Honduras Trip Report - January 15-21, 2017

My son Steve met me in Houston and we traveled together to Honduras for the week. He proved to be a big help in some of our meetings but had to leave on Thursday for meetings of his own.

I (we) met with the following people during this trip:

  • Mike Miller, Micah House (Street kids ministry)

  • Chet Thomas, Project Global Village

  • Letty Fajardo, Professor at CURC (Comayagua)

  • Dr Malta, Vice Rectora Professional Assistant

  • Dean Oyuela, Dean of Engineering (Tegucigalpa)

  • Rafael Nuñez, Academic Coordinator of Business School

  • Arnulfo Matute, PTTW representative for Honduras

  • Elin Torrez, PTTW representative in Comayagua

  • 3 Pastors, Members of the Association of Pastors in Comayagua

  • School Principals, Three grade schools

Important Results

  • Postponed the March trip to the week of September 18-22.

  • Rutilia Calderon is no longer the Academic Vice Rectora of the National University System but is now the Minister of education for all the public schools in all of Honduras.

  • Chet Thomas has leaders throughout most of the Department of Comayagua who can be trained by Elin and they can in turn train the teachers in the rural schools in the use of Charly’s book, Principles that Make you Strong.

  • Pastors in Comayagua are willing to use both Charly’s book Principles that Make you Strong, and my book, Meant for Greatness, in their churches.

Comments

Since there was insufficient time to plan for the March trip from Letty’s standpoint as well as mine, we decided to postpone our trip to September and focus on a seminar given by a business team.

Connecting all of the universities with the CFI now CNFV is proving difficult with many delays. After talking with Letty, Arnulfo and Elin, I suggested we add video recording to the CNFV to record important meetings and send them to all the regional universities. I asked Elin to do some research on what is needed and to consult with the Journalism Department for their advice and help.

Chet was very helpful and thought they would need about 200 books for his leaders to distribute.

Rutilia Calderon should be a potent ally in her new position with the government as Minister of Education. This puts us in a position to get Charly’s book in all of the schools in the country. Training will be a challenge but we could get it done.

Our original book has been reviewed and is awaiting Oscar Meza’s approval.

I met with Dr Malta and asked him for a copy of the new Diploma program for implementing the Essential Program. I found that PTTW is mentioned prominently in the document concerning the teaching of values.

The meeting with Rafael was very helpful in outlining a rough draft of a business seminar. We talked about the program, who to invite and when and where to have it. My son Steve was a big help and he said he would suggest a couple of businessmen that might come with us.

Our meeting with Dean Oyuela was very interesting. I introduced him to Steve and asked Steve to tell him about his work in the pharmaceutical field. The Dean was very excited about his work and they went together to the university hospital to talk about the possibility of a diagnostic lab in Honduras. Apparently all their lab work is sent to the US for processing. There is no such lab in all of central America.

Elin is a pleasure to work with. He is very excited about the work he is doing for us. He catches on very quickly, asks good questions and takes notes so he will remember what to do. He is also a good speaker and contributes significantly in our meetings with others.

 
John Potts