Honduras Medical Missions

A few weeks ago, a team of doctors, nurses, and support staff, led by Mt. Olivet's Robert and Fonda Cassidy, returned from a week of offering medical attention to over 3,000 patients in Honduras. Here (Part1) and here (Part2) are some pictures and videos of their experiences.

Pastor's Penpoint - July 2010

Here's an interesting email I received from my mother a few months back ... I know it's a bit strange for a newsletter article, but just go with me on this one?

Come with me to a third grade classroom...
There is a nine-year-old kid sitting at his desk and all of a sudden, there is a puddle between his feet and the front of his pants are wet. He thinks his heart is going to stop because he cannot possibly imagine how this has happened. It's never happened before, and he knows that when the boys find out he will never hear the end of it. When the girls find out, they'll never speak to him again as long as he lives. The boy believes his heart is going to stop; he puts his head down and prays this prayer, "Dear God, this is an emergency! I need help now! Five minutes from now I'm dead meat."

He looks up from his prayer and here comes the teacher with a look in her eyes that says he has been discovered. The teacher starts toward him, while Susie, one of his classmates is carrying a pan of water for a science experiment. Susie trips in front of the teacher and inexplicably dumps the pan of water in the boy's lap. The boy pretends to be angry, but all the while is saying to himself, 'Thank you, Lord! Thank you, Lord!'

Now all of a sudden, instead of being the object of ridicule, the boy is the object of sympathy. The teacher rushes him downstairs and gives him gym shorts to put on while his pants dry out. All the other children are on their hands and knees cleaning up around his desk. The sympathy is wonderful. But as life would have it, the ridicule that should have been his has been transferred to someone else - Susie.

Finally, at the end of the day, as they are waiting for the bus, the boy walks over to Susie and whispers, "You did that on purpose, didn't you?" Susie whispers back, "I wet my pants once too."

May God help us see the opportunities that are always around us to help others ...
may we be willing to tell others about Jesus ... our Savior ...
may we be able to suffer ridicule to save someone from being "dead meat."

God's grace and strength,
~Pastor Todd