News from Central America

Well, it's good to be back from vacation. My wife, Susan, and I spent a few days at Silver Bay after Labor Day. Great weather, a beautiful and restful location, wonderful! But now we're back to work.

In this blog posting I offer a potpourri of items about Central America, specifically Honduras and Nicaragua.

Honduras

Gordon Comstock sent this message on recent NY/Help trip to the north central highlands of Honduras in August.

NY/HELP's August 2007 mission trip to Honduras was a great success: we really were able to show our faith by our acts! The group left on August 13, and returned safely on August 24.

Our mission group worked on several projects. The new colegio (middle school) we are helping the villagers construct is progressing nicely. The 7th grade classroom (begun by the February 2007 mission group) was painted by our group and is almost ready for use. The 8th grade classroom is about half-way up. New roofs were provided for three of the poorest people's houses (these new roofs not only make the house more weatherproof, but reduce the incidence of Chagas disease, spread by insects that live in the old thatch roofs). And 120 patients were seen in the clinic, and funds provided for some of the poorest people to go to specialists for needed surgery.

Even more importantly, we had the chance to interact with local people, and stay in their communities for several days. In some ways, I think this is the most important part of our mission.

I am thankful for the continued ministry of NY/Help and the renewed interest on the part of many churches and individuals across the conference.

Nicaragua

Nathan Wright, Associate Pastor of First Congregational Albany and Interim at Clinton Heights Community UCC, and I went to Nicaragua in August on behalf of the Conference Commission on the Global Church. While there we met with our new Global Church Partner, the Association Convention Mission Church of Nicaragua (Mision Cristiana). Please click on this link for a 14 minute video presentation of our trip.



Please pray for the people of Honduras and Nicaragua. Hurricane Floyd made landfall earlier this month along the Caribbean coast of these two countries, causing major devastation. We have heard from Claudia Maria Treminio Reyes, Administrative Assistant to the President of Mision Cristiana, that16 of their 30 congregations were affected, totaling 178 families. 14 of the churches have lost their corn, bean and rice crops completely. 3 of the congregations lost all of their roosters, hens and pigs. 3 church buildings have been destroyed. They have not been able to communicate with 3 of their mission camps.

For more information about how you can help please click on the Common Global Ministries web link in the upper right hand corner of this page. Or, click directly onto http://www.ucc.org/disaster/situation-report-hurricane.html

Thanks to you for all that you do in faithful ministry and mission.

Blessings,


Rick Cowles