Honduras Shipment: PRAYERS NEEDED

"Hello from hot, muggy Honduras, and thank you to each one who has been praying about the container of medical supplies for the EFM clinic here. Please keep it up!  Daniel Melton has spent the week since his arrival last Tuesday running back and forth between various government offices in San Pedro and Tegucigalpa, (over a 4 hour trip one way), jumping through a lot of hoops and filling out a mountain of paperwork to comply with all the requirements they are imposing before they will release things tax-free. For example, just 2 days ago they insisted that the list of 266 boxes with the contents and value of each one needed to be re-done in a different format than that in which it was originally submitted. He got back here to San Luis this evening around 8 pm, and was feeling rather encouraged because he thought that FINALLY everything that they are asking for had been done, the last papers would be sent to Tegucigalpa this afternoon, and we would have the container delivered this coming Tuesday (June 14.)  

This evening he received a text message from someone in the office, stating that because of something that seems to us to be an insignificant technicality, they had not sent the papers to Tegucigalpa after all. So Daniel plans to catch the 5:45 a.m. bus to make yet ANOTHER trip to San Pedro tomorrow and re-submit the papers yet again.

It seems like the devil is throwing every hindrance he can in the way of getting these things out of customs and to the clinic, because he knows the blessing they will be to advancing God's Kingdom. We are having to pay a hefty fee for every day it is stuck there, and the number of days left to unload it and get everything gone through, properly stored, and the operation of the x-ray machine taught, is dwindling. Unless God intervenes, it won't be here Tuesday after all, which is a day less than 2 weeks since it's arrival in the port.  However, I know He is not taken by surprise with all of the delays.  Since He has allowed it to happen this way, when we have done everything humanly possible to move things along, I am sure He has a purpose in it. So we are praying that His will be done, and trusting that He will accomplish what He knows to be best.  We would sure be happy, from our limited human viewpoint, if He would see fit to work a miracle and have the paperwork go through tomorrow after all, and even get the container here sooner than Tuesday.  If that happens, it could only be the hand of God.  So please help us pray!

Thank you very much,

Hannah McDowell
Evangelistic Faith Missions

Update from Daniel Melton via phone - June 10, 12:00pm

Issues arose from transferring several pages of numbers to the different format needed for Finances. Daniel made an error in calculations, the local office in San Pedro caught it, and held up the process until the error was corrected and everything had to be resigned and resent.

As of June 9, the material was sent to the capital and arrived in the national Ministry of Finance offices this morning. Once the national office finishes approval, all of the material will be sent back to the San Pedro office so that the container can be released. We hope to have that back by Monday or Tuesday at the latest.

If we get the clearance on Monday, we should be able to get the container out by Wednesday or Thursday provided that there are no issues with the Port Authority. 

The container is being held in a secure location, and we had 9 free days, and tomorrow (6/11) we will start paying daily fees until it is released.

While all of this is challenging, the truth is that this is normally a 3 or 4 month process, and we have been able to make significant progress in just 1 week. Thanks for your continued prayers for this process.