Prayer Request - Honduras

Received yesterday from a medical missionary in Honduras:

This first week has proven to be quite difficult and demanding. The situation in the village is serious. There is no work here for the villagers as the economy here depends greatly on the economy in the States. Many have lost their jobs. To top it off this is the planting season for crops and many don't have the money for seed. Even if they did they are experiencing and unusual dry season. This time of year it generally rains everyday. It has not rained since I've been here. It is hot and dry and the vegetation is wilting. The men of the village are beginning to feel desperate. My landlord came to me and asked if I'd consider paying him for a year in advance so he could buy seed. He lost his job and cannot plant his fields. This is a common story here right now and seeioing the desperatness of the people in Sauce is difficult. Please pray that we will get rain. We are in bad need. The farnmers who have planted their crops don't know if the crops will make it though this hot, dry spell.

My house suffered some damage from the earthquake but my landlord and Yul Brinner were able to make the needed repairs beofre I arrived. There is so much dust and dirt on everything however and I continue to clean daily. Others in the village have had significant cracks in their walls but nothing they have not been able to repair.

This week has been difficult for Yul Brinner and his family. His younger brohter Marlon was hit by a car last Tuesday. HE has a fractured skull and a fractured jaw. There is possible a fractured foot. He continues to lay in the public hospital with no help because the doctors and nurses are on strike. Only once in a while a doctor shows up but generally nothing happens. If you can imagine lying in a bed with this type of damage to your body and having no pain medication available and having to walk to the bathroom on a possibly broken foot (the doctor has not read the x-rays yet) that is what this young man is dealing with. Also the few nurses who are in the hospital refuse to help the patients with anything. When Marlon needs to go to the bathroom the nurse tells a guard to go outside and find a family member to come and help him. Because of this patients need a family member who is willing to stay all day and all night outside the hospital. There are no waiting rooms for the family. They must sleep outside. Yul has been there for two days now without a break. Most of his family are women so he has had to take on the majority of the hospital watches. Since I've been here he has slept only one night at home. Also if a famly member who is waiting outside needs to use the bathroom they are not allowed to enter the hospital. They must pay the 2 limpira to use the outside bathroom.

Last night at the hospital I was waiting with Yul and Maria when an ambualnce pulled up. The workers took the patient inside while about 15 family members and friends waited outside in the parking area. After about 15 minutes a doctor stepped out and announced thier family member had died and then went back into the hospital. The group began screaming and crying. Some collapsed to the ground while others where held up by by those in the group. It was difficult to watch this insensitive delivery of death to this family.

In the parking lot also were two men who were carrying around urine collection bags. They had been catherized inside and sent outside for whatever reson to wait. One man was about 60-65 years old and seemed resigned to what was happening. The other man was probably in his mid to late 20's and was embarrased and was trying to hide the bag that was attached to a hose that was attached to his body. As you can see hospital's here are nothing like home and in fact are truly sad. I found myself crying while watching how horribly the poor here are treated.

This is just a small sampling of things I've seen at the public hospital here. The government says it gives free health care to the poor, but this is a lie. They recieve only a bed in a large dirty ward. When Yuls brother needs a test done he has to get in a taxi or in our truck , drive to a private company who charges for the test and then return to the hospital. When he needed blood, two family members had to go donate blood before he could be given blood. OK I'm done venting. This was a different kind of report than usual but I wanted you to be in prayer for the situation.

And on the news yesterday:

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras – A military coup has divided Honduras between two leaders — one recognized by world bodies and another backed by the country's congress, courts and military.

Presidents from around Latin America were gathering in Nicaragua for meetings Monday on how to resolve the first coup in Central America in 16 years, while the European Union offered to help start talks between the two sides.

Once again, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez took center stage, casting the dispute as a rebellion by the region's poor.

"If the oligarchies break the rules of the game as they have done, the people have the right to resistance and combat, and we are with them," Chavez said in the Nicaraguan capital, Managua.

There is a deep rift between the outside world — which is clamoring for the return of democratically elected, but largely unpopular and soon-to-leave-office President Manuel Zelaya — and congressionally designated successor Roberto Micheletti.

Micheletti rejected any outside interference and declared a two-night curfew, while Chavez vowed that "we will overthrow (Micheletti)."

Zelaya was seized by soldiers and hustled aboard a plane to Costa Rica early Sunday, just hours before a rogue referendum Zelaya had called in defiance of the courts and Congress, and which his opponents said was an attempt to remain in power after his term ends Jan. 27.

The Honduran constitution limits presidents to a single 4-year term, and Zelaya's opponents feared he would use the referendum results to try to run again, just as Chavez reformed his country's constitution to be able to seek re-election repeatedly.

Micheletti said the army acted on orders from the courts, and the ouster was carried out "to defend respect for the law and the principles of democracy." But he threatened to jail Zelaya and put him on trial if he returned. Micheletti also hit back at Chavez, saying "nobody, not Barack Obama and much less Hugo Chavez, has any right to threaten this country."

Earlier, Obama said in a statement he was "deeply concerned" about the events, and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Zelaya's arrest should be condemned.

"I call on all political and social actors in Honduras to respect democratic norms, the rule of law and the tenets of the Inter-American Democratic Charter," Obama's statement read.

For those conditions to be met, Zelaya must be returned to power, U.S. officials said.

Two senior Obama administration officials told reporters that U.S. diplomats were working to ensure Zelaya's safe return.

The officials said the Obama administration in recent days had warned Honduran power players, including the armed forces, that the U.S. would not support a coup, but Honduran military leaders stopped taking their calls.

In Brussels, the EU's External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner urged "all parties involved to resolve their differences peacefully." She said the EU's executive Commission "stands ready" to help start the talks.

Officials said EU envoys were meeting their Central American counterparts in Brussels Monday to discuss the coup and what implications it could have on free trade negotiations between the EU and Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama.

EU nations refused to recognize the coup and demanded a return of the deposed president.

Zelaya said soldiers seized him in his pajamas at gunpoint in what he called a "coup" and a "kidnapping." The United Nations, the Organization of American States and governments throughout Latin America called for Zelaya to be allowed to resume office.

"I want to return to my country. I am president of Honduras," Zelaya said Sunday before traveling to Managua on one of Chavez's planes for regional meetings of Central American leaders and Chavez's leftist alliance of nations, known as ALBA.

Zelaya's call for civil disobedience and peaceful resistance appeared to gain only modest support in Honduras, where a few hundred people turned out at government buildings to jeer soldiers and chant "Traitors!"

Some of Zelaya's Cabinet members were detained by soldiers or police following his ouster, according to former government official Armando Sarmiento. And the rights group Freedom of Expression said leftist legislator Cesar Ham had died in a shootout with soldiers trying to detain him.

A Honduran Security Department spokesman said he had no information on Ham.

Armored military vehicles with machine guns rolled through the streets of the Honduran capital and soldiers seized the national palace, but no other incidents of violence were reported.

Sunday afternoon, Congress voted to accept what it said was Zelaya's letter of resignation, with even the president's former allies turning against him. Micheletti, who as leader of Congress is in line to fill any vacancy in the presidency, was sworn in to serve until Zelaya's term ends.

Micheletti belongs to Zelaya's Liberal Party, but opposed the president in the referendum.

Micheletti acknowledged that he had not spoken to any Latin American heads of state, but said, "I'm sure that 80 to 90 percent of the Honduran population is happy with what happened today."

The Organization of American States approved a resolution Sunday demanding "the immediate, safe and unconditional return of the constitutional president, Manuel Zelaya."

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon condemned the coup and "urges the reinstatement of the democratically elected representatives of the country," said his spokeswoman, Michele Montas.

The Rio Group, which comprises 23 nations from the hemisphere, issued a statement condemning "the coup d'etat" and calling for Zelaya's "immediate and unconditional restoration to his duties."

And Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou canceled a planned visit to Honduras, one of just 23 countries that still recognize the self-governing island.

Coups were common in Central America for four decades reaching back to the 1950s, but Sunday's ouster was the first military power grab in Latin America since a brief, failed 2002 coup against Chavez. It was the first in Central America since military officials forced President Jorge Serrano of Guatemala to step down in 1993 after he tried to dissolve Congress and suspend the constitution.

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Associated Press writers Marianela Jimenez in San Jose, Costa Rica, and Calvin Woodward in Washington contributed to this report.

Please pray for the people of Honduras.