Thanks to an innovative project spearheaded by volunteer, Bonnie Gray, our campus appears cleaner. The children decorated 20 five-gallon buckets as small trash receptacles to be placed in strategic spots around our campus. This has given the children the opportunity to learn in a fun and creative way the importance of caring for the environment by avoiding the habit of littering and keeping our environment trash-free.
Dear friends from the Crossings Community Church, in Oklahoma, USA came to our campus to give of their construction and medical talents to the community. Working together with Heart for Honduras, they hosted a medical clinic on our campus for a day and then went out to different communities nearby during the week. Their construction team worked on the building that will house our Nutritional Rehabilitation Center soon. Our deep gratitude goes out to the team for their great help in furthering our mission to bring health care to our communities!
Nursing student, Anna Garrett of Ohio, spent one month of her vacation time blessing our children and assisting our staff with her nursing skills and expertise in the Casita Feliz. Anna first visited our campus with a local organization Heart for Honduras and she felt called to give of her time to our children. She has been a wonderful and very valuable support to our staff and to our recovering babies who benefited from both her medical expertise and her kind company.
We have been blessed this year to have the visits of many groups affiliated with Maranatha Missions who were visiting our local Academy and chose to help continue the construction of the building that will be our Nutritional Rehabilitation Center, a building that is greatly needed. This was the case when our brothers and sisters from the Paradise Adventist Church spent two weeks helping us advance this special building project – a wonderful answer to prayer. Additionally they hosted medical clinics around the Lake Yojoa area and saw approximately 500 patients. We are so grateful for their love and support!
Weighing in at 5 pounds at the age of 20 days old, tiny baby Axel showed us his fighting spirit and desire to hang on to life. Although born to a 14 year-old mother who does not have sufficient milk supply to feed him adequately he remains feisty and was hungrily drinking down the rice water mix that his grandmother prepared for him. Thank God that he now has the support he needs and is recovering from the rough start in life with the help that his young mother is receiving from our Nutritional support program.
We are grateful to Rachel, Lauren and Danny for their volunteer services and for the difference they have made in the lives of our children. Rachel and Lauren - here for 8 months - held pre-school classes for the children of the Casita Feliz; while Danny who spent 4 months with us, planted a vegetable garden that produced food for our little ones. We wish them the best and are grateful for the time they spent as part of our family.
Central Texas Medical Center of San Marcos, Texas organizes two medical mission team trips per year. At PAHS we feel fortunate to be able to host this marvelous group of professionals who during this trip gave attention to 1,075 patients in 4 different communities. Neither rain, nor mud, nor poor mountain roads were able to deter the service-oriented spirit of each member of this determined medical team from their mission of delivering medical attention to needy villages. We are deeply grateful for their service to our fellow Hondurans!
We have been greatly blessed to have the presence of our very own pediatrician, Dr. Gary Harding and his loving wife, Ouida, with us for three weeks. Dr. Harding, with the support of Nurse Suyapa and volunteers Rachel and Lauren, visited several remote mountain communities whose inhabitants live in extreme poverty with the intention of seeking malnourished children in need of the rehabilitation services offered by PAHS.The rescue missions proved fruitful as three little ones are now part of our Nutritional Rehab program as a result of these rescue missions. It is impressive to witness Dr. Harding’s great desire to save starving children from hunger and from misery along with his staunch commitment to seeing them healthy.
Students from San Gabriel Academy in Los Angeles, CA visited our campus and volunteered their time to help with bean harvesting and the child care in our Casita Feliz. They were visiting our community as part of a Maranatha Mission Team to the local our local academy Centro Educacional Adventista.During their time here they also held Bible School classes filled with fun activities for our children. We are grateful for their attentions and for their help!
This is our summer time and although we live in a very temperate climate the sun still shines hot and bright. Under this sunshine our children, teens, employees and volunteers have labored to harvest and abundant crop of beautiful red beans.The quality and quantity of this crop clearly indicate a blessing from God in 2012. Our children have enjoyed the work and have made it into evening entertainment. We have also been delighted to have volunteers who visited our campus and chose to help us harvest beans.The beautiful legumes will be used as seed to distribute to poor farmers in the driest areas of the southern Honduras. We hope that they too will be blessed with a crop similar to ours.
This year’s graduation class of Fountain View Academy in Canada chose to come to our community for their Senior Class trip. While here the Seniors chose a variety of projects to benefit our campus. They took turns over the span of 10 days to help in the daily caretaking of the little patients in the Casita Feliz. Others organized a Music Camp for the children and teens from our Homes. Our children were thrilled to be learning music in this fun and entertaining way. Some in the group dedicated their time to furthering the construction of the new building that will house our Nutritional Rehab Center. We are deeply grateful for all of the contributions that these young people made to our campus life.
The “Day of Love and Friendship” was commemorated here on our campus with the help of our littlest patients from the Casita Feliz. They allowed us to take them into the plaza to take a special photograph so that we could send our supporters a heartfelt message of love and gratitude! Later in the evening, volunteers Bonnie Gray and Diane Ward handed out special care packages to the older children that live in our Children’s Homes. It was indeed a day filled with the spirit of love and of friendship!
The academic year started and the excitement of our children is a beauty to watch. Everyone is excited about school and doing their chores has taken on a new meaning for them, as they realize the importance of appreciating the great privilege that is theirs in having a private Christian education. We are very proud of our children for their efforts in their school work as well as in their chores.
With the purpose of seeking excellence in a new year of studies, seven of our girls boarded the bus to Costa Rica to attend UNADECA in Alajuela, Costa Rica. This is a new experience for Nelly who will study English while at the university. Three other young ladies, Jennifer, Carolina and Beatriz started their studies at the National University of Honduras in San Pedro Sula.
A very happy celebration for 77 students and their families took place as The “Dr. Stephen Youngberg” Technical Vocational School hosted the end of year graduation ceremony.
Read MoreThe members of the Seventh-Day Church of Oakhurst, California organized by Dr. Tom and Calle Wieg have made a annual tradition of gathering presents to send to our children.
Read MoreThe annual Christmas card project - which has been a tradition for the PAHS Family for over 30 years - is now complete.
Read MoreThanksgiving Day was a very special occasion this year on our Peña Blanca campus. Among the many reasons to thank God was that we had many of our extended PAHS Family with us for graduation time which made Nelly and Luzby feel very special.
Read MoreLittle Rony Rodriguez a 8 months old baby was admitted yesterday with a breathing difficulty...
Read MoreLaughter and more laughter could be heard for more than an hour at the campus dining hall, while our children enjoyed a presentation of "growing for Jesus" by a group who organized themselves in Argentina.
Read MorePan American Health Service, Inc. is a non-denominational Christian, non-government organization that serves vulnerable people in the impoverished mountains of Honduras, Central America.
