Construction Projects
Many construction projects have been accomplished in Seis de Mayo. We have built needed roads, remodeled homes for the needy, remodeled classrooms to accommodate our many Vo-tech classes; built medical facilities; and last but not least the Mission Center. We are almost at the completion of the First Phase of the Mission Center and are now needing dormitories for our mission teams. How grateful we are for God's bigger vision for this ministry. He has inspired many who have been used of God to build this Mission Center and now a bigger picture is being unfolded before our eyes! Sarah Carey from Baptist Chapel is an engineering student at Oklahoma State University. She spoke with an organization called "Engineers Without Borders" about Gathering Hearts Ministry being the next project chosen by this group.
A team came in March to access the project and has now stretched our vision of the Mission Center's outreach farther than we could have dreamed. We are so grateful how this is all unfolding before our eyes. Keep in touch for the many new ways God is showing Himself mighty in this new expansion of the Mission Center.
Next Construction Hurdle:
Dormitories for Teams; Class Rooms for the Students; Water Treatment System!
One of the biggest threats to the health of the villagers is a lack of clean drinking water. This was obvious to the OSU engineers as they were on their site visit in El Sauce and one of the children had died just the day before of a parasitic disease due to contaminated drinking water. One of the EWB priorities will be to clean up the water and develop a method of sewer treatment. What an answer to prayer. At this time, sewer water is contaminating the village drinking water.
January 2010
Lift Chair was installed!
David Cary did several projects, not the least of which was installing the lift chair that was donated to us so that I could "climb" those "Himalayan" steps in the Mission Center. David also helped Samuel Johnson with the security system installation, painted, etc. He was busy for two weeks. What a relief to get some of the projects finished.
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Security System Installed!
Denny Boersema and Howard Niebor from Southern Heights Church in Kalamazoo, Michigan, did a multitude of tasks that makes our life so much easier. For the first time in ten years, we can drink out of the faucet. Denny and Howard installed a filtration system for the Mission Center which presented many difficulties. At first, the water was so dirty that it filled up the filter in 16 hours! The city water had been tapped into the existing filters in the house and had accumulated debris. The first night we got in from the states, I filled up our tub and the water was so dirty you could not see the bottom of the tub. They kept at it until pure water was coming out of the tap. In addition, there is water going into the refrigerator, so we also have ice. It is like the modern age came to our Honduran Mission Center. For those of you that have been here, you know what a task it was to make enough ice in the trays for teams. What a blessing to have an automatic ice maker. Thank you Denny and Howard.
Denny and Howard also installed an electrical back up system with a generator just in time to keep the security system that Samuel Johnson is installing to keep going in spite of the electricity being off. This back up will keep our water filtration system working also. In addition, they put up a wall between the computer classes and the Gathering Room of the mission center so that computer classes can go on during a medical clinic. The wall is even painted a “designer” red!
June 2009
We are so proud of our Honduran crew! They have finished the carport! The carport has been constructed next to the Mission Center to give the Mission Center's vehicles protection from the elements. Thanks for helping support Gathering Hearts Ministry which has enabled us to build the carport.
OUR CONSTRUCTION WORKER, MARLON, FINISHED THE CAR PORT INSIDE THE MISSION CENTER SECURITY WALL
Marlon, construction boss, is building the carport in the front of the Mission Center. He does all the cement work and welding himself. This carport will have room for one of the passenger vans. The other van and pick up have to be parked out side the security walls for now, but we hope that construction for the other carports will begin this fall.
May 2009
Dormitory Construction Plans
What an honor it is for Benjamin Persson, an architect with the OSU Engineer Team, to come alongside the Kuney’s to help with the architectural plans that were set up by Boyd and Group here in Tulsa. Benjamin will now work with Chief Boyd to modify the plans to accommodate local pastoral training as well as some other changes. This is just in time to prepare teams that may be able to start constructing the carport for the dormitories the middle of September. (At the present time, one of the vehicles for the ministry has to stay parked outside the security wall.)
March 2009 Engineering Team Report
A group of engineering students and faculty adviser from Oklahoma State University came in March. They are representing an international organization called Engineers Without Borders, a humanitarian group that helps the poor in all parts of the world. Sarah Carey from our home church, Baptist Chapel in Oklahoma, was the initiator of this project, which turned out to be a great blessing.
This group plans to help us with construction of our dormitory project and spent considerable time in surveying and planning for that facility. As we have mentioned before, the dorms will house the work teams that stayed in our house when we lived in San Pedro Sula. We have also been told that medical and dental teams will be much more likely to come when we have housing on the premises.
Then they went over to our adopted village of Seis de Mayo. The residents of this community have been trying since our first visit in 2000 to make even modest improvements in their water supply and sewage treatment -- but with little success. They have no discretionary money to spend, and are too far down on the list to expect help from the government in Puerto Cortes. This situation really caught the interest of the group. They began inspecting and testing and even climbed the mountain to see the water source. In the end they proposed a 7 to 10 year program to bring to water/sewage system up to standard.
As the Engineering group toured the village, many of the villagers began following us to see what was happening… and they began to get excited too. It is hard for us in the U.S. to imagine what it is like to live without hope. These people have lived for years, in some cases generations, knowing their water is dirty and the mud in the streets is contaminated and can transmit parasites and other diseases to their children; but they feel powerless to do anything about it. You can imagine how they felt when they saw that this group of engineers was taking their predicament seriously.
Before the morning was over, City Hall in Puerto Cortes had heard what was happening. Despite being the largest port in Central America, they too are hindered for lack of funds. They were very encouraged by what they were hearing, and before the end of the day we had been invited to a meeting of department heads in the mayor’s office.
At that meeting the next day, we presented the OSU group who gave a brief outline of their plans, and the city officials pledged their best efforts to help. At the end of that meeting, we invited those most closely involved in water and sewer treatment to lunch at our house the next Monday. Once again, we presented the plans to this group, which now included community leaders from Seis de Mayo. We had also invited Luis Paz, the owner and developer of this community. I would have to say, there was great enthusiasm among all of us. Dr. Jonathan Goode, OSU faculty adviser, says he envisions a 7 to 10 year project. The Puerto Cortes group has promised a topographical map by the time we leave for the U.S., April 4. We will be meeting with a group of engineers from OSU on April 20; please pray for that meeting.
Many times I have been impressed by the power of a little thing--a seed, a word of prayer, a single step in the right direction. I think it would be fair to say that Sarah Carey made an investment of her time and effort which may have seemed small at the time, but in the end will likely prove to have been the catalyst to an important work here.