In January, 2020, we are excited to be sending down a mens work team to build 4 homes for families who are active members of our In-Home Bible Studies. We want to take a moment to introduce you (with their permission, of course) and share a little of their story.

As you read about each family, we pray that you will not only hold each one of them personally in prayer, but consider making them a part of your family as well. While we are providing them the structure that will be called home, there is a need for ongoing support in their community as well. It will cost us approx $1,000 to build each home. If you would like to be a part of this amazing project, please see below how you can help!!

Family #1

THE HERNANDEZ FAMILY

There are 7 family members in this house. Gladis (37) and Santos Hernandez (64) live with their 4 children, Verceli (5), Diyani (11), Nora (14) and Dania (18). Dania is the one in the photo above. Dania is a single mom and has now since had her baby (a precious baby boy) since the above photo was taken. Verceli (pictured above with Dania) suffers from convulsions and is in kindergarten. Diyani is in 6^th grade, and Nora is in high school. The head of the household, Santos Hernandez, passes large parts of the year away from the family in whatever agriculture work he can find. Gladis also works part of the year when coffee is in production. Usually at least one family member is at every Bible study we do.

FAMILY #2

THE ORELLANA FAMILY

There are 5 people living in this house. Bienvenida and Carlos Orellana, have three children, Luz (14), Jon (8), and a newborn (who I do not have details on yet). Carlos works in agriculture or in what ever work he is able to find. Luz is no longer able to attend school due to inability to pay, while her brother Jon is in Second grade now. Jon wants to be involved in every house we build and every project we do. He is a very curious and friendly boy. His mom is a regular at our Bible studies and Sunday services.

FAMILY # 3

THE DIAZ FAMILY

There are only 3 members in this family. Anabel and Jose Diaz live with their son Hector (11). Jose works odd jobs and in agriculture, while Anabel has started a small neighborhood store since this photo was taken. She and Hector are regulars at our Bible studies. The drinks we buy for the Bible study come from their family store, which we try to support. There are several neighborhood stores in the community, but theirs is the smallest. They are also the only family with a store that come to our Bible studies, so we make sure to support them with that weekly business. Jose is also Dona Isabel’s son, the lady where we have been holding our Bible studies. Often times Anabel and Hector help Dona Isabel clean up the area for the Bible studies, as well as to help stack and unstack chairs. Hector is currently in 6th grade.

FAMILY # 4

THE MANZANO FAMILY

Four people live on this property. Reyna Manzano (61) is a regular at our Bible studies. She is one of the few community members that have been involved in a church before. Several of her children live in the community, but only two of her sons currently live with her Jose (23) and Salvador (19). Their property is filled with makeshift structures that her sons have built. Both of her sons work at the nearby fish factory, mostly caring for the fish in the fish ponds. Jose recently married (since this photo was taken), and his wife lives with him.

Bible Study Pictures showing families 1 through 4 attending

How You Can Help….

Did you wake up today with a roof over you head? Were you able to grab a bite to eat? If so, then that is twice as much as these 4 families got to do today. We have a unique opportunity to provide them with a home…a real house…something to call their very own.

We also have been blessed with the opportunity to provide them with a meal each week during our weekly Bible Studies.

We would like to invite you on this journey with us. Be a part of this life changing event by helping provide the funding we need to get the job done.

We need $1,000 per home, but not only that, when we leave, we want to leave the community with a food supply to hold them over until we return in July.

To make tax deductible donation, simply use the DONATE HERE

http://rightturnministries.com/donate-here/tab on this website, or you can mail to: Right Turn Ministries, FNP, 315 Las Olas Drive, Belleville, IL 62221

 Stop Blaming God

By: Jim Shoffstall

“A man’s own folly ruins his life, yet his heart rages against the Lord.” (Proverb 19: 3)

Every now and then I enter the cyber-civilization known as “Facebook”.  I and many of my friends are very open about our faith in Christ and love for God.  We often post messages sharing how the Lord is working in our lives and in the lives of those around us.

That’s when the inevitable happens.  Someone who rejects God takes the opportunity to interject their thoughts on the subject:

What God?  Why should I believe in God?  He’s never done anything for me! 

If there truly is a God, why did he allow my life to become such a mess? 

Now there have been times early in my life when I shared that sentiment.  I got myself involved in some bad relationships which made my life seem impossible to live.  During those times when Christians approached me wanting to share the Gospel with me I had no problem telling them what to do with their so called “gospel”.

Then one day I grew up and realized something; God didn’t make a mess of my life.

I did a pretty good job of that on my own.

Whether it was my refusal to weigh the advice of my parents and elders as a young man, or just my own lack of willingness to exercise good judgment the simple truth of the matter is this:

By nature I am a sinner in both thought and action.

As a result I sought pleasure in all the wrong places.  I chose the wrong people to engage in relationships with.  My lack of compassion toward others would occasionally take a calm situation and turn it into something explosive. Impatience came back to bite me in the rear as well.  Bottom line; my responses to the situations I encountered in this life were often sinful.  Had I known how to respond properly I could have saved myself from suffering so many “stress” headaches.

The truth is I knew how I should have responded in each and every situation in my adult life.  I just chose to act inappropriately.  My heart was full of sin and that manifest itself in my interactions with others.  So is it God’s fault that I behaved improperly?  Absolutely not!  All of us will have 2 methods of response to choose from in any given situation in our daily lives:

• We can reject God’s way and respond with a sinful nature;
• We can submit to God’s way and begin to respond in a Christ like nature.

If we want life in this world to be less complicated, then we need to start to make better decisions.  We need to begin to do things God’s way.  He doesn’t promise a life without pain, however that pain will serve a purpose and we will be made stronger as a result.

Don’t blame God when you finances are in a shambles because you have overspent your income.

Don’t blame God when your marriage is a wreck because you refuse to remain faithful to your wife.

Don’t blame God because you are in prison because you chose to steal something that wasn’t yours.

We need to man up and accept accountability for our own actions.  We can’t submit to a culture which encourages the passing of blame to others for our mistakes.  God wants to bless us however he will not bless sinful conduct!  So the next time the thought that “God has never done anything for me” consider this:

• God owes us nothing!
  1. God sent his Son, Jesus, into this world to become an atoning sacrifice for my sins. A debt that I would have no hope of ever paying has been cancelled thanks be to God and the precious blood of Jesus.  Do you want to know what God did for you?  Watch Mel Gibson’s “Passion of the Christ”.  Watch what Jesus went through during the crucifixion and then (and ONLY then) say to me “God never did anything for me”.

• We deserve nothing other than judgment!
  1. As children who disobey their parents deserve punishment, so I, one who has been willfully disobedient to God deserve punishment as well. Have we as a culture become foolish enough to believe we can defy the God who created us and yet turn and demand blessing from him?

Instead of being angry at a God who loves us, we need to direct that anger at the sin in our lives which is the root of our problems.  So let’s try to turn things around: instead of hating God and loving sin, try loving God and hating sin.  I’d be willing to bet things will begin to get a lot better.

In Jesus’ name,

JS

Jim is guest writer for Right Turn Ministries, and as always, we appreciate his willingness to share the words God has laid on his heart.

In the Bible, there is a parable about 2 people who build homes…one builds on solid rock, and the other builds on sand…..you know the story….it’s an oldie but goodie. If you don’t know it, here is a quick verse about it. It simply says a wise man builds his house on rock while a foolish man builds his house on sand.

The Wise and Foolish Builders

²⁴ “Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. ²⁵ The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. ²⁶ But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. ²⁷ The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.”-Matt 7:24-27 NIV

How many of you just read that passage and thought it was only about building your house on Jesus Christ?  While that is true, there is another message here that cannot be overlooked….an important message that we as Christians, often want to forget or are deceived about.  That message is simply this:  STORMS HIT BOTH HOUSES.

It doesn’t matter if you have built your life on Jesus Christ or if you have built your life around the adversary, the storms of life WILL hit both houses.  What the difference, is, though, is whose house will remain standing when the storm passes and the sun is shining once again.  Do not fool yourselves to think that once you give your life Christ and decide to be a follower of Jesus that the storms will never hit your house….that is a lie of the devil.  How do I know?  Because my house has been hit.  Thank goodness I was in a good place spiritually to realize that storms come to Christians as well as non Christians.  What I learned in the storms of my life is that I am grateful I have a faith built on the Rock, so that when that storm comes, I will remain intact. It is those storms that we need to keep our eyes on Jesus and not the storm.  Much like Peter, we all want to take our eyes off Christ and instead watch the waves.  What would happen if we all decided the storms of life had no power over us and we were going to keep our eyes permanently fixed on the One who can calm those waves?

I recently returned from an impromptu trip to Honduras. Normally, we take teams down for a week at a time, we have months and months of planning, time to raise money, time to get things organized.  This trip, though, was needed outside of those normal “mission trip” weeks.  It was the kind of trip where you don’t have time to plan, raise money, or get your ducks in a row.  It was the kind of trip where a tickets were obtained and we were off and running.  It was while I was there, that God really showed me about the Storms of Life….all through 2 little boys.  These 2 boys met each other for the first time in our hotel. They have so much in common for the young age of 6….read about my experience with them over 2 days.

If you think you are exempt from the Storms of Life, just ask these little guys about storms…..they have so much to teach us old farts.

This is what I posted on social media last weekend:

Something captured my heart today. It was these 2 boys. Boys who are the same age, and recently just met each other but have so much in common…
Both recently lost their mothers to death too early….
Both are now being raised by single fathers (very rare in Honduras)…
Both boys have had Jesus poured in to them their whole life….
Both have the heart of gold.
Today they learned a life lesson while learning to swim…. At 1st in the beginning, they did not want to let go of the side of the pool.. After much coaxing, one finally let go..and doggie paddled 3 feet to where i was waiting with open arms. Of course when one went, the other soon followed. Over the course of 2 days in the swimming pool these 2 young boys went from not wanting to get into the pool to swimming almost 20 yd by themselves….as long as they could see me, their confidence grew and stretched the limits of their trust and faith. When they took their eyes off of me, even for a second, the lost their confidence and began to sink. Of course, I was right there to scoop them up from their sinkfall, and then they would go at it again.
When they were finally exhausted, lungs tuckered out, arms like jello, and they just had no more left to give, I had the chance to hold one on each hip and tell them that today proved they could do anything….as long as their eyes are on the right thing…and that thing is Jesus. I remind them that much like swimming…they we watching for me, but in life, they will have to watch for Jesus and they will have to always keep their on Jesus, because He, like me, in the pool, will always be there to catch them, but if they take their eyes off Him they will fall and sink.
I think they understood that simple concept.
Kids get it.
Friends made for life!
Luis and Jonathan…two boys…two tragedies…two boys I already know God has BIG plans for!

I was trying to think of how to best summarize our latest venture to Honduras, but quite honestly, it’s just so hard to describe.  First of all, let me begin by saying we had an amazing team of 8 women. Each spiritually gifted in their very own unique way. I think that is one reason the trip was so successful.  When you allow God to work through people in the spiritual gifts He gave them, only great things can happen.

It was clear from the get go, that writing and journaling about our trip was the spiritual gift that Carrie Gaxiola had been given. With her permission, I am going to summarize our week through her eyes….the eyes of a first time, out of the country missionary.  I pray her words touch your heart.

Day One: long flights, mechanical delays in Atlanta getting 3 hours off schedule, busy loading supplies in Chuck’s truck, armed guards all over the airport, wonderfully kind Honduran people, participated in a home study, Bible study participants received prayer shawls made by the ladies of our church, adventures in getting lost trying to find the home study and SLEEP! It was a great first day!

Honduras Day 2: Today I learned that Honduran time is “10 minutes” and “10 minutes” equals two hours, at the paint store, at the market, at the restaurant… We learned that a missionary will save all they can to take care of the children, even a few pennies for white paint. We bought colored paint for those precious girls’ room and that was simply enough to make them smile. We have amazing interpreters. Honduras is a beautiful country, I learned that 2 gringas don’t want to walk around the Mercado and not speak the language, even if you’re only 6 feet from our vehicle and lastly, the poorest of the poor love deeply and give the most. My teammates did all the painting and organizing. I played soccer, frisbee and bathed poopy bottoms, but fell in love with the sweetest of God’s babies. I’m beat. And we’ll get up and do it again!! ❤️❤️ Oh and monkeys named Pancho are a little intimidating

Honduras Day #3: I woke up to the church bells ringing this morning. What a beautiful sound. We gathered for breakfast together anticipating a slower day with ministry but not unproductive. We attended our sister church in San Pedro Sula. What beautiful people! I learned that a concrete building in the middle of the barrio is a host to many people worshipping and falling in love with Jesus. No frills, no air conditioning. Just gathered for one purpose. We learned in the Honduran neighborhoods they schedule power outages lasting all day, 8 am to 5 pm. Well, today was the day for this little church to have a power outage. Did they complain? No, not even in 85 degree heat. We all just set out today to do what we came to do… worship God. Well, about 10 minutes into the service, the power came on! I can’t explain what some of us felt at that moment! It was electrifying. We wept at the goodness of God in such a gracious act of His plan of changing a “planned” power outage! Amazing! We left church, our ministry leaders were given funds to buy food, so they went and bought hundreds of pounds of food. We bagged beans and rice to take to the orphanage, river barrio and sponsor families. Jesus fed people. He cared about their needs. Still does; He just uses us to meet those needs. We took a little break and went to the Monkey Park. I still don’t want a monkey for a pet. 🐒 We stopped at a roadside stand, got a real coconut cracked open to drink the milk and fresh pineapple. It’s a beautiful place. I can see past some things that might seem awful to most of us. I see humanity that needs true love. I hope I’m helping to pass on even a little. Until tomorrow…

Honduras Day 4- Post #1. I have to do this in 2 posts today. This one is called Raw Humanity. I have struggled with being a first time mission trip traveler. What would I see, how would I feel, would I just be another “do-gooder” patting myself on the back because I wanted to feel better about myself. Not today. Today I was broken to being speechless. I’m still reeling. Never have I really felt the pain of such raw humanity as I did today. The squalor, the makeshift shacks with no hope for better. Handing out toys, beans and rice, toothbrushes, clothing. What could possibly improve this? One beautiful soul in one of these photos said thank you, God bless you, in Spanish. We hugged and got a kiss of gratitude from this old woman that may have known no other life. Another lady wanted to know if we were giving the duffel bags that held our goods. We said no, we had to have something to put things in when we came back next time. She said, ok, you remember, you will come back. She knew the teams had been before. A little hope in her heart. Another lady said thank you for making us happy-today. In the heart of people is the need to be loved. To be remembered. These people and their circumstances may or may not change. I can’t say I understand it. But Jesus reached out to their hearts and said, I remember you. Today. My prayer is they will wake up in the morning and the next and they will remember. But for today, He made them happy.

Honduras Day #5: part 1.

We started the day with breakfast, visiting with a young man that had been living on the wrong side of life but met Cheryl and her team last year. God has turned his life around! Mario is his name and he has a girlfriend and baby. They tell me he is a new person because of love and the gospel. Next we went to the public school where our sister church’s pastor teaches. The children made us all pictures and welcomed us. We handed out supplies and had a sweet time with the kids. You see, in Honduras, if you can’t purchase a uniform or supplies, you don’t go to school. Period. Many children cannot go to school because of this. There is a photo of two boys looking in at the school gate. They have no means to go and learn. The playground is what you see and the classrooms are fairly simple. Thank God we have what we do! Today I pray these children we continue their education because we helped a little bit. We really are so blessed.

  Mario    !Rocco.  He is still a work in progress, but we make sure we to keep on loving Him!

The public school setting…the teacher, Dina has to supply her students with all of their supplies from her own pocket, so we came in with backpacks and school supplies…and of course, like the American Aunties we felt we were, we also loaded them up with candy…..and left them for Dina!  🙂

Honduras Day 5: Part 2. I’ll call this The Faces of Jeremiah 29:11 Mission. This place is a place where 2 people were called by God to leave what they knew in America and take in the “least of these”. Children who’s parents died, were abused severely in every way, homeless, broken, battered. Society’s throw aways, but not God’s. God’s treasures, the ones His heart breaks for. Children with disabilities (my little friend, Fernando, had a seizure in our arms today 😢), children with severe medical and emotional needs, people of humanity that need love. These are the faces of this house, no wait, this home where love abides. I am in awe of how Chuck and Joyce have hearts so big. I am in awe of how they live day to day seeing God meet their needs for their 40+ babies, children and a few women. I’m in awe of a God who says, even in our pride, He says He is pleased when we care for the orphans and widows. This has been a continually humbling experience. I won’t be the same. I’m not sure what that will look like, but these children have left an imprint on my heart. What is imprinting your heart today? May it be something that will change your world!

{WARNING….Kleenex may be needed here….}

Honduras Day #6: Last day in this beautiful country. What a whirlwind adventure! I have felt every emotion this week: pure joy, overwhelming sadness, smatterings of fear, immense gratitude and a sense of wonder at how a people can live day to day oppressed by their government, some in abject poverty, unknown futures, and so much more. Yet they get up each morning and face the day. We started and ended our day handing out Bibles. In less than 10 minutes we handed out 9 cases (about 220 Bibles) across the street at the park that is always full of people. We are coming home with no Bibles. They are all in the hands of many Hondurans. Thank God. We then took about 45+ children from the Jeremiah 29:11 Home and some of the sponsor children and their families to the most beautiful beach to just play. And they did! It was amazing to hear their laughter, watch their sweet faces, have splash wars with them and just rejoice that they could be kids. You should have heard little Fernando as he sat in the ocean water. He just hummed the whole time, grinned and grinned. The ocean is already my happy place but today it was music I’d never heard; the music of the heart. The heart that longs to be loved and longs to be free. Today those little hearts made beautiful music. Today I’m praying one heart that received a Bible will hear the God of all creation singing over them through His word and they will know True Love. It’s been a good, good trip. Seeds were planted, hearts were touched. Today.

This is FERNANDO.  He cannot speak.  Sometimes words are not necessary!

This young lady has to use a walker to get around, so our team carried her to the water, set her on a plastic tub so she could enjoy the ocean water.

Jenny lives in a wheelchair. She too, was carried to the ocean front so she could expericene just being a kid in the ocean!

Daniel loves showing off.  When we first met Danie last July, he wouldn’t even look at us. Now look at him.  He is ALL MUSCLE!

Sometimes you just have to sit back and say, “WOW, God, You sure do amazing work”

Thank you, Carrie Gaxiola, for sharing your heart.  We believe that God gave you an amazing spirtual gift and we thank you for for being so open and vulnerable in your thoughts and words.

If your heart has been even remotely touched by Carries story and you want to get involved, we would love to have you join our team.  We have lots of room at our table.  It takes a full tribe to run a ministry like ours.  It takes people to be boots on the ground…those who go and do.  It takes those who are willing to stay behind and do all the behind the scenes things, like help with fundraising, social media, grant writing, etc. It takes people willing to stand in the gap and PRAY.  No matter what your spiritual gift is, we have a place for you.

To all of you out there, we at Right Turn Ministries want you to know that we exist because of YOU!  Your continued financial support allows us to go in to Honduras and make an impact for Jesus.  100% of your gift is used to connect people with Christ.  We are proud that we are ministry that can proudly proclaim that.  Our board members willingly donate their personal funds to cover all of the ministry administrative fees.  By doing so, that allows 100% of your gift to go straight to work on connecting people with Christ and not on things like letterhead, websites, and daily business fees. We pay for our own trips to Honduras and we never use ministry funds to cover our own personal expenses.  We are transparent in all we do, and we proud to say that we have received the Gold Seal rating from Guide Star, a governing body who monitors all non profit organizations.

If you would like to be a part of what we are doing, give us a shout out. We would love to have you on our team.

If you would like to make a tax deductible donation, you can do that here, on the website.  We are headed back to Honduras in July 2018 where we will be building a fish pond for the Jeremiah 29:11 Mission House. We anticipate the cost of that to be around $5,000.  If you want to make a difference in the life of a child, then we pray that you will consider giving.  Take a look at the faces above…THESE are the faces that fish pond will feed for years to com.

May God Bless You All!!

Cheryl