More about President Mel

Well Mel has started the propaganda campaign. At 10 pm on Monday all of the TV stations went blank for awhile and then the "messages" started. Admittedly I did not stay up to watch them nor have did I stay up to see them on Tuesday. It is interesting to see what the reactions may be, especially in light of what is happening in Venezuela with Chavez's decision to shut down a TV station. The Chavez decision has been heavily criticized here with the Association of News Media and Association of Broadcasters of Honduras branding May 27 as "a black Sunday" for press freedom in Latin America and claimed that such actions are authored only by totalitarian regimes.

Is Mel's decision the first step in that direction for Honduras?





Also a recent Gallup poll shows that confidence in Zelaya drops in Honduras


Polling Data
Do you think Manuel Zelaya is doing what is best for the country?

May 2007
Always / Almost always 50%

Never / Almost never 42%

Jan 2007
Always/ Almost always 66%

Never/ Almost never 25%

Source: CID-GallupMethodology: Interviews to 1,200 Honduran adults, conducted from May 4 to May 10, 2007. Margin of error is 2.8 per cent.

I think the most telling number of that poll is the dramatic jump in the belief that Mel never or almost never does what is best for the country.

The Honduran President propaganda order

Well there have been some interesting things going on in regards to the President of Honduras. In the last couple of weeks he has flown a jet over the city, told the media to stop reporting on the violent crimes and now has ORDERED the radio and TV stations to air 2 hours of propaganda for 10 days starting on Monday the 28th.

Here is one link for the propaganda story:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6690217.stm


The press fought against his "request" to stop reporting the news and they are asking that he rescind this order also. It will be interesting to see where all of this leads. Keep in mind that Mel is a friend of President Chavez of Venezuela, who just recently pulled a TV station off the air for opposing him.

As for the jet flying, it did cost about $5,000 US in fuel, but it also produced one of the best quotes.

Ex-commander of the Honduran Air Force Roberto Mendoza Garay said that Mel put himself, the jet, and any other air traffic in the vicinity in danger. The commander said, "We can replace the president, we can't replace this jet because it's too expensive."

Please keep the government situation in your prayers. This has been a pretty stable country, but things like this make people nervous.

---Alan

Political Contributions by Celebrities, Sports Stars, etc.

I am one of the oddballs who enjoys political discussions and opinions. I actually watched the GOP debate over the internet here. Please send all condolences to my wife....lol. While looking around at some news sites regarding the upcoming (2008) election, I stumbled on an interesting site (at least to me). It is called Newsmeat (http://www.newsmeat.com/). Strange name I know, but has a fun little search on it. It lists every contribution over $200 made to a candidate or party since 1978. If you go to the homepage there is a link for the "Hall of Fame". Click on that and then you can see where your favorite celebrity, sports star, politician, or even billionaire has donated. Of course most of the celebs give to the Dems or to Democrat special interest (ie soft money), but there are a few surprises and some of the amounts given are interesting. May make you think differently about your favorite actor or actress.

A couple of totals and then some recent donations for you:

The Leftists:

Tom Hanks---$45,800 total (99% Dem) Recent: $4,600 (Barack Obama), $2,300 (Al Franken)
Don Henley---$702,685 total (87.5% Dem, 11% special interest) on 3/28 gave $2,300 to Hilary and then on 3/31 gave $4,600 to Edwards
Jennifer Aniston---$2,300 to Barack Obama
Michael Douglas---$555,850 total (97% Dem) In the last month has covered most of his bases. $4,600 each to Hilary, Barack, Chris Dodd (why?) and $1500 to Richardson

For The Good Guys (or at least GOP announced Prez Candidates, no Fred Thompson...yet)
John Elway---$2300 to Guiliani
Kelsey Grammer--$4600 to Guiliani
A-Rod---$4600 to Guiliani
Charles Schwab---Another one covering his bases--$2300 to Guiliani, McCain, Romney and curiously Chris Dodd (maybe I'm missing something)
Roger Staubach--$2300 to McCain
Some of Romneys supporters---David Brandon CEO of Domino's $2300 and Meg Whitman of EBay $2300

Just for kicks went and looked at Ronald Reagan's supporters. Some of the names on the list.
James Cagney
Johnny Carson
George Halas
Charlton Heston
Bob Hope
Don King (only in America, surprisingly to me he is a GOP man lately, giving quite a bit to the RNC over the years including $50,000 recently. Did have a bad habit of funding Harry Reid though)
Donald Rumsfield
Jimmy Stewart
Frank Sinatra
and Donald Trump

I am sure that no one other than myself will find this at all interesting.

No matter who you contribute to or support, my prayer is that you overcome the rampant apathy that American voters have. If we did not have the right to vote you would be protesting and begging for that right. Well the truth is a lot of people have died for your right to vote, please don't dishonor them by saying your vote doesn't matter. If their lives mattered then your vote matters.

---Alan

Missionary-Blogs.com

Just wanted to share about some of the links that are on our page. One of them is called Missionary Blogs. This is a great site ran by Jim Cottrill (a missionary with a blog and website himself). Not only does he keep up with hundreds of blogs, he also dispenses some good advice for bloggers.

The description from the home page reads:

This is the place to find Christian missionary blogs from all over the world. See what God is doing first-hand, as these missionaries share their hearts.


I encourage you to take a look at the site and view some of the great blogs that are listed. I am pretty confident that there probably is a missionary with a blog listed for a country that God has burdened your heart for. If you do see a blog of a country of interest and you find a missionary working there, please take a few minutes to let them know that you enjoy their blog and that you are praying for their work.

BTW, even with my anemic updating, we have been priviledged to be "featured" a couple of times on the blogwatch. The most recent time was April 26 at the link below title Missionaries of the Carribean

http://www.missionary-blogs.com/200704.html

Again take a minute or two and check out Missionary Blogs.

----Alan

Dana traveling and our furlough

Well today I dropped Dana off at 5:30 am for her to catch a bus to Guatemala City, then she will be taking a flight to California to visit her family. The bus trip will take about 11 hours total with a layover in San Salvador, El Salvador for lunch. She is taking Spirit Airlines (a new service out of Guatemala) to LA. The airline has been running specials to introduce their service, so she was able to book one for $100 roundtrip. We had been looking at doing that for our upcoming furlough back to the states, but after adding in bus fare to Guatemala and really the hassle with 6 kids, we decided to go out of Tegus on Taca Airlines.

Please keep Dana in your prayers for traveling mercies and I wouldn't mind a couple as I play the single dad for the next 8 days or so.

BTW we have our furlough dates set, just not the specifics.

Dana and the kids are flying out on the 14th of June and I will be leaving on the 25th. I am scheduled to be the brigade manager for a team coming in on June 17th so I could not leave early. We have looked at lots of airfare, bus, trains and so on from Miami but it looks like we will probably rent a van and drive up.

So here is our tentative schedule...

Tegucigalpa to Miami June 14th. (Dana and the kids)
Arrive in SC on June 15th (overnight somewhere on the way)
Alan arrives in Miami on the 25th of June
Drive to NC on July 5th
Back to SC around July 30th
Drive to Miami on August 5th or 6th
Fly from Mia to Tegucigalpa on August 7th

To clarify

SC June 15th-July 5th
NC July 5th-July 30th
SC July 30th-August 5th or 6th

Please pray about housing and transportation and let us know if you know of some housing arrangements or vehicles we can use.

Please pray for safe travel and peace during our trip.

Praise God! He is so faithful and He is the great provider, we are in His hands.

---Alan

Newsletter

Been quite awhile since I posted, I do apologize. I will attempt to tell a little of what has been happening and try to do a better job of posting in the future.

We have our latest newsletter complete. We will be emailing and snail mailing it out in the next couple of days. If you do not receive it and would like to be added, please email us at mgrathome@yahoo.com before this weekend.