I thank my God every time I remember you. In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now. (Philippians 1:3-5, NIV)
We give all glory and honour to the Lord for your partnering with us. Without your support and especially your prayers, our ministry would never have been possible. We give our heartfelt special thanks to all of you for your sacrificial giving.
For many reasons, 2020 will be a year we’ll never forget. We were faced with challenges no one was prepared for that changed the way we live and how we connect with each other. As we look back on 2020, we welcome 2021 with many expectations for ministry and life in general.
We pray that even though we live in a time of unprecedented changes in our personal lives and church communities, all of us will have a blessed new year full of the assurance that God is leading us through the hard challenges we are facing.
Certainly it has been a difficult experience this year, but things are better on the island. Since we are no longer locked down on Roatan, islanders, especially those working with tourism, are finding ways to survive until tourism returns. There are still many families in need, but it is not quite as desperate as before. At the moment we are moving the kitchen to a smaller space with the purpose of cooking once a month to support families in need, if we can.
Helping our church members
New kitchen
The space the community kitchen was functioning in will be used for the recycling project that John Delancey is developing.
Impact of Covid 19 in Honduras and Roatan
To update you on the impact of Covid 19 on Honduras, at the moment we have 132,414 people infected. There have been 3,344 deaths and 60.056 people have recovered.
We in Roatán have a few cases of Covid 19; they are recovering at the hospital, and the Covid center will be open again if cases increase. We continue with the biosecurity regulations and we are very optimistic.
Roatan Episcopal Church
At Episcopal/Anglican Church in Roatan our buildings continue to be open as we comply with all the biosecurity requirements. We celebrate Evening Prayer every Sunday, we have a Bible Study during the week, but we see the need to include other ministries such as Sunday school, youth ministry, etc.
Rev. Nelson and Kara Mejia
During the Christmas season we delivered bags of groceries to the church families, worth about CA$25, and we also smoked chicken, one per family, to support the economy in the season. The money was donated by the Anglican Church in Campbellton N.B. The families appreciate this very timely support, as do we.
On the financial side, we continue to be very positive and to pray and praise God with faith and thanksgiving. We also ask you to continue to pray about our finances, that for the rest of the year our support will stabilize and be sufficient to cover our needs. At the moment our balance is very low. Therefore, please consider sending a special offering to cover our expenses and needs.
To donate now, please click on the following link (or copy and paste it into your browser):
Or you can visit the Diocese of Fredericton’s website (www.anglican.nb.ca) then go to “Donate” for various ways to give online. Be sure to select “Honduras Mission Fund”.
Cheques should be made payable to “The Diocesan Synod of Fredericton” and sent to: Anglican Diocesan Synod of Fredericton, 115 Church Street, Fredericton, NB E3B 4C8
Phone: (506) 459-1801
All cheques should have “Honduras Mission” noted on the reference line.
We know that with the global impact of the pandemic it is difficult for everyone in the world. That said, we greatly appreciate your prayer and financial support to date and trust that you will continue to support us.
Please continue to pray for:
1. Please continue to pray for mainland Honduras at a difficult time caused by Covid 19, and Eta followed by Iota; many families are still not able to return to their houses, and others will need to rebuild their entire house.
2. Pray for Stephen Mejia Thompson, our son as he continues studying at Providence University College in Manitoba.
3. Continued and stable financial support for the next years as we continue to serve the Lord in Roatán, Honduras.
4. The ongoing construction in Coxen Hole. Pray for the remaining installation stages: Cement concrete for the floor at the moment.
5. Our congregations: St. Peter by the Sea in Brick Bay, and Emmanuel in Coxen Hole, that we can embrace the new year with a different way of worship, but focus on Jesus Christ.
6. Please pray for the Rev. Robert Browning and for his ministry to English-speakers in Eastern Roatán.
7. Evangelism and practical outreach in the local communities in the midst of the pandemic.
8. For leadership for the Church in Roatán that embraces the new challenges as we serve in the Kingdom of God.
9. The Episcopal Church in Honduras, for the process toward self-sufficiency to be continued in 2021-25
Thank you to all who have faithfully prayed and faithfully given to support this incredible work of ministering to the people in our congregations.
Matthew 25:40: “Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.” Your prayers and continued support enable us to continue touching people’s lives with Jesus’ love.
With the library project coming to a successful conclusion in 2019, my mind began to turn in a new direction. Over the years I have seen first hand the love and passion students and adults have for Music, Dance, and Drama, nowhere more so than in the schools annual Music, Dance and Drama competition, and more recently as hosts to West Ankole Diocese church choir competitions in the same category. But more than this there have many examples over the year of the students love for music and a desire to learn and develop their talent, whether it is the choir, or learning the key board. We have been very fortunate for a number of students who taught themselves how to play the keyboard and helped facilitate chapel worship. It seemed now was the time to give them a great opportunity. So I began to dream a bit about a program for Music, Dance and Drama. A program that would also include opportunities to learn to play a variety of musical instruments, particularly the keyboard but including guitar and drums, and revitalising the school brass band.
So this is what I came up with …..
Architects Artistic Drawings of Music Department L-R Band/Dance/Drama Rehearsal Room; Electronic Keyboard Lab; Choral Rehearsal Room; Ensemble Room.
Boys dorm in background; St. Andrews Church foreground.
For those of you have known me and have supported this ministry over the years, you know I’m always prepared to dream a bit, always ready with a plan to match, but never big on the details like a time frame, other than God’s time. But always ready to take the first step and see where it goes from there.
So in January 2020 I resolved that we should take the first step and see what happens. And so we did.
Step one was to clear the space where the new music department was to be constructed.
It was a great start to the new school year! The transformation continues!
As we prepare new site for construction (as well as harvest timbers), we were joined today by Chairman of BOG Lay Canon Freedom James and my long time friend and colleague, Rev. Canon Caleb Twinamatsiko, former Headteacher of Bishop McAllister College to break ground for our new music department project. Praise God for this wonderful start to the new year!
By March we were under way with construction of the foundation for the Choral Rehearsal Room. Praise God for this incredible development.
By mid – March we were making steady progress ….
By the end of March we had reached the first ring beam. Praise God!
With the coming of Covid and school closure work came to a halt. But only for a short time we hope and pray! We are so grateful for everyones financial support which has brought this far.
Greetings from Uganda! It is has turned out to be a year none of us would ever have anticipated. We got off to a great start in February. Students had reported for the new school year and had quickly settled in to the school routine, the library was opened and being used for the first time, and even work had begun on the new music department. We were all full of great optimism for what 2020 had in store for us.
It wasn’t long before news of Covid began to trickle in to us, but like everyone around the world we had no sense of how bad this was going to be. I was still planning to travel home in March, and everything was going smoothly at school. At the beginning of March I could see travel was getting complicated so cancelled my trip, and tried to prepare the school for what might be coming our way. No one could believe me, but in less than three weeks all schools were closed in Uganda.
Again there was no sense of urgency, all of us expected this to be a short term thing, and we would reopen within a months time. Well within in a months time I found myself giving away a month worth of food (that was meant to take us to the end of term)that was in the store before it spoiled. As the one month became two, then three months and so forth I began to panic fearing what this was going to do to the school and the impact it would have on the staff and students. By July I found it necessary to launch an appeal for help.
The response was tremendous. I’m so grateful for the positive response I received from the many Churches, groups and individuals who have supported the school for so many years. The funds that have been sent and the funds that are on the way are going to make a great difference in the coming months and into the new year.
In October he government decided in its wisdom schools should partially open, and that finalists could return to school. This means the senior students of each section (elementary, middle school, and high school) would return and complete their school year and sit final exams. For many private schools like Bishop McAllister partial opening would be very challenging financially. The number of students returning would not cover operating costs, even with cut backs, before even considering the accumulated costs of maintaining schools while closed or the costs of implementing the SOP’s issued by the Ministry of Education. Some private schools chose to simply not open.
But thanks be to God Bishop McAllister College was not in the same position as others. Because of our unique facilities and financial support from overseas we have been able to reopen relatively smoothly. There were a couple of hectic weeks trying to put everything in place, restructuring and organizing teachers who were being called back, and helping them prepare to adjust to new working conditions and even subjects/topics they may have not been teaching prior to the schools closing.
I’m happy to report that on October 15th we successfully reopened for finalists. We were inspected a few days before to see that we had met all the new SOP’s, and we were given a certificate allowing us to open. One of the big challenges for most schools was how to meet the requirement of social distancing in classrooms. For many schools it meant taking one class and dividing it into five classes, multiply the teaching lessons and cost by the same number. But as I mentioned our facilities saved us. While I might never anticipated this, the library now houses the two classes from middle school, the dining hall the high school class, and the Chapel of St. John the Evangelist the elementary class.
It was a whole new world for students (and teachers) as they arrived at the gate.
Masks must be on before entering (and worn at all times). The next step was to have your temperature checked, then wash your hands and have your property sprayed. Throughout the school we have placed new hand washing stations at dorms, classrooms, and kitchen to encourage frequent hand washing, and signs and posters are scattered every where offering reminders of what we should be doing. Wearing our masks, washing our hands, not touching our face, and social distancing. So far we off to a good start. Staff and students will have their temperature checked on a daily basis.
The finalist program will take us up until May 3rd when the last exam will be completed (normally they are completed early December).
As for all the lower classes we don’t know what the future holds. There are hints and rumours that all students will report back to school in January. The Ministry of Education is now in the process of reinspecting schools to see how well the SOP’s were implemented and maintained. As there have been no serious problems since schools reopened in October I’m optimistic that some additional classes if not all of them will be allowed to return. The one difficulty I see would be is whether or not it is possible to maintain the SOP’s with an increased number of students present on campus.
No doubt the road ahead is long, and will be full of challenges. But I’m confident that we are prepared to meet and overcome what ever comes our way. Of course none of this would be possible without the prayers and financial support that has provided us with such wonderful facilities, and the financial support that has come in response to our appeal for assistance.
On behalf of everyone here, thank you so much for your continued love and support.
