was seeing no change, and because the girls were seeing no movement from the judges, they were acting up even more.  I decided to pray and fast that God would heal my frustration level and help me respond correctly to the girls and show me an answer to this situation.

Anyway back to the story...Now a week later they are at my house after devotions. They were murmuring and gesturing to each other. So I say, "Okay now it is time to go to bed."  They said they needed to talk to me.  They said "Well, well... today we just were talking.” and I was thinking to myself they are setting me up for an alibi of why they were doing something they shouldn't have be doing, while I had been in La Esperanza.  They continued shifting their feet, and looking back and forth to one another, "And. and well we were talking and we just decided that the three of us need to ask Jesus into our hearts". Now I wished I could say, it was just what I was praying for, but because of their unrepentant attitudes, I didn't even think to pray for that.  I was praying for them to be repentant for their rebellion, for them to recognize how serious their actions were, for the judges to have wisdom, and that they would find a safe place to put them. Well, I was floored.  I know I looked like a nut, not only to the kids, but also to myself for not thinking that God could change the hearts of thee three mini rebels. I am, of course the "missionary" here after all. When I asked them if they knew what that meant.   They told me what they understood about accepting Christ.  I led them in the sinner’s prayer and Haley prayed over them too.

So many times on the mission you get so wrapped up in the mechanics of everyday life and personal situations that you forget why you are here in the first place.  I know the girls need a safe place to stay, food to eat, clothes to wear, love and discipline.  We are a Christian based mission and we read scriptures to one another, we have devotions in the morning and at night and listen to good Christian music.  We were doing all the right things, but somehow I missed praying for the right answer.  Because if the girls’ conversion was based on my level of understanding the situation, and what I could see, their salvation would not have happened.  Faith is believing what we can't see.  Thankfully God gets all the credit,.. And again I am humbled that He even lets me be a part of what He is doing. I don't have the answers and apparently I don't even have the right questions.  He has shown me again how much I need to look up to Him and not focus on the problem and to ask Him what does He want whenever I find myself in a difficult circumstances,

I thank all of you who, after reading my blog, wrote and told me that you were praying for these three girls.  I believe that it turned the tide on a bad situation.  Thanks for your encouragement and love that you sent our way. I pray His riches blessings be yours and that His thoughts will be yours.

Blessings,

Pam DeMott, and all the girls and staff of Project Talitha Cumi

Blog:                  www.myhonduranhome.blogspot.com