Living in Honduras–IRR Style

Sorry for the 3-4 week delay I have been unable to get a decent internet connection. A lot has happened since I have written last. First, a couple of us spent a night in the local fire department here in case they needed help which ended in a not-so-good nights sleep and no calls. The following week we sent every other day in a survival situation which included a day/night in the jungle, a day/night on the shore, and 24 hours in a survival raft in the ocean. From the jungle survival I received a staph infection from a thorn in my right index finger, which is healed after a regiment of antibiotics. The shore survival was uneventful, we all survived. However, on the raft/ocean survival we had a few mishaps. First the boat that we were to be tethered to never showed up (islanders tend to say and not do around these parts, its all part of living in a 3rd world country). Second, we were on a secluded island and decided we were going to all swim the raft out enough to start our survival and we had the raft attached to an anchor. We were all tired by the time we thought we were far enough from the coral in order to be safe from cutting the raft. Well that turned out to be true for the next 11 hours of being sea sick and wet…then at about 12:30 AM we heard the breakers getting closer…12:32 we realize that the anchor has broke and we are floating towards a rather large reef. We made it around the reef and 20 persons are now floating in the open ocean. After floating for about an hour and a half we run aground on the barrier reef around the island of Roatan, we fear that the raft will be punctured on the reef, and pray. Soon after we pray we use various techniques (being that none of us have shoes) to get off of the reef. We float for another hour and see and island with some lights on it. We lit a flare and got no response so we swam for the island, we decided to swim otherwise the current would have taken us past the island and out to the open ocean going towards Cuba. We got ashore only to be met with more corral and some of us were cut up. Thirteen hours after we started we were on this island…what island we didn’t know. In the morning were were met by a bunch of people that said we were on a private island owned by a Texas oil tycoon. They fed us a good breakfast, and we got picked up and headed back. In fact we ended up training some of his employees in medical, and this island is now a possible site for the next group! How God leads! The rest of our time here was spent in various clinics and helping out. We ended up helping an American who works for the higher ups in GM and in turn has offered to donate a vehicle to IRR! We have made various other contacts that may help us later on.

We are now on the last day we are here in Roatan, and we will be moving on to Takoa (not sure on the spelling) and working with Quiet Hour. I’m not sure when I will be able to get on again. I know the summary I have given is a bit jumbled but my time is short here. So, goodbye for now, and I hope everyone is doing well!