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My friends, we just had a successful medical mission this past August. We spent four days assisting hundreds of people that came from the surrounding villages to Rio Blanco, Intibuca. Intibuca is one of the most beautiful departmentos (states) with a population of 240,000 and located in the most mountainous area in Honduras. The Lenca community where the team worked has a community of about 500 people.
This amazing medical mission team of 12 people was led by Dr. Patrick Reeves. The team came from various parts of the U.S.A. which included the states of Michigan, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Florida and Texas. Including the Honduran medical counterparts, our team had 16 medical volunteers which included: doctors, nurses, dentists and a pharmacist. Other non-medical team members focused on translation services, ministry with the children and helping out anyone in need. The Lenca Indians walked for one, two and three hours through the mountains to be medically treated. Patients were treated for a wide variety of conditions, including: diabetes, high blood pressure, arthritis, asthma/COPD, headaches, acute injuries, infections, dental issues, and vision difficulties. In total the team helped 879 people. We are so thankful to everyone that came to serve the Lord in this brigade. It served as a testimony to to the people to see the Lord’s presence through their service. This month, we also welcomed Dr. Patrick Reeves as our new Medical Missions Director of Iglesias Comunidad de Amor, Internacional (ICAI). We would like to thank Nikki Jackson from the bottom of our heart for the past 8 years helping us as the Medical Missions Director. She will continue to be involved in medical missions in Africa. PRAISES:
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Dr. Hector Newman Executive Director These past few weeks we have been praying for a place where to plant a new church. In the beginning of July the Lord led us to Las Tusas in the departamento (state) of Atlantida. Las Tusas is a small village, close to the city of Tela in the north coast. Two weeks ago we connected with someone that has been to that community so we decided to take a visit ourselves. We walked around the community and met many of the locals. We explained to them what we where doing there and they expressed their desire for us to start a church and wanted us to comeback again. They were friendly and fed us a delicious meal. We saw the need to start and plant a new church and we told them that we would be back. Last weekend we went back and invited people to our first church service. On Saturday, July 28th, 15 adults and 11 children came to hear the message. On Sunday, July 29th, we celebrated the first Sunday school, which was taught by Sonia my wife. I also preached to the about 20 adults that showed up. Many committed their lives to the Lord and others consecrated their lives to the Lord’s service. We are very thankful with our Lord for this new opportunity to expand the Lord’s Kingdom in the northern part of Honduras.
Three years ago, I became the pastor of the San Cristobal Church in Danli. One of the first things that I did was to identify someone from the congregation that could be trained to become the local pastor. After much prayer and searching, we identified one person with the right qualities and gifts of a pastor. His name is Delmer Rodriguez, 32 years old, married with two kids (a teenager and a one year old). With the support of people from our churches In the U.S., he received a scholarship to attend El Seminario Teologico Centroamericano (Central American Theological Seminary), in Danli. After two years of working side by side with me he became my assistant pastor while continuing his studies at the seminary. On Sunday, July 15, we installed him as the new San Cristobal Church pastor. Praise the Lord! Thank you so much for your faithful support of our pastors through scholarships. In El Arca news, we recently had another addition to our animal family. Our cow Florida gave birth to a beautiful calf which we named, Turquita. We are very excited, for this beautiful calf and for the fresh milk. Currently we are in need of funds for many of our ministries including: student scholarships, administrative costs and our missionary's monthly expenses. We encourage you to partner with us and help us to continue with the Lord’s work in Honduras. Praises:
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Dr. Hector Newman Executive Director Friends, we took the month of June to evaluate our whole ministry. Our national board and our supervisors got together to work on the evaluation report. Below is a summarized portion of our ministries evaluation:
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Dr. Hector Newman Executive Director The rainy season is here! It started in May, which usually brings lots of flooding and property destruction in many parts of the country. These past weeks the rain and heavy storms hit heavily in Honduras. Our property was no exception. We were hit with one of these storms and many trees fell down causing damage to part of our property fence and the roof of our grounds-keeper's house was half destroyed. Overall we had about $2,000 in damage to our property! No bueno. However, we trust the Lord will provide funds to restore the damage that we incurred.
With the guidance of the Lord we have opened a new field for ministry at a place called Monte Carmelo in Villanueva, Cortes. Our leader there is Roberto Cortes. He lived 6 years in Minnesota, USA, and now he is back with his family. This new church plant already has about 20 people attending. They are currently meeting in a provisional building. We are already seeing the move of the Lord's spirit within this new congregation and people are getting saved. Finally, we welcomed a new member to our burro family. We named him FRIJOLITO, who was born earlier this month. *If you would like to contribute to the repair of our property fence and the roof you can do so by sending a check to: Massachusetts Board for Mission Honduras c/o Ray Riddle 41 Fairview St. Hingham, MA 02043 Please include: "Property Repair" in the memo line. Thank you and God Bless! PRAISES:
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Dr. Hector Newman Executive Director The Lord continues to move among us in many different ways. Our churches are growing and people are getting saved. We are having lots of success reaching out to young people. Our church in Danli had an outreach day which included a worship service and sports activities. Many youth attended and had lots of fun.
During this past month many projects were finalized. We finally finished the water system at El Arca. After many years of fundraising, drilling and building we can now say we have completed that project. When we relied on the village water we were without water almost everyday. Today, El Arca, has its own water system. Now all of our property has clean and safe water from our well. We are very thankful for the Massachusetts Board for Mission Honduras in Boston, the First Baptist Church of Hingham, MA and Hands of Mercy Global Ministries in Michigan. Additionally, we would like to thank many other individuals who have made this project possible. Thank you so much from the bottom of our hearts. We also finished the construction of the multi sports court at the Newman School in Danli, El Paraiso. The court construction was started by the youth mission team that came down in March. It is a dream come true for our school. Now hundreds of children, teens and adults have a place to enjoy playing sports like volleyball, basketball and soccer. Thank you so much to all of you who donated time and funds to make this possible . Also, this month we had the visit of the Mission Honduras chair, Rev. Dr. David Kilpatrick who flew from Boston to visit for a few days. We took Dr. Kilpatrick to see many of our new projects in places like: Rio Blanco (the Indian Lenca region), Cofradia, Cortes (new church building) and in Danli (new sport court) and to El Arca (new water system). His visit to our home and to our country was a great blessing. My dear friends, thank you so much for your faithful support to our entire ministry in Honduras. May the Lord continue blessing you. PRAISES:
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Dr. Hector Newman Executive Director On March 11th our team of 10 (including baby Luna) arrived in Honduras around noontime. We loaded up the two trucks and then drove an hour and 15 minute towards the El Arca property where we would be lodged. One of the many benefits of traveling with youth is their attitude towards flexibility. This was the first time a mission team has ever stayed overnight at El Arca. This trip was of particular significance for me as it was my wife, Brigid, and daughter Luna's first trip to Honduras. I was a little concerned with how people would react to having a baby next to them on the flight but baby Luna was awesome! It helped that she has her mom's looks and her abuelo's (grandpa) smile.
Once we arrived at EL Arca and settled in we had lunch. Let me tell you, the food was spectacularly delicious! The BEST I ever had on any mission trip either hosting or as a guest. I had made plans with one of my best childhood friends to stop by with his family to meet my family. We left Rhode Island at 3AM and with daylight savings time change we were so out of it. I was trying to stay awake before my friends came over but I had to take a Honduran siesta to recharge. Five minutes into my 85 degree, lovely weather nap, I heard my dad calling me and telling me my friends were at the EL Arca gate. We spent some time together and it was wonderful to see them meet my family. Not soon after, it was time to get ready to go to church and worship. Worship? Noooo! I was still super exhausted, to say the least, and on top of that, I had the privilege of preaching. Exhausted, tired, drained, sleep deprived you name it I had it. I had no idea how my sermon would go as I had never been this tired before a message in my life. I prayed and left it in God's hands. That evening the team and I left to the city of Danli where we would be worshipping. We had a wonderful time singing praises and listening to special music and prayer. Jonathan shared his testimony in Spanish about being thankful. I preached in Spanish; the title of my sermon was, "When everything goes wrong" based on Acts chapter 28. After the 2 hour church service we headed home and I slept like a baby. On Monday, March 12th we started our first day of work at the school site. The goal for the week was to prepare the area where the multi-sport court would be filled and leveled before pouring the concrete. The team was well rested and ready to go. We helped stomp the first 8 truck loads of filler soil. Additionally, we mixed cement and poured it into the base blocks of the retainer wall of what would be the basketball court. At some point, we were trying to water the soil and needed longer hoses. After two longer hoses were purchased we connected them and immediately noticed issues with water leaks. I thought to myself how easy it is to take things as small as hoses for granted. The hoses were brand new but of poor quality. I kept thinking how back here in the States we could have had 4 or 5 choices of hoses compared to maybe 2 low quality from the hardware store in Honduras. After trying to stop the leaks we continued watering. Eventually, we hired a water truck to help out with the water and got the job done. In the middle of the day, Judy Margetts and I drove to the supermarket to get food for the team. On our way back to the school we stopped at a red light. A kid started cleaning the window of our truck. With the air conditioning on and the tinted windows up he could not see us but we could see him diligently working to clean the already clean windows on my dad’s truck. I opened the window and he said to me “Deme un Lempira porfa” which translates to “Please give me one Lempira.” I asked him how old he was and he said 13. I asked him why he wasn’t in school and he said my parents pulled me out. I understood that his family was so poor that they could not afford to send him to school. To help out his family he is out on the streets cleaning car windows at red lights. I pulled out some money, way more than the”Lempira” (which is equivalent to almost 5 U.S. cents) he asked me for, I told him”God bless you” and we drove away when the light turned green. The rest of the day we played soccer and volleyball with the school children. When the time came to get ready to go back to El Arca my dad received a call from his wife, Sonia. My dad looked at me and said there is a fire approaching our property go back with the team and see how you can help. I was thinking "OK, this is different." I got the guys on the team and we headed the 30 minute drive to El Arca. We arrived at El Arca to see the left back part of the property on fire right before the mission’s property line. The team immediately sprung into action to help. Some were bringing buckets of water, some neighbors came over and helped as well. The El Arca’s groundskeeper came over with a backpack sprayer filled with water. He started containing the fire line at the top of one of the hills in El Arca. Three of our youth, Jonathan, Quintin and Brennan, had a plan they had learned while at camp in Rhode Island. The wild fire kept closing in on the property and they decided to put the skills they have learned at camp to work. They used a pickax and shovels to delineate that property line from the brush. This would help contain the fire and help preserve the pine trees. Their quick action and experience were put well into use by the training they had received as scouts and working at a camp in Rhode Island. On March 13th, Brigid took time to teach EL Arca cooks how to make scrambled eggs. It's not that they didn't know how to make them but she taught them how to make American scrambled eggs per my dad's request. After another delicious breakfast we left for the school. The team worked diligently filling in the retainer wall with cement. In between breaks more soccer was played with the students and some of the construction workers. Later in the afternoon, after we had worked and had lunch, Brigid and I took the team on a hike. For years I had been wanting to go to "the cross" in Danli. The "cross" is the highest viewpoint in the city of Danli. The hike to the top of the cross was steep and the trail was made with stone. It took us about 15 minutes to get to the top. As we were heading up one of the neighbors said to me "I give you guys credit going up at this time of the day". It was in the middle of the day and about 86F dry heat. The teens were up in front and I was the last one to arrive at the top. Let me tell you every effort to make it to the top was well worth the spectacular view of the city. The hike to the cross in Danli, check! By the time we returned to El Arca we were all hungry for dinner. Brigid then asked El Arca cooks to teach her how to make tortillas. The cooks felt good teaching her and it was a reciprocal experience since she had just taught them earlier in the morning. Brigid's first tortilla came out with holes and was half burnt. She kept working on her craft and as I walked out they said to me "she learns fast." That night after we had rested, and by that I mean taken wonderful afternoon naps, we headed back to Danli for church service. This time I preached both in Spanish and English. The title of my message was, “When everything goes wrong, but you’re still faithful.” This was part two of my first message on Sunday. On March 14th, Brigid taught 4 english classes at the Newman School. She was excited to share her gifts with the children of Honduras. She worked with children in Kindergarten to 6th grade. At one point I walked around to see how she was doing and the kids were loving her instruction. I could see games, and songs and exciting techniques being used to teach English to the students. On this day we continued compacting and finished filling in the soil. We watered it down and left it ready for the next day. In the afternoon we headed to the Los Robles Church. Los Robles is a very poor community located within a 10 minutes drive from the school. When we arrived, the church was open and about 8 children where sitting inside. Soon after Pastor Catalino arrived and after a short greeting we went inside. He told us that the children would be arriving shortly. I know this meant in Honduran time. We started to unpack the food and donations we were to give out later. A woman from the community, whom I recognized approached me and said, "You are pastor Hector's son right?" I responded, "Yes, I am". She said oh because I told Pastor Catalino that you were his son and he was surprised. She didn't know that this was the first time I had met Pastor Catalino. A few minutes later the pastor's wife arrived and minutes later we had around 55 children who had come out to the church. An 8 year old from Los Robles Church started by praying a wonderfully simple prayer. They sang a couple of songs and then I came up to give a quick greeting. Soon after, I introduced Jonathan DiLuglio who then led the children in a couple of activities. After those fun craft activities were completed, we fed the children peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, distributed toys, hats and dresses. The children were so happy and thankful. We left with smiles on our faces knowing that we had just made someone's day. That night we found out that we still needed more funds to complete the project. The contractors had estimated that we would need about 8 truck loads of filler soil. When that was not enough it went to 16 truck loads. We ended up using about 40 truck loads!!! Our team met and Jonathan DiLuglio encouraged us to finish what we started. The next morning the team contributed a total of $2050! What a team! We came together and raised the rest of the funds to finish the school's multi-sport court. Praise the Lord! March 15th was our final work day. There was a lot of stomping and leveling the truck loads of filler soil. The team also had a special day with the Newman School students. They sang songs and made crafts with the school children. Judy Margetts, our scholarship director, talked, visited and took pictures with many of our sponsored children. I was busy with Jonathan working on the sports court dimensions and measurements. We even traveled to a nearby Christian school to gather and research more information. On the last day, many stated that they wanted to return and felt sad saying “adios” to the students, especially after the school children were heard saying we will see you mañana. On March 16th, the team enjoyed the sights and flavors of Honduras traveling to a picturesque little town town an hour and 10 minutes from Danli. Then at night on our last team debrief we had a special meeting. We talked about what the trip had meant to each of us and shared our feelings about the experience. At the end of the meeting I held a gold pin ceremony. This year's recipient was Gary Ellinger from Massachusetts. The Mission Honduras gold pin is awarded to short-term volunteers who have been on 5 or more mission trips with us. Gary worked really hard and we enjoyed having him on our youth mission team. This was Gary Ellinger's 12th mission trip. He is 77 years young. Judy Margetts, a past recipient of the Mission Honduras gold pin, was also presented with a special edition Mission Honduras writing pen for her service and 17th mission trip to Honduras. This fall she will be joining our medical mission to Honduras which will be her 18th trip. Additionally, this was Jonathan DiLuglio's 8th mission trip and first as a team leader. Jonathan, has been serving with Mission Honduras since 2012 and has been part of the board since 2017 as Youth Coordinator. This was my first time traveling and working with Jonathan on a mission trip. He did a fabulous job leading us and we worked well together. We are so blessed to have him on the Mission Honduras team. The youth mission team consisted of students from the University of Rhode Island, the Community College of Rhode Island, and the University of New Hampshire. Their majors include computer science, comedy writing, applied mathematics, doctorate in pharmacy and international relations. We are so thankful that these young students decided to take time from their spring break to come to Honduras and serve! PRAISES:
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Assistant Director Dear friends, we are so happy to share with you news of the dedication service of our church building in Cofradia, Cortes, Honduras. After four years of traveling to Cofradía, Cortes, the Greenville Baptist Church in Rhode Island, guided by pastor Wendy Kiefer-O’Brien, finished the project.
On Sunday February 18th, we had the great joy of dedicating this beautiful building with the presence of Pastor Wendy and 15 more people from her church and North Scituate Baptist Church, also located in Rhode Island. The church building has a pastor's office, Sunday school rooms and the capacity to seat over 250 people. Additionally, the team also worked on the foundation for outside bathrooms and a kitchen. Praise the Lord! The Greenville Baptist Church led the donation efforts during the past four years. They had many fundraisers including summer barbecues which helped raise thousands of dollars. What a joy to know that their love for missions and Honduras has resulted in many friendships and a wonderful church building that will be there for generations to come. We are so thankful for Pastor Wendy and the whole congregation at Greenville Baptist Church for their commitment, faith and love. We would also like to thank the people of North Scituate Baptist Church in R.I, for joining this effort. Our heart is full of gratitude to our Lord and to our friends. We are so grateful for supporters like you, who support our whole ministry. There are still many more ways to connect with our ministry. If you are interested in donating funds, we currently have needs in our general funds, sponsoring pastor’s children, sponsoring poor kids at the Newman school, scholarships for our pastors enrolled at Bible school and living expenses for our missionary. For more information, visit our Get Involved page. PRAISES:
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Dr. Hector Newman Executive Director As we begin a new year we are planning to continue with our evangelistic outreach in Honduras. We as an organization strongly believe in the sharing of the Gospel. We have been working diligently training the members of our churches in different areas such as: personal evangelism, Christian stewardship and Bible knowledge. Additionally, we have been having seminars in the three different zones where our ministry is concentrated. Here in Honduras, our ministry is gearing up to have our church leadership be ready to do the work that our Lord has send us to do (John 9:4).
Many young people are responding to the ministry's call to serve the Lord. They have great enthusiasm and are ready for training. This year we have four youths enrolled in different Bible Institutes. At the moment we just have scholarships for two ($700 per year for each one). They will be starting their classes in February. However, we are in need for the other two to be sponsored as well. Would you be their sponsor? Their names are Catalino and Samuel. Both are involved in ministry in two different mission fields. Our goal this 2018 is to start two new mission fields to develop future churches. It will be a year of challenges but we know that our Lord will provide everything that we need (Phil. 4:19). Pray for us and as the Lord prospers you would you consider helping us in the expansion of the Gospel of Jesus Christ in Honduras? Thank you so much for all of you who has been very faithful helping us and supporting our ministry financially. May the blessings of our Lord be upon you and your family. PRAISES:
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Dr. Hector Newman Executive Director  Rev. Enrique Newman & Dr. Hector Newman Well we are just a few days from Christmas. The year has flown by so fast! We are so thankful for all of the blessings the Lord has bestowed upon our ministry in Honduras.
A few weeks ago, precisely on November 26, 2017, Honduras held its presidential election. Unfortunately, the election results were marred with voter suppression, voter intimidation and voter fraud. Sound Familiar? Yes, it happens in Honduras as well. The governing president does not want to leave power and manipulated all 3 branches of government to accomplish his goal. The result of this political manipulation has caused the majority of the country to be in constant protests in the streets demanding the resignation of the president. The chaos has awakened a spirit of solidarity in the country to stand up for a nation that wants nothing to do with corruption. In the midst of such a predicament, we have been and continue to pray for peace and justice for Honduras and our people. As a new year approaches, our commitment to church planting, equipping church leaders, training current and new pastors and serving communities continues. Time is of the essence, and it is very important that we all continue to work together with the gifts that the Lord has equipped us with. In 2017, our ministry planted new churches, finished a church building, purchased more land for additional churches, Newman Evangelistic Ministries expanded its outreach on Facebook, recruited new pastors, hosted many mission trip teams and helped more than 1,000 people with medical assistance just to name a few. All the glory goes to God. On behalf of our missionary, Hector Newman, and our Iglesias Comunidad de Amor Internaticional team, we wish you a Merry Christmas and a very blessed New Year! May the peace and love of God be with you. PRAISES:
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Assistant Director In this Thanksgiving month, I'm very grateful with our Lord and each one of you for many things:
First, you have been very faithful in supporting us and our mission this whole year. Second, this has been a very successful year at the Newman School. Third, my wife and I are very thankful for many of you who contributed generously for the purchasing of our new (used) truck. The old blue Isuzu truck had served faithfully for almost 20 years and was sold to provide for the rest of the funds needed to complete the purchase. Fourth, we are very grateful with The First Baptist Church of Hingham in Massachusetts for donating their bazaar funds to complete the water system at El Arca. Fifth, for the Greenville Baptist Church in Rhode Island for raising all the necessary funds needed to build the new church building at Cofradia, Honduras. Lord willing, this January 2018, we will be able to finish and dedicate the building in February 2018. Sixth, we are very thankful with the Lord for a very successful national youth conference. This past month, more than 50 leaders and young people from all of our churches in Honduras arrived to train at EL Arca. The conference theme was: "Looking forward towards the future." We had four conferences entitled: The Youth in Today's World (pastor Carlos Banegas), Making the Difference (Pastor Javier Ayestas), Him & Social Media (pastor Carlos Banegas) and Youth and God (Pastor Delmer Rodriguez). These conferences were of great impact to theirs lives. Let me tell you about two very special people. Noe Ramirez is 23 years old and he came to the conference not expecting too much. He had been struggling with his faith and told us that he was going back renewed. He also testified that he was going back with a new vision for his life and with a clear commitment with our Lord and his church (Dos Caminos Church in the North). The other youth that impressed me was Danner Blandin. He is a thirteen years old that came from the Altamira church in Choluteca. In his testimony, he mentioned how the conferences impacted his life. He is now considering a future in ministry at his church. His grandfather, pastor Adan Blandin, just recently retired. Pastor Blandin's home was the place were we started our Iglesias Comunidad de Amor, Internacional organization in 2001. Today, we can count over 23 churches. I see Danner as the future pastor of that congregation. He was born and is growing as a Christian leader learning a lot from his grandfather and the Lord’s business. PRAISES:
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