Positioned For Exponential Growth

The strongest lingering impression I have from our team's trip to Honduras is that the ministry of Jim & Francis Martin is poised to expand very rapidly in the next few months. It reminds me of the term "exponential growth." I first heard that term in the training materials distributed by the Saddleback Church, led by Rick Warren. The idea was to go beyond dreaming about, praying for and planning growth of 10% or 25% or even 50%. Warren and his staff suggested that this type of thinking could actually limit the potential of a ministry. Instead, they talked about the type of growth that expanded a ministry by as much as 10 times.
Jim is currently in the US building his network and reaching out to recruit additional partners/supporters for his work. I've been blessed to sit in on some of those conversations. According to his calculations, Honduras Ministries is currently impacting approximately 1,200 lives. As outstanding as that fact is, I deeply believe that within a very short time Honduras Ministries could be in a position to impact 12,000 lives!
That is an exciting and somewhat frightening thought. It means that the organization of the ministry is going to be stretched intensely. It means that many more people need to make a decision to become involved. Statistics indicate that ten people must hear about a ministry in order to find that one person who will make a decision to become involved. So that means many, many more people need to hear about Honduras Ministries.
The bottom line is that if Honduras Ministries is going to grow exponentially in impact, then the support for and involvement in Honduras Ministries must grow exponentially as well.
How will that happen? Maybe all of us that currently support Jim & Francis can increase what we are doing a little bit. Yeah...that might help some. But the real need is to increase the nunmber of people involved. To do that, we have to increase the number of people who are hearing. So, I guess the best thing to do is share this opportunity with the people you know. Invite them to become fans of our Facebook page and/or subscribers to this blog. Invite them to visit the ministry's website, www.hondurasministries.org.
I'm very excited about a new video is now available to help with this. Ultimately, it will be available at the ministry's website. But right now, you can find this video at http://ovcinc.com/honduras_ministries. Take a look at it and share it with all your friends. Perhaps several of them will become involved with this exciting work!

Tina's First Post...

Hello friends!

As you know, our church has been able to work with Honduras Ministries over the past year, and was able to send ten members on a short term mission trip in April. I have the opportunity to continue with their work in Honduras this summer.

Honduras, one of the poorest nations in the western hemisphere, has an unemployment rate of 27% and as many as two thirds of Hondurans live in poverty. I will be in Honduras this summer from June 21-August 3 on an internship with the ministry. I will work primarily with one of the board members (Nicole Morrow) who is taking a sabbatical to spend time in Honduras, working with the people there. We will work on grant-writing and other forms of fundraising, helping with food distribution, job training, and providing some medical care.

Through Honduras Ministries, it is possible to provide school supplies and uniforms for school-age children, a monthly supply of food for families in poverty, and small medical clinics for Hondurans. If you are interested in donating to the ministry, you can visit www.hondurasministries.org . The board of Honduras Ministries has been very generous in providing for my travel expenses and living expenses while I will be in the country, I would like to help them by gathering some donations to help out with the cost.

Because I will be gone most of the summer, I will not be able to earn money towards my school bills this fall. I am looking for opportunities to do odd jobs and baby-sitting in Kansas City to earn money before I leave on June 21. If you need anything or hear of anything, I would appreciate it if you pass the word on! My email is nrohmart@aol.com.

Lastly, but most importantly, I am writing this note to ask for your prayers. Please pray for the Honduran people and for Honduras Ministries’ efforts to reach them. Please pray for financial provision for the ministry and for the board and missionaries of the ministry. Finally, I would appreciate your prayers for me as I prepare for my trip. Please pray that I can transition as smoothly as possible to life in Honduras and communicate with the people around me (I have been trying to expand on my very basic knowledge of Spanish). Please pray that I can be a blessing the Hondurans I meet and to the ministry while I am there.

Thank you for all of your support and prayers! I will do my best to keep the blog and Facebook group updated while I am in Honduras. I also hope to send out emails to those without access to the blog and Facebook group, so if you are interested in emails, you can email me at the above address to let me know.

Tina Ohmart

The Next Chapter...

When we set up this blog, we were thinking ahead. Even before we went on our trip, we sensed that our work in Honduras would extend beyond April 2010. As always, God moves in surprising ways.

At the most recent board meeting of Honduras Ministries, Natina Ohmart was invited to travel to Honduras for a summer internship. Very soon, she will begin sharing her experiences on this blog. (If you are a "fan" on our Facebook page, you have already seen a couple of comments she has posted about leaving on June 21st. She is also looking for some opportunities to earn some money...just in case you live in Kansas City and need some odd jobs done!) Over the next few weeks, Natina's role in the ministry will be clearly defined. She will travel to Tegucigalpa with Nicole Morrow, a member of the board of directors who will also be working in the mission this summer. Tina will be returning to Kansas City during the first week of August.

It is exciting to see the partnership between LifeSpring and Honduras Ministries continue to strengthen. I believe this mission is getting ready to expand exponentially over the next several months, and God is blessing us with the opportunity to have a part in it.

So strap on your seatbelt...lean forward in anticipation...and enjoy the adventure!