Honduras Trip - Post 2

Glad to have Alisha with me on a trip again!

I underestimated the impact on our project design efforts that the political elements of this project would have. A key reason Andy (the ministry leader) was able to get the land and his NGO status here in the country was because of the relationship he’s formed with the Mayor of Siguatepeque (a town of about 100,000 – up to 200,000 counting outlying areas).

The city actually owned the land we’re working with, until what seems like a divinely inspired incident occurred involving the mayor’s infant son helped build a relationship between him and Andy. After that, the mayor found out about Andy’s vision for bringing medical care to the community of San Francisco (a neighborhood of around 4000 within the town of Siguatepeque) and he decided to essentially gift Andy’s ministry the land (they paid a nominal, ‘symbolic’ fee).

Having dinner with the team and the Mayor.

A few years ago, the mayor’s infant son was very ill. Andy happened to have a doctor visiting his ministry, and both of them were at a meeting where the mayor was. After meeting the mayor, they discovered the news about the infant son, so Andy’s guest doctor offered to come have a look as his child. He did so, and gave them some good advice on how to get him feeling better. Also, Andy prayed for the child and the mayor and his wife. The child got better fairly quickly, and as a result, the mayor has become a big advocate for Andy’s ministry and vision for the site.

This week, we got the chance to have dinner with the mayor and his wife at Andy’s mother-in-law’s house. At the end of dinner, I gave an impromptu presentation of our team’s progress to date, helped by fellow EMI’er Justin Rolfs’ new Windows Surface and traveling mini-projector, and by volunteer Janine Nunfio’s translating skills! Things seemed to go well, especially when we saw the following morning that the mayor had posted pictures from the night on his personal Facebook page!

Presenting about our work thus far to the Mayor and his wife,
and some of the ministry board members.

The dinner party - the Mayor is right in front of me in the light
blue shirt, with his wife to his right.

The next day, we met with the Mayor again, this time out at the site joined by the City Water Engineer. We discussed the project and the various plans for the area’s water service. Right after they left, the media arrived and I was asked to do an interview on camera. Ha!