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Showing posts from June, 2011

Santa Maria de los Angeles Project

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Please Pray!!! The Santa Maria de los Angeles Project, which will provide housing for 120 Honduran families, in Amarateca, a town just outside of the capital city, Tegucigalpa, needs your prayers. This project has been underway since Hurricane Mitch in 1998, and has encountered a series of obstacles preventing its completion. Most of these have been overcome, except for the approval of an environmental permit from the planning authorities .  Houses at the Santa Maria Project Completed by Short Term Mission Volunteers We now have the technical and financial skills to finish this project. But without the proper permitting, the construction cannot begin. At present, there seems to be very little motivation on the part of the government officials to move ahead. So please pray for the approval of this permit. Many short-term mission volunteers from Massachusetts have come to Honduras in the past years, offering their hard labor to build houses

Good Advice from an Old Monk

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"Your way of acting should be different from the way of world; the love of Christ must come before all else: Never turn away any one who needs your love." ----St. Benedict from the Rule of Benedict, Chapter 4 Children in a Mayan Community near Copan

Health and Architecture: Eliminating Chagas Disease

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A home should provide shelter and safety from a hostile world. But that is not possible for the many Hondurans, whose homes are infested with the 'kissing bug' that carries the Chagas disease. This disease is especially prevalent among the poor of Central and South America. Spraying for Chinches The 'kissing bug' (also called 'chinche' or 'triatomine bug' ) hides in the cracks of adobe houses, coming out at night to feed on the blood of animals and people. The insect feces, which are dropped after feeding, are then rubbed into the blood system, when the victim unwittingly scratches himself. He or she thus becomes infected with Trypanosoma Cruzi parasite, which causes Chagas disease. In the initial phase of the disease, or the acute phase, a person may show symptoms, such as severe swelling at the bite location. The symptoms usually go away. However, if patient is untreated, the disease advances to the more serious chronic phase. For years

YouTube Video on Chagas Disease

>>>   Chagas Disease   <<< This is one produced by AlJazeera ?  ....but a good video on the subject (and no rhetoric).