Ambiance Celebration Label

“THEY’VE STOLEN ALL THE CHURCH DOORS!” was last week’s news from El Señor es Nuestro Pastor congregation in the violent neighborhood of Villanueva.

For months, a woman in the congregation, with two sons recently released from prison, have gradually stripped the church of anything of value while harassing and threatening church members and ICLH staff. This necessitated closing the Day Care Center there for security reasons. After we reported the theft of the doors, police searched the woman’s home and found the church’s huge water tanks, which had disappeared previously.

Gentle Olga

A participant in the ICLH lay theology program, gentle Olga (above), offered to pastor this difficult congregation. Now the violent family accuses her of lodging the police report, and threatens her with harm and her beautiful young daughters with sexual assault. Please ask God to protect Olga, her daughters, and the church members. Pray that this church will not have to be closed. Pray for change for this wretched family.

YEAR-END REPORT. I have a one-page English précis of my Spanish language Report of ICLH Activities for 2008. If you are interested, let me know and I will e-mail you a copy.

January 09/yr. 3
in Honduras
Janet Alcántara

“Let’s attack some innocent people for the fun of it…We’ll find all kinds of riches and fill our houses with loot!”    --Proverbs 1:11, 13     (SEE SIDEBAR)
Gardenia blossom Orange tree blossom

Spring.  While in the North there are snow and ice and power outages, in my balcony garden here in Tegucigalpa, the orange tree, gardenia, and lily all bloomed this past week. January offered a strange mixture of cool, cloudy weather alternating with sunny and often hot days, warning that by the end of February, our long and sizzling dry season will be well established.

“Vacation” Time.  The ICLH observed vacations from mid-December through mid-January, so most of this month I engaged in catch-up activities, trying to work down the backlog of medical appointments, housework, and mending, Deaconess activity, and e-mails which I am regularly too busy to keep up with, and getting a head-start on developing teaching materials for the year ahead. We combined our Women’s Spirituality Group gathering with an observance of Honduran Women’s Day. The big meeting to plan ICLH 2009 activities will be on Feb. 1-2.

FINAL ankle report.  The Teletón doctor certified my ankle joint as “healed”, having recovered its original strength and flexibility nine months after the accident. I still have some stiffness in the muscles on both sides, but work at stretching them. I walk now as far as before the injury. The on-going edema was finally traced to stretched-out veins in the calf, so I must now wear support hose constantly (not thrilling news in a tropical climate…)


Tropical flower In faith and service in Christ,
--janet

Janet Alcántara,
I.C.L.H., Apdo. 2861,
Tegucigalpa, Honduras, C.A.
dcsjanet@hotmail.com
Deaconess Janet Russell Alcántara/Iglesia Cristiana Luterana de Honduras