Josh in Honduras: I lost my heart to the cutest seven year old you will ever meet, hopped a ride in a random pickup truck, and had my dirty mouth cleaned up.

This past week was full of adventure, learning, and being able to help a small colony in a very tangible way. We worked with a dental brigade from the states (mostly from the Houston, TX area). There were five sets of hygienists working along with five stations for the dentists and oral surgeons to operate. Everything from simple teeth cleaning to cavity filling to root canals and wisdom tooth removal was done. It was truly a blessing to work with them from Monday to Thursday and I want to share a little something from each day.

Monday: I can put up with kids and I can actually enjoy some time with them, but apart from my little sister you would be hard pressed to find a kid that has stolen my heart unless you know Melani – she robbed mine. Melani is a cute little seven year old girl that I hope I get to see sometime again, that’s the prayer in my heart. She was one of the first in line at the clinic on Monday and while she did need some serious work done, I think she was just there at first because of the commotion and her love to be around people. She was so pleasant and tranquil that she was not even noticed until later in the morning and was stuck far behind most of the people. I was working at the front desk that morning and when I finally started talking and playing with her after the initial rush of people and getting some order about the place, I realized how sweet and innocent she was. What touched my heart was that her was a little girl that was dirty and didn’t appear to have the parental care that many of the other children had. She had come to the clinic without any other family to my knowledge and just hung out most of the day playing contently with the other kids in line, and continually running up to me and trying to mess with my hair and scratch my beard.

Finally Melani was up in line and ready to see the hygienist. Midway through the day I had switched work duties and was translating for the hygienists, so I was more than happy to have our group working with her. Here we had this seven year old girl that we knew nothing about other than her name was Melani and this was probably the first time she had dental care or instruction. She was without her parents and there by herself, but since we don’t have the regulations to deal with here, we were ready to work. She had a mess in her mouth and since most of the problems were with baby teeth, they were able to simply seal the problems and try to give instruction. It was amazing to see the level of professional care she was given from the hearts of these hygienists, dentists, and oral surgeons. I helped with translation but the most touching part was when Melani reached out her hand during what would have been a particularly intimidating part and just grabbed mine. I then realized the power of just being able to hold someone’s hand or touch them in a moment of fear. She needed to come back the next day and see a doctor. The next day I did my best to get her close to the front of the line (that’s the inside door she found without knowing it) and I don’t really know what became of it. I hope that we will be able to go back to that place and work and that I will get to spend more time with her.

Tuesday: Our STEP van broke down so we got to head out of this city in public transportation. Once we got part way and tried to switch buses, we realized we didn’t have time to wait so we hopped in a national pickup truck and went part way and just walked the rest. That was definitely an adventure and I think we all had fun getting in this old pickup truck with some other locals with the standard pickax and machetes at our feet! Don’t worry, it's pretty normal to be in close proximity with machetes as that seems to be the default tool here. One of the nationals in the truck had a Cleveland Indians hat on so I made sure to tell him I liked it. And on the topic of sports teams, I made sure to wear my OSU t-shirt of Tuesday since there were a lot of people from Texas there; unfortunately, I ended up working with a lady that graduated from LSU.

I began working as an assistant suctioning blood, spit and water (a lot of time more blood than spit or water) from people’s mouth. It was amazing to see the pain that some people had to go through for the pain they already had to be relieved, but it just reminded me of how true that can be in real life, too.

Wednesday: After another full day of translating and suctioning blood and cleaning workstations, the real adventure came on the way home. Andrea and I caught a bus to Villa Nueve which is where I live. The only problem is that the first bus stopped shortly after and everyone got off like it was a plan, so we followed not having a clue what was going on. The same thing happened with the second bus we boarded. Finally we got a bus the seemed to be planning to go the full route. Now, here’s where I say that I thought I knew what a full bus was. I thought I knew what a bus without any room to move was, but I was about to find out. We started out sitting then I gave my seat to a lady standing on the bus. As the bus filled I kept thinking this bus can’t take more people, and I was wrong. It filled and filled and just kept getting tighter. When I couldn’t move and thought no one could get on, we would stop and eight more people would shove there way in and create the needed space. We finally got off via the emergency exit at the back and then realized that Villa Nueve is huge, and we had no idea where we were except that it was an uncomfortable part of town. We met some very nice people and were able to get a taxi to the church and although we had to pay a little more, we decided given our situation and the dangerousness of the streets, we didn’t think any of our supporters would mind us doing what we needed to do to be safe. The funny part was when I figured what we spent, though it was a ton in public transportation here (which tends to be cheap), it was only right around six dollars.

Thursday: Thursday went about the same with what I did although I got my teeth cleaned with Karen H and Andrea getting to suck some of the blood, spit, and water from my mouth, and we began early cleanup and had two piñatas with candy and toothbrushes for the kids. I would like to add that this last week I was given more candy and chocolate from the dentists and hygienists than what I had eaten in my total time here in Honduras (I guess they need to do something to stay in business so they're used to giving out candy). After all that we went to their hotel (I showered in the pool showers) and then they took us all out to eat at a nice restaurant as a thank you. It was a blessing and as I got to know the person in charge of most of this, he invited me to Houston sometime. He has access to the locker rooms and fields of the Houston Texans and Houston Rockets (professional football and basketball teams) and said I could stay at his place and meet some players – isn’t it awesome who you can meet serving the Lord!!

Friday we debriefed and practiced songs, dramas, and stories for a VBS we hope to run in Juticalpa this coming week. We are headed there to do some evangelism work for the BIC church and hopefully run this VBS program.

Thanks for your prayers and the best way you can pray for us this month is in travel as we will be visiting and working in another city in Honduras called Juticalpa as well as Nicaragua and

Costa Rica

. Also, if my calculations are correct, Monday (the 11th) morning at 12:36AM we hit the halfway point of our journey in Honduras - thanks for your support as we continue!

This is a shot of me and Karen as we enjoyed the adventure of the pickup ride up through the hills