July-August 1998, Prayer Letter

Dear Brethren,

We are still being keep busy here. Besides our churches, I preach at a couple of other churches when I am needed plus visitation and street preaching. One week I preached seven times plus visitation and building our church in Piedra Amarilla. Things are not quite as hectic now but I still stay busy.

We started a prison ministry in August and we have had three men saved so far. One was Richard Staffa, an American from Texas arrested for selling drugs. Brother Breaker and I met a couple of friends of his while we were downtown street preaching and they asked us to visit him. We met them at the prison at 3:00 that afternoon and witnessed to Richard. He was a little smart mouthed in the beginning but after dealing with him, he started crying and got saved. He told us that he had planned on trying to escape at 3:30 that afternoon and in Honduras they shoot prisoners as soon as they see them outside the buildings. We praise the Lord for enabling us to get to him before he did something foolish. I have a two hour Bible class on Thursday mornings and I really enjoy it. They are really interested in learning the Bible and they are always asking questions. There is usually 70 to 100 men attending but not all of them have Bibles but I am trying to get some for them. They have about 200 women in this prison and they asked me to come and teach the Bible to them so I am trying to work a time to do this.

We had a four-day meeting at El Bethel in Puerto Cortez and all went well. A man and a boy came forward and received Jesus as their saviour. We stayed in the home of the Beserras while we were there and he has a brother in La Ceiba that was Catholic and dying. He asked me to visit him when I got back to La Ceiba and he got saved. The last time I visited him, he said he was saved and ready to go home.

We also lead another security guard to the Lord. There are a lot of security guards here because what police they have here goes home at 6:00 pm. We still are not quite used to shopping with men carrying shotguns especially at Burger King.

I had a husband and wife get saved on visitation. There names are Vicente and Suyopa Irias. We also had a young lady bring her sister to our house so I could deal with her. Her name is Leticia Cerrato and was a Catholic who had been going to a pentecostal church and was really mixed up. I went through the Bible with her for about an hour and she got saved.

Our church in Piedra Amarilla is going good. We still have abut 35 adults and 60 children. We have the foundation and the roof on the galera and we are working on the benches now. As soon as I can afford it, we are going to run electricity to it so we can have lights. The people have asked for Wednesday night services and I plan on having them when we get the lights.

I praise the Lord for the medical supplies that were given to us before we left for Honduras. They call me Dr. Ortiz in the villages because I doctor them when I can. I treated one lady who had a hole in her heel that had gotten infected and had red streaks running up her leg. The doctor said he could not do anything for her. He sent her home to wait until it got bad enough to cut off. I was able to clean it and put antibiotic ointment and show her how to keep it clean and doctored. The next week her heel was much better and her husband in graditude let me cut down as much bamboo trees as I needed for our galera. Another man let us cut down trees from land he was clearing. When we had a work day to put the roof on the galera, the husbands and fathers of the people I helped came and worked with us. The baby of one of our members was sick and I knew when I saw him he was dying. I told the father and mother to get in the car and I took them to La Ceiba and paid for a doctor to check him. The doctor said it was a viral infection and the baby would have died in two days if I had not brought him in. Taking care of your people is time consuming and it can be hard on the stomach sometimes but it is part of being a missionary. Some young missionaries just want the glory without the work but the people can tell if you really care about them or if you are just playing missionary.

We thank you for your prayers. We especially thank you for praying for our visas and despense ticket. We now have both of these items although the lawyers messed up on our dispense ticket and we lost $400.00 because of them. They originally were charging us $1600.00 which is a lot higher than other lawyers charge. I am going to meet with them about bringing the bill down to a reasonable amount so please be praying for this problem.

We thank God for your faithfulness in His work.

Your Laborers in Honduras,
Santos and Sandra Ortiz