Tomorrow is the big day! Well, it’s another big day, anyway. We have lots of them here. We’re getting ready for a visit from our founding president of Bible Basics International, Dr. Eugene Priddy; our current president, Rev. Evan Drake; the vice president of International Ministries, Rev. Herman Meister; and BBI’s Spanish director, Rev. Samuel Montoya. This weekend is the celebration of 50 years of ministry for Dr. Glen Solomon, the president of Baptist Ministries here, and these men are coming to participate. They will also be conducting some seminars in the days to come. Herman even said he would help fix the mower and then use it if we get it going.

At the bottom of this entry, you’ll find this week’s HRGS Update. Once again, we had way too much fun with that! But first, let me tell you another reason why being flexible isn’t enough for Roatán missionaries. We need to be liquid. That’s why I’ve included this sunset I shot a few weeks ago to help calm me down.

In an effort to get things looking a little less “lived in,” I wanted to finish setting up the new work station I’m building for our studio operations. That project has been sprawled all over the reception desk and the plan was to get it done and into place on Wednesday. I didn’t want our president to walk in and have the first thing he saw be computer parts scattered all over. He probably wouldn’t mind, but I would. However, at about noon on Tuesday, the florescent light in the on air studio quit. It would have been nice if it was just burned out bulbs, so that was obviously not the case.

First thing, Wednesday morning, I went to the shop to get my electrician’s tool belt. When I got to the shop, it was hot, hot, hot!! No air conditioner. The line conditioner that we had installed recently blew its fuse, probably because of abuse from the power company the night before. I briefly lamented the fact that it uses a fuse instead of a breaker. (Peter hadn’t noticed that when he bought it because he thought it was the same as the one he’d gotten previously for his house.) Then I dug out a 10 amp fuse, put it in the fuse holder, and found out that the fuse holder was just a tiny bit smaller than the fuse. I tried to pull it back out and the end came off the glass fuse. When I tried to pull out the remains of the fuse, they just crumbled. Sigh! So much for hurrying up to replace the light ballast so I could get back to what I needed to be doing.

I rooted around and found a fuse holder that takes a normal sized fuse and soldered it temporarily in place until we can get the right circuit breaker and install it. I fired up the air conditioner and the compressor did not run. Now what!! I eventually found a loose connection in the control section of the A/C and was finally able to get back to the original interruption, replacing the ballast in the on-air studio light fixture. I think I got to work on the computer for about 30 minutes Wednesday. Oh well! Since today is our day off, I didn’t touch it today. I still have till about 11:00 tomorrow morning to check all the satellite downloads and get that computer wrapped up and put in a better place. No pressure.

We had a mostly glorious week this past week with one major exception. You’ll remember Travis and Emily Mitten who had to return to the U.S. because of Emily’s incredibly difficult pregnancy. We learned last Wednesday that they lost the baby. She is still carrying it and and we are all praying that her body will release it soon and naturally because she is so weak from her illness that surgery is pretty risky right now.

Travis was here with us when Emily learned of the baby’s death. He and his brother, John, had come (along with John’s two oldest daughters) to finish cleaning and packing their house. Almost all their big items are in a storage building now. Thanks to tremendous help from some friends, they finished quickly and, on Wednesday morning, we all went to the beach. When I got back to my phone I had a message from Emily to have Travis call home right away. You can read Travis’ perspective here: Light in Our Hearts. We also talk about it in the HRGS Update which you’ll find at the bottom of this post.

That’s in contrast to an otherwise fabulous week. We are now into our second week of all day English and all day Spanish. We only had one little surprise. The instructions for our automation software made no mention that it only runs reliably on one processor. So we had a couple crashes before Peter stumbled across that information on their web site and I disabled one of the processor cores on each computer. Rock solid now. I’m putting the finishing touches on the replacement FM broadcast computer now. There’s more info in the HRGS Audio Update at the end of this post.

Partly related to that project is my desire to make a trip over to Utila. I need to see what is keeping the transmitter from going to full power. I also need to get the phone line fixed so we can again use the remote control and monitoring system. And, since we will soon have a team here replacing guy wires, I need to see to a few preliminaries related to that. I had hoped to go Monday, but events conspired against me. Mildred has been sick, mostly sick in bed, for several days. Now I think I may be getting it, but so far, it seems like a much milder case than what she has. But when I woke up at 4:40 to get ready to go to the ferry, my throat was pretty sore, my body was pretty tired, and the waves were really big. Riding those waves the way I was feeling didn’t seem like something that would lead to a productive time on Utila. I hope I can get over there before the end of the week. Mildred still doesn’t feel good and her voice is way too shot to do anything with a microphone, so I’ve taken on some of her duties. Of course she had already done some of my studio work during the full court press to get the dual language project on line on time, so I guess I owed her.

When we went to the beach last Wednesday, the wind was blowing the wrong way for good snorkeling, but it was still a beautiful day. I put together a little photo gallery showing some of our contrasts here on the island. There are pictures from where we went last week, West Bay, which is one of the finest beaches in the world. For contrast, I took some shots of the beach in front of our house. Since we are on the normally windward side of the island, cleaning the beach is a non stop chore for this part of the island. Lastly, we received a visit yesterday from one of the largest cruise ships in the world – the Norwegian Epic. NCL just took delivery on her about a month ago, and this ship is huge.

There is plenty more to tell about, but no time to write it and you wouldn’t have time to read it. Here is the photo gallery. I hope the captions explain things for you. Don’t forget to scroll down and listen to the Update. Thanks for your prayers.

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The title for this blog entry is also the name of a very popular song here on Radio HRGS. It’s sung by a southern gospel group that, in my humble opinion, can’t carry a tune in a bucket. Don’t get me wrong – I like southern gospel, but these folks are not even close to my favorite. But almost all of our listeners love this song and, indeed, we all do have a great deal for which to be thankful. The words really resonate with our believing listeners, most of whom are incredibly poor. They always seem to be aware of and grateful for God’s mercy. Let me tell you how He has shown me His mercy, wisdom, and power just this week.

There is a scene in the Pixar animated movie, The Incredibles, where Bob (Mr. Incredible’s secret identity) comes home and notices the neighbor boy sitting on his tricycle staring at him for the second day in a row. Bob says, “What are you waiting for?” The boy pauses for a moment and says, “I don’t know. Something amazing, I guess.” I’m just like that little boy and I’ve been waiting for God to do something amazing – again. Here’s the story.

Back in November, I did something abusive to my right shoulder and it just never seemed to get any better. Most of the time it felt fine other than a nagging minor ache. But if I moved it the wrong way it just exploded in excruciating pain that went away in a minute or two. This Tuesday, I finally went to a clinic and a doctor checked me out and concluded that I’d torn the rotator cuff. That’s what I was afraid of! He said it would probably need surgery, but I’d want to start with an MRI and to consult an orthopedic doctor. If it needed surgery, I’d lose the use of that arm for six weeks and then start rehabilitation. I figured that I would need to do that when we were in the States on furlough, but didn’t like that idea a whole lot. The doctor said the MRI would be about $2,000 and the surgery would cost around $20,000. That’s a big ouch when your insurance doesn’t cover U.S. medical costs unless it’s something that happens in the States.

It was a pretty grim picture. In fact, the doctor, who was serving at a Christian clinic, suggested that I not say anything to the insurance company until I get to the U.S. and then claim that I hurt it while up there. I’m not sure if he was saved or not, but I’m sure he meant well. Either way, I was not the least bit tempted to go along with that idea. First of all, how can I expect God to bless me when I’m willfully disobeying Him? I’ve seen Him reward honesty that can be costly too many times to go that route. And, more importantly, how does God get glory if I dishonestly finagle my way around this situation without letting Him show His stuff? Even if I came up with an honest way to accomplish my goal without depending on Him, I would be robbing Him of the glory that He is due. So I told God that I was in His hands and asked Him to guide my steps.

That’s why I felt like the little boy in The Incredibles, waiting expectantly once again for God to do something amazing. I had no idea how He was going to solve my dilemma, but I knew He had a plan already. He was not making emergency plans – He knew from before creation that this would happen and how it would turn out.

So on Wednesday I went to see a doctor friend, Dr. Raymond Cherrington, to see what he thought about me getting an MRI over on the coast. I was also hoping he would give me a second opinion. He suggested that I see an orthopedic doctor before I go through all of the expense of an MRI. I said I would love to, but where would I find one? Doctor Raymond said, “Right here if you can wait a few minutes.” Wow!! An orthopedic specialist had an appointment to see one of Dr. Raymond’s patients in about 10 minutes right there in Dr. Raymond’s office and I just had to wait for him to finish with her. Coincidence? Sorry, I don’t believe in them.

Dr. Roger Domingez was absolutely certain that I had NOT damaged the rotator cuff. But he said I did tear a muscle and, because I was babying the arm, my shoulder muscles had already started to atrophy. He asked me to go to the Anthony’s Key Clinic the next morning (yesterday) and get an x-ray and then come back in the afternoon to Dr. Raymond’s office for another consult and some kind of treatment that he didn’t clearly explain. The x-ray was to make sure I had not pinched the muscle in the shoulder joint.

So I got the x-ray yesterday morning and took it to show to Dr. Roger in the afternoon. He said the joint looked fine and proceeded to pump my shoulder full of steroids. Then he worked it around a little bit and told me that I’m supposed to toss a ball gently at a wall three times a day for five minutes each for a week and then go back for another treatment. The total cost so far is about $80 and I think I’ll need to pay about another $55 when I go back next Thursday. If this treatment is successful, it sure will be a lot cheaper than surgery!

If I had followed the first doctor’s advice, I’d still be dreading a nasty operation, and my shoulder would continue to pain me and lose more and more strength and flexibility. Once in the U.S. I’d have visited an orthopedic doctor, who would probably have ordered a $2,000 MRI to protect himself. Even without the surgery and even with lying to get insurance coverage, the deductible would have been far, far more than what it is costing this way. So, please do not try to tell me that integrity does not pay. This is just one of many times where I’ve seen God do amazing things for those who trust Him no matter what the risk – even in my own life.

That’s the big news for this week. On a slightly less dramatic front, but still a little exciting, we had a bit of an ant scare on Wednesday. Mildred told me that she saw a big column of ants marching along the side of our house. When I went to investigate, I found something apparently out of a science fiction movie. A 2-3 inch wide column of big, black ants started from somewhere off the radio station property to the east, came across the lane, through the lawn, across our driveway, hugged the side of our house, went up behind the gable end of our roof into the attic, came back down, went behind the house and down a land crab hole next to the propane tanks. There were several big balls of ants along the way like the one in the picture below. The biggest one was just visible up behind the gable in our attic.

I grabbed two big, fresh cans of bug spray and declared war. I emptied one can and nearly emptied the other. I decided to keep a little in reserve, just in case. The next day, the ants were still marching. There must have been trillions of them. But they had decided to march toward a different destination and now they are finally gone to wherever they were headed. I followed them for about 30 yards before losing them in the undergrowth. I must have killed several million of them and, as far as I could tell, I didn’t even make a dent in their numbers.

For contrast, I’m also uploading a Roatán beauty picture. The first time I went to see Dr. Cherrington, I walked. It’s a little over a mile each way, so not bad at all. As I arrived back at home, the sun was setting behind the hills and the Celebrity Triumph cruise ship was headed for it’s next destination. So I grabbed the camera and captured this image from the porch of the radio station. Our house is just on the other side of the basketball court.

Well, this has gotten long, but I wanted to give you the full story on the shoulder so you could praise the Lord right along with me. Many of you have been praying about this shoulder and I’m grateful. I suspect that there have been lots of prayers for wisdom too. Have a great weekend, and God bless.

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I did some mud hauling this week – not in the truck – under it. I’ve been working for a while on a method of preventing dead air on the radio if something happens to our network or to our audio equipment. I’ve mentioned it before and said back on New Year’s Day that I had it working. But that was just some test audio, not the real thing. I didn’t know it, of course, but I was about to shoot myself in the foot. Early this week, I converted the music we want to use to mp3 and Peter made a “technical difficulty” announcement. I put them all on the thumb drive and made a play list. I was good to go, or so I thought.

So, what does that have to do with hauling mud under the truck? Well, I had to get the thumb drive to the transmitter site up on Dixon Hill. While many of you have been shivering and shoveling, we have been splishing and splashing. After two weeks of almost non-stop rain, the steep road to our transmitter site was very nearly impassible. Travis went along with me on Tuesday and I told him on the way up there that I hadn’t had that much fun going up the hill in a long time. Much of the way we were dragging bottom in the mud and were rarely pointed in the direction we were traveling as I kept if floored in 2nd gear in 4WD low range. Yee haw! We were flinging mud all over the place.

Then came a series of frustrations. First of all, I did something wrong in making the play list and it did not work at all. I finally got that sorted out and it worked great, but the music sounded terrible. I tried all sorts of things, but was not able to get it working properly. So Travis and I slithered our way back down the hill.

I went straight to my friend Mark Elwin to have his guys wash the truck. It was quite a mess. They guy who pressure washed the underside was thoroughly impressed. He said he didn’t think he’d ever seen that much mud under a vehicle. In fact, when I left, Mark thanked me, with his tongue firmly planted in his cheek, for bringing him all that dirt. Yesterday I found and fixed the problems with the mp3 files – or so I hoped – and took the thumb drive back up to try again. Praise the Lord! It finally works and is actually in service. Now, if we lose our network connection or any of our studio equipment fails, we will not have dead air. Dead air is the bane of all radio and television broadcasters. And, needless to say, the truck needed another good bath, so it got one today. Not that it will last long.

Next week will be a busy week. Sandi and Peter will be away, so I’ll be handling Sunrise Serenade every day and Mildred and I will share duties for Request and Dedication. I also have an urgent electrical project. We have not had enough light in front of the station building for a long time. Recently, a neighbor was robbed right in front of the station. As I understand it, it was after dark. Romel was still in the studios unaware that anything was going on. Someone was hiding in the entry to the station and robbed the neighbor man as he passed by. Due to some construction not related to the radio station, we do not have electricity to our front porch, so I need to get power and light to that area as soon as possible. I hope you will keep praying for safety here as the crime rate on the island is just exploding. Also pray for wisdom as we consider various options – none of them ideal – for increasing the security of the station and the homes here.

Now for some photos. Most of these are of the incredible surf we had on the other side of the island on Sunday. This should explain why the ferry was not operating. The other two pictures are of cruise ships. It’s rare to see three at once. Actually, that morning I saw four at once as I left the house. Two were at anchor in Coxen Hole, one was on it’s way into Coxen Hole, and the fourth was approaching the Carnival dock up in Dixon Cove. I believe we had five here all together that day, which is great for this struggling economy.

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Well, it looks like rainy season is here. After Ida passed by, it just kept on raining. So the island is green again, colors are muted and saturated at the same time, and the mosquitoes are as thick as … well, mosquitoes.

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As I write this, Peter and Sandi’s Nissan Trooper is up on jack stands, minus all four wheels. Apparently, no one in Honduras sells the right length wheel studs to match the aluminum wheels they sell here. Since the original studs are too short and our friend Mark can’t locate the right length ones, he got different wheels. These wheels have bigger holes so that Mark can use special nuts that will reach inside the hole and grab enough threads to hold the wheel on. They should be done in a few hours, and we will finally have two vehicles for three families again instead of just one. With all the problems that vehicle has had over the past few years, I’m thinking of suggesting to Peter that he name it “Lucky.”

But Travis has a good lead, actually three of them, on possible vehicles. They are all in Tegucigalpa, so he is planning to go there next week. I will probably go along, in part to keep him company, and in part because I’m in the mood for a little get-away. Please pray that we would have safe travels and that one of those vehicles would be just right for them and that he would make the right decision. Also pray that the station would operate smoothly while I’m gone.

Speaking of the Mitten family, little Caroline had her second birthday a few days ago. But she wasn’t feeling good at the time, so mommy and daddy moved the celebration to last night. They invited us and the Avellas to their house for spaghetti, but the power went off here about 10:30 yesterday morning. Since they don’t have a generator, Emily could not bake a cake. Then, as the time approached and the house got darker and darker, they asked if they could have a change of venue. So the party wound up being here at our house and we all had a great time. As you can see from one of the pictures, Caroline didn’t quite know what to do with her ice cream. I didn’t have the camera ready in time to get a shot of her with the candles in the ice cream. Daddy finally had to blow them out for her. I’m sure that, having three older sisters, she’ll be an expert at all that birthday stuff next time her turn comes around. Oh, and the electricity? It finally came back somewhere around 7:30 that night, so at least they had power when they got home.

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Some of you might have noticed that the pod casting isn’t working here for our Audio Updates. I’m working on that and hope to have it ready for next week’s Update. This new theme Jesse set us up with has lots and lots of buttons to push, so I’m having fun experimenting during what little spare time I can find. Now that Travis is more up to speed, I feel a lot less pressure to work long hours every day. Now I just work long hours for special occasions.

In fact, I claimed Tuesday as a mental health day. We had visitors from the cruise ship and, since I didn’t have urgent work to do after they got here, I spent most of the day with them. They asked me so many questions about HRGS and the life and culture here that, at the end of the day, my throat was slightly sore as if I’d just preached. Scott and Kim Greenfield attend an Evangelical Free Church in New Jersey that supports the Priddys and the Prudens who are in our home office in Florida. Scott and Kim were a delight and we soon felt like old friends.

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Well, I don’t think I want to spend our whole day off banging on this keyboard. I think I should take Mildred shopping and get out of the house for a while. Also, her birthday is Saturday, so I need to think about something to help commemorate the day. To say God blessed me with a fantastic wife would be the understatement of the ages. Thanks for your prayers.