ford meets ford ...

The photo behind our title above is of a river crossing that we use here on a somewhat regular basis. On the other side of the river are 5 or 6 villages totaling a few thousand people, to some of whom we give food every month as part of the special needs program - i.e, families with physical and/or mental handicaps. Our Ford pickup is in the 'special needs' category now as well; though the picture looks tranquil enough, the water is about 2 feet deep most of the way across - to the top of the wheel rims and to the bottom of the doors on our truck. This, when the water is relatively low. We'll have a few tubes of heavy-duty marine wheel-bearing grease on the Christmas shipment this year.

I'll add some pictures to the slide-show of the trip last week to Quelacasque, the main village on the other side of the river crossing above; there are about 15 families in the area that recieve monthly food, and in this case, Christmas gifts of clothing, school supplies, toys, soap /toothbrush /toothpaste, and other things. Some readers might recognize Samaritan's Purse shoeboxes amoungst the gifts.

One family in particular that we visited while in Quelacasque has a 13-year old daughter who is severely mentally retarded and physically deformed. The daughter's name is Kenya, and she is completely confined to a wooden-slat crib. The family has a wheel-chair for Kenya, but due to her deformities it really doesn't fit her at all, and is practically unusable on the dirt and rock paths - this village is probably 10 miles from the nearest sidewalk or paved road. Beyond this, as she grows, she is becoming quite a handful for her mother and grandmother to move. The family asked that we pray for Kenya, for her healing; I said of course we would, but at this point am at a loss for anything to do for them beyond that.

Another woman in the special needs program has contracted some sort of skin fungus and has been told after three years of antibiotics that the only remedy is to surgically remove the affected skin. This is a little more cheerful situation in that there seems to be a solution available, but at this point she still has no way to pay for the surgery.

On the way back to Gracias we gave a lift to a couple of young sisters from the village on their way to sell tortillas in town. These girls, probably aged 8 and 12, typically walk the several miles into Gracias by themselves, balancing baskets of tortillas on their heads to sell in the local market. (There is a good footbridge across the river.) Once the tortillas are sold, they will walk home again. If they sell all their tortillas, we calculated the total take will be around US$6 or 7.

I feel extremely blessed to be able to hope for truck grease for Christmas.