Wednesday, June 11, 2008
SLP Family trip June 08
Greetings All!
The SLP Family team just returned from Honduras after three successful installs, including the 50th install milestone, accomplished on Wednesday, June 4 at Escuela Dionisio de Herrera in El Caracol, about 45 minutes from San Marcos, our three day headquarters in the Choluteca area.
All three installs were accomplished despite more than normal trials and tribulations but the team, including five girls ages 10-15, worked well together, especially in trying conditions. Faulty soldering in solar panel junction boxes delayed the completion of the first day's install just enough so we didn't beat the rain - a daily event that starts between 1 & 3 o'clock during the rainy season.
After waiting for a pause in the downpour to erect the pole, we made the final connections, turned on the lights, presented a "made for kids" laptop to the teacher in honor of our 50th install, accomplished training, then had to hike out (uphill) to help one of the trucks out of the mud. We had to repeat this two more times as the rain made numerous mud holes in the "road".
We finally made it back to the Shalom hotel 12 hours after we left, feeling somewhat like drowned rats, but thankful for God's faithfulness for providing what we needed JUST when we needed it. We planned to attend church with Pastor David Rodriquez, an associate of Pastor Cesar of Real Church in Choluteca, but we probably would have scared everyone off the way we looked, not to mention our need for rest. So, Thursday night Pastor David brought a couple of his worship team over to join us for dinner and we fellowshipped and worshiped for much of the evening, singing in English and Spanish.
There is much more to tell - such as how impressed we were when the presidential bus showed up to take us from Tegucigalpa to San Marcos. However, I am going to open this blog up for the team to share their thoughts....much more to come...AR
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
The Opportunity
Greetings All!
With the National Missionary Conference here in Cincinnati and the SLP booth there, we're real busy preparing for that and the CBN Trade Show Friday, but I couldn't resist letting you know how excited I am about
The Opportunity we have before us. You may already know that the First Lady of Honduras ha extended an invitation to SonLight Power, through the Healthy Schools Program - to install solar power systems in almost 400 rural schools where there is no electricity. The Honduran government is going to waive all import duties for equipment imported for these projects and provide logistical support on the ground in Honduras.
Our press release will be on the SLP web site within a day or so, but this is a great opportunity for as many as 500 churches to send as many as 1,000 members on short term mission trips that are "soft landings" and very impact full to the education, health and future well being of Honduran people - through their children. All of the areas affected by these systems are the poorest communities in the country. It is our experience that the practical and spiritual benefits these systems provide make a SonLight Power mission trip a great experience for those going on the mission trip and those in the villages, many of which have never had anyone visit from outside the immediate area.
Some of the children have never seen a television set before and almost none of them have any idea about the world outside of Honduras. The savings afforded by the Honduran government means a system costs about $3,000 in equipment, a savings of about $500. Please take the opportunity of reading the latest SonLight Beacon and consider providing myself or SonLight Power Board of Trustee member with the Director of Missions for your church. We can partner together to "Bring Light into Darkness" and let children know that Jesus truly does love them.
SonLight mission trippers need not have skills in solar power. For each team we need 5 people to assist in the solar power install - and up to five to interact with the children of each school. We train those interested in the install part. Playing with children is a natural.
We expect this project to take 5-7 years, but God has His own plan - perhaps you can sponsor a school and be part of a team to install it. Telling the children why we come is a great blessing - that I can share if necessary. (-:}
Labels: The Opportunity
Friday, September 28, 2007
The "New" SonLight Power
Greetings all!
our leadership retreat last weekend was great...even better than expected. We'll see where God is taking us from here. We have 379 "Healthy Schools Program" projects in Honduras as well as nearly 100 in Guatemala...Not to mention Nigeria and Haiti.
If we're going to do more...and it looks like Gods is heading us down that road, we're going to need office help and more project managers as well as more than 400 churches wanting to send people on mission trips and/or sponsor a school. If you would consider voluntering to work in our office, please give me a call. If you wantto train to be a project manager, call or e-mail.
Next on the agenda is the early November (10/30-11/5) trip to Guatemala. Leo
Rader and perhaps some west coast friends are doing that.
Then I go to Ecuador in December. The White Oak Kiwanis sponsored the school there. Alex & Carol Lucia will be our guide and hosts. The Ecuador Kiwanis is partnering with
SLP and WOK on the trip. We take a 4 -hr. boat ride to the village, or if there is no rain, a one day hike into the jungle. Please pray for rain. (-:}
Next year we'll be
ramping up for the huge Honduras and Guatemala projects. Hope you all will be a part of that. 400+ schools is a daunting task, maybe taking more than five years...but we only need 400 churches to want to send mission teams and/or sponsor
schools.
Maybe the Reds will get a pitcher or two and we'll be able to celebrate! The Bengals, on the other hand are where the Reds were earlier...they need to get a clue.
Camping is great in that fall at
Amakanata. The drought may have killed the color show, but we'll see. It did rain there this week (9/27).
Blessings
Remember...God said, "Let there be light...and the light was good!" Gen. 1
Allen
Monday, July 30, 2007
God's BIG footprint
To say that God showed up on our Sons of The Father Advance mission trip to Honduras (instead of Guatemala) would be an understatement. It would take way to long to describe all of God's footprints (as in BIGFOOT prints), but a summery is in order. Just talk to anyone on the team and you'll hear different stories.
The prophesy - Pastor Cesar received a prophesy from the Holy Spirit two weeks before we came. He shared it with his church, The Real (meaning Royal in Spanish) church in Choluteca - directly south of Tegucigalpa. The prophesy? That the missions were coming. This seemed strange to Pastor and the church since they had never worked with American missionaries before. Pastor Cesar also shared it with the people to whom the Real church was ministering to, a number of poor communities along the border with Nicaragua. The focus of recent ministry was to teach them to grow sweet potatoes - with great success.
The decision - We discovered early Tuesday morning before we were to leave on Friday that we couldn't go to Guatemala (see previous blog for details). When we (the team had a meeting that night) called Meilyn she said that the church in Choluteca was ready for us and would provide free transportation, food and a place to stay - they had already identified two or three project schools. The team had to decide weather to pay the change and upgrade fee of more than $400 each to go to Honduras instead of Guatemala. We prayed - and it was unanimous - we were going to Honduras.
Wednesday morning I called Continental Air and asked for a reduction in the change fare - due to the Guatemala violence. The CO representative said they had not heard of the violence...so I sent her Dara's e-mail depicting the violence, including graphic photos. I hoped for any reduction, maybe to a "normal" $100 fee - since I knew some of the families (not to mention SonLight Power) would have a hard time with an additional $800 in expense - but each man said he was willing to go the extra yard - we knew God was speaking to us - and preparing our way.
Later that afternoon our travel agent called and said she had just heard from Continental - and they were re booking us to Teguc - at no extra charge. Thank You Continental - and PTL Big Time!
Meilyn & Mauricio Moncada (Mauricio was planning to be our translator in Guatemala) as well as Pamela Hanson were happy to have us - and Meilyn and Mauricio worked tirelessly to prepare - the folks in Choluceta were working hard too. Everything was accomplished in the three days - usually what it takes me 6 months to arrange.
The Equipment - usually we ship multi school projects' equipment ahead of time but this didn't work out for Guatemala. Since we had 10 people going on the trip - I knew we would be able to get everything in at most 10 pieces of luggage - leaving one each for clothes, etc. Although we sent money ahead of time to Guatemala for batteries and poles - the major part of the equipment was going with us.
If we had shipped the equipment to Guatemala - the switch would not have been possible.
As the CO air plane banked around the mountains of Teguc, landing on the short runway, the five men and five boys knew we were in for an adventure. M&M & Pamela picked us up at the airport.
The next day, after we bought the batteries and some more tools, a bus came from Choluteca to pick us up - and the luggage was transported via M&M's truck. The story of God's preparation of these people is too long to tell here - just that we were blessed to be there.
Both the installs were accomplished with the normal amount of trials & tribulation. The Real (Royal) church in Choluteca covered all of our expenses there - and our meals were very good. We even spent an afternoon on a Pacific beach. The promised beautiful sunset didn't happen though - so they said we'd just have to come back - which we were all ready to sign up for.
I have been on a lot of short term mission trips - but this tops them all!
More details in upcoming issue of the SonLight Beacon.
Labels: God said Honduras
Thursday, July 19, 2007
God sitings galore
Greetings all,
As sleep is overcoming me I thought I'd give you a few details about the trip to Mexico and City of Refuge orphanage.
SonLight Power teamed with
Lifeway Christian Church and Esperanza4U charity to install a 3.5 KW solar power system in the
Rosirita campus of the orphanage. Before the install
CoR was using approx. $1800/mo of
diseal fuel to power the facility.
In advance of the install site, Allen requested a "carport like structure" with a slightly slanted roof facing south. Something was lost in the translation and when the team showed up there was a 20' high structure with a 45-degree roof. No one of the
LifeWay team was experienced on a roof with that steep of a slant. Allen, considering the
SLP roof history was not at all comfortable with the situation.
AS we prepared to start the install, - some of our team were
fashoning safety harnesses when a team from Sidney Ohio showed up. Four guys from the team came over and said, "we heard you needed help with the roof. What can we do to help?"
God had sent four guys with plenty of roof experience who installed the 21 solar panels
without any problem inside of two days (see photos on front page of
SLP web site). The
Lifeway team did the rest of the work and we cut the generator off at noon of the second day.
More details in the next issue of the
SonLight Beacon.
When I returned to
Cincinnati with 4 days to prepare for the trip to Guatemala, i discovered an e-mail which included a warning from the US Embassy regarding possible kidnapping of children in Guatemala. The trouble was not in the area of our focus, so we were concerned, but not ready to give up the trip. The next day we got an e-mail our missionary hosts telling us not to come - the violence was not right there, even on their street.
We were discussing our options when Lance Brown suggested calling
Meilyn and Mauricio
Moncada to see if we could shift our focus to Honduras.
Meilyn had been a translator on a previous trip, Mauricio was scheduled to translate for the Guatemala team, and were in the process of developing future Honduras projects.
When we called them,
Meilyn called her cousin, a
shephard of a church in
Choluteca, in the south of the country.
They had been talking about a three schools becoming projects. Within 24 hours the project came together...and the cousin offered free hotel rooms in
Choluteca and
free transportation if we came.
There was a scheduled team meeting that night. We prayed and
talked to Meilyn by phone. It was obvious God was in this.
Now, as you read this we are either on the way or already in Honduras. More when we're on the way back.
Blessings
Allen
Wednesday, June 27, 2007
Prayer & Go
Well...I've sure fallen short of being regular with this blog...but I'm off to Mexico tomorrow (7/10) and the City of Refuge in Rosarito - just south of Tijuana. This will be the biggest system yet for SLP. The City of Refuge ministers to kids of prostitutes (of Tijuana) - so its a real ministry to those "lost causes"
Please pray for all the details to come together...that the install goes well...and that light is shined in the darkness. The mission uses $1,800 worth of diesel fuel / month. We'll reduce that bill by 75-90% with this solar system - which will pay for itself in about 20 months.
Then...four days after I return ...I'm off again to Guatemala with the Sons of the Father Advance (as opposed to retreat). Four father /son teams will be installing solar power systems in three schools in the Sayaxche region. We'll be staying in one of the schools. One of the three schools provides night classes to the older students, requiring the students to bring candles. This will be a big boost to that school.
With five MITs (men in training) and four MASTs (Men already somewhat trained), there is plenty that can go wrong. Please pray that trials & tribulations are small ones.
Blessings
Allen
Thursday, April 12, 2007
Beginnings
Greetings All!
The beginning of the Solar Al blog – where I will ramble on about mission, solar power, scripture, Camp Amakanata, music, sports, books and other opinions & musings you (the reader) might ask for.
I was planning the first post to be from Olmeca Mexico where I am supposed to be now (4/6 thru 4/15) with a team from Calvin Crest. However customs problems postponed the trip to October. Now I am home for six weeks in a row (yea). Camp Amakanata will open soon, but the hot showers and water hookups will be accomplished the first weekend in May.
Let’s look at Luke 7:18-35 (NASB) – the scripture Lance Brown brought to my attention following Otto’s accident during the SonLight Power Honduras trip 7/06. John sends his disciples to ask Jesus, “Are you the Expected One, or do we look for someone else?”
Why did John ask Jesus that question? He knew who Jesus was. Sometimes dire circumstances cause us to question things we know to be true. At the time I was questioning the validity of the mission – and my ability to lead SonLight Power. Jesus’ answer, “The blind receive sight…etc.”, did nothing to relieve John’s predicament, although it did effectively answer the question. John stayed in jail and eventually died. In that passage v. 35 says,..."wisdom is vindicated by all her children." It is a spiritual battle we face to bring Jesus' Light into darkness.
As Lance said, “Mission work is dangerous. We are in enemy territory. When we take light into darkness the enemy doesn’t like it. The mission is important.” While SonLight Power doesn't raise the dead, bring sight to the blind or legs to the lame, the gospel is proclaimed, people are given hope and light - something they don't even dream about before SLP comes.
God provided for Otto’s care with the presence of Dr. Pamela Hanson as part of the team at the time of the accident – and he has recovered. And we did not let the enemy prevail. We installed the panels on a pole mount, successfully finishing the project, and now future trips will be much safer.
The pole mounts are more expensive, take more time and create logistics and planning problems, but safety is most important. We late sent enough money to cover the necessary roof repairs for the Los Vegan de San Juan school.
With the customs trouble in Mexico following the same expensive problem in Honduras, I’m rethinking on ways to get the equipment to the job site.
If you’re reading this, please add a comment or e-mail your suggestions. Please feel free to check out the SonLight Power web site (www.sonlightpower.org) for the latest updates, info and schedules. And plan to join us on a trip soon to Take His Light into darkness.Labels: soft landings and scripture
