Mission to Taulabe, Honduras: July 2018

Dear friends, family, and followers,

A year ago, I was wrapping my mind and heart around the fact that my 15-year-old daughter Jane was preparing to leave the country without me for a week-long mission trip to Honduras. While I had been with her older sister on consecutive domestic mission trips, sending this one on her own to such a faraway place was a new challenge for me in surrendering my loves to the One who loves them even more than I do. Despite parental trepidation, I opened my grip and she went with the youth group she attends, and with which I volunteer, through our church, Grace Mills River.

I’ve not regretted that decision.

Neither has she. She is planning to return this summer to the same girls’ home and the same community to serve there again. And this year, she has persuaded me to trust God, our perfect Father, with my own fears and reservations about going and join her there.

Last year, I wrestled hard with the idea of going, and decided my heart was not in the right place to participate. The girls living at the Hogar de Niñas in Taulabe, Honduras, are there because their home situations would not allow them safety or basic necessities. Most have known serious neglect or abuse. At the Hogar (home), they are fed, clothed, educated, loved, taught about the God who entered into poverty to live and die for them. They are protected, provided for, and given a chance at an adult life they might not have lived to see otherwise. But they are not adoptable, and I was sure a year ago that investing a week with them and then leaving them behind would be more than I could bear at the time.

Jane with one of the girls she particularly bonded with, and longs to see again this year.

Over the last year, however, I have heard the memories shared by Jane, the other Watershed Youth leaders who went, and the other teens who were on the team with Jane. I have combed their pictures, seen their tears, and have felt the calling on my heart. It is God himself who is the Spirit of Adoption, and though I may not be able to bring these children into my home after this trip, I can certainly share in his love for them, share in his love for me as his adopted daughter, and worship him with this team and these children and the staff of the Hogar who know the same Spirit.

And so, after a year of sanctification and revelation, I have agreed to join the leader team for the return youth mission trip to Taulabe, Honduras. We will be leaving on July 11 and returning on July 18. At present count, there are just short of 20 of us going, youth and adult leaders.

Worship, Honduran style. Jane tells me the joy they have in the Lord surpasses 

all we know, because it is pure, unattached to worldly goals and possessions. 

She wants me to know that freedom in worship too. 

I have shared here with you the deep longing of my heart, which God is gently and lovingly dealing with in me. Would you please pray for me in this regard? Pray that I will be enabled by him to pour out every bit of love and care that he gives me without concern for my own vulnerability—the anticipated broken heart—and trust him to fill me again after he lets me be emptied for the sake of loving the children and the youth on our team (as well as other leaders) for this trip’s duration. Pray he rids me of myself for the week, and in the weeks ahead, so that I can be truly like Jesus in compassion and presence and selflessness while we go.

Additionally, would you pray for the safety of our team in travel, from sickness, and protection from any chaos or political turbulence, which has been a factor in Honduras in recent months?

Finally, both Jane and I are in need of financial assistance to reach our goals by July 1, 2018, to make this trip possible. The cost to go is approximately $1300 for me this year, and about $1050 for Jane. (She already has her passport, immunizations, and travel gear from last year.) The money covers our air fare, food, required vaccinations, passports, a duffle bag for taking needed supplies, and those supplies we are each asked to donate for the home (sheets, towels, basic clothing needs for the girls, etc.).

Would you prayerfully consider making a financial donation as well as a prayer support donation for either or both of us? No amount is too small, and it is the joining of many individual gifts that gives the Church its strength in the kingdom. If you are able to donate, you may do so tax deductibly in one of two ways:

1) Donate online. Visit https://www.hondurasfountainoflife.org/. Select the yellow “DONATE” tab at the top right of the browser. Make a donation with PayPal or credit card. IMPORTANT: make sure to enter “Rebecca Cochrane—July 2018 team” in the small space just below your monetary amount before completing your donation. Click the line that says “Project or Mission Team Name here” to enter that information. Without this designation, the funds will go to a general account and not to my expenses.

2) Donate by mail: Send a check made out to Honduras Fountain of Life to

Honduras Fountain of Life

Po Box 223
Fletcher, NC 28732

IMPORTANT: write “Rebecca Cochrane—July 2018 team” in the memo line. Without this designation, the funds will go to a general account and not to my expenses.

Thank you so much for considering how you can prayerfully and financially support me, our team, God’s work in Honduras and in the hearts and lives of our group as we prepare. We are already well underway with informational and team building meetings as well as a few group fundraisers. God is already at work, preparing us now for what he has prepared for us in Honduras. Will you join us along the way?

If we may likewise pray for you while you support us similarly, please send me a note to that effect at my email: rhemagift@gmail.com.

Blessed be the tie that binds our hearts in Christian love!

Sincerely,

Rebecca Cochrane