Mission Honduras LeMars - Update
Involvement over the past years
- Assisted Briar Cliff University water project in Santa Rosa - February, 2010
- Shipped container of supplies (clothes, medical supplies, school
supplies, shoes, sewing materials, toys, blankets, etc.)
- Purchased Homocue slides
- Airfare for Marny Rivera to attend MHL's establishment of Illich
Foundation meeting
- Purchase of 190 pairs of children's shoes
- Return of Isidro Martinez's cremated remains to family in Honduras
- Paid 2 months' salaries for clinic stafffs of El Guante and Suyatel
- Creation of Illich Foundation
- Medical bills for Jarmi, Illich, Nelli, Elpidio, Dania, Cynthia, Yesenia,
and young boy with Cerebral Palsy
- Assisted with water projects in El Junco, Monterrey, La Guaruma,
Quebrada, and Vallecillo
- Emergency food in
Montaña
de la Flor due to drought
- 3 laptop computers for work and educational purposes
- Spanish children's books for La Florida school
- Aided with shipment costs of 4 food containers, which also included
clothes, shoes, and medical supplies
- Illich - special medicines
- Purchased 750 packets of Plumpy Nut and 750 packets of Supplemental
Plumpy for extremely malnourished children
- Assisted Gehlen Catholic Student Mission Team La Florida Water Project -
Spring, 2010
Other Projects
Richard E. Seivert, director of Mission Honduras LeMars, recently said the not-for-profit agency, working here in Le Mars, continues its mission to improve the lives of the poor in
several areas of Honduras.
From 2003 to 2004 donations to MHL allowed us to not only build the clinic
and the annex but to add many of the necessary items needed for use by the doctors and nurses on staff.
In the summer of 2005, the village of El Guante finished
construction of an annex to the clinic. According to Seivert, the Ministry of
Health and World Bank would not allow the staff to use the x-ray unit right in
the clinic because special walls had not been constructed. Therefore, we decided
to move the unit to its own small building outside the main clinic. Then, 7 more
villages joined the health association resulting in the need for even more room in the clinic. They then obtained an ambulance from a charitable organization in Europe. The health promoter also needed an office space, and we ran out of room to store medicines. Therefore, the village appealed to MHL
for funds to construct this annex. It houses the x-ray unit, a medicine storage room, an office for the health promoter, a meeting room for village gatherings, and a garage for the ambulance. This, according to Seivert, freed up 3 rooms in the current clinic giving the doctors more room to deal with patients. Seivert said it
was a joy to raise this kind of money because he knew the good that would come from it. Le Mars
can be proud of the support it has given MHL over the years. "It is amazing when you think about it," Seivert said. The
mission team from Briar Cliff University in Sioux City actually started the construction of the new annex,
November 2004, by digging the trenches for the footings. Seivert noted there were 19 on the B.C. team with 6 different faiths involved.
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Alone we can do so
little.
Together we can do so much.
~ Helen Keller |
Briar Cliff University Mission Team digging trenches for annex
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The finished annex just to the left of the clinic |
MHL continues to support other projects as well.
Seivert stated that the Gehlen Catholic student team of 2003 completed our first ‘water project,’ in the village of Las Lajitas. Also
in 2003, MHL teamed up with the Le Mars Iowa Rotary Club which paid for the entire water project in La Nueva Concepcion. Seivert said the project in La Nueva Concepcion was dedicated on Saturday, January 15th, with Lorie Nussbaum, past president of the Le Mars
Rotary Club in attendance. It was a joy to be part of this ceremony, noted Seivert. I couldn’t wait to watch Lorie, in the name of the Le Mars Rotary Club, participate in this dedication. It was wonderful.
Results have been amazing. Since the finish of this water project,
diarrhea has decreased from 43% to 17% daily. Clean, potable water means
everything to these people.
  
 
Seivert also stated MHL and will fund more water projects
in the upcoming years. Basically MHL pays for the purchase of pumps, tanks, and tubing from the wells to a central location in each village. The villagers
work alone or with a mission team to do the water project.
Seivert stated that MHL continues to reach into other areas
besides health and water. We had a relationship with the sewing school and
wood carving school in Sulaco, according to Seivert. The goal had been to help
them help themselves. Many of those girls, Seivert stated, the girls that graduated
from the sewing school either went into one of the sweat shops in Tegucigalpa or,
if they did not have a sewing skill, wound
up on the streets in Tegucigalpa, and often got involved in prostitution. It was
great to help them get a better start at life. Seivert stated that the average girl makes just under $3.00 per 10 hour day working in the shops in Tegucigalpa.
Many Honduran schools now offer classes in these skills, so the sewing and wood
carving schools in Sulaco have now been closed.
 
carvings from the wood carving school in Sulaco
 
 
The above pictures are from the Sulaco and Montana de la Flor areas of our food
initiative
Seivert thanks all those who have donated to MHL since its beginning. He said, ‘Together we have done wonderful things for the poor of Honduras.’ Seivert stated the organization is forging ahead and, with the help of the good people of Le Mars and the surrounding area, we can do even more.
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