It’s more than a firetruck

On this trip we have celebrated so many relationships between the Valley Church and the Hondurans. Yesterday I shared stories about how the local churches celebrated our 10 year anniversary in our partnership. Today we celebrated with the fire station in Saba. To understand why this celebration was so meaningful, you have to know the story about how missionaries were called to restore and deliver fire trucks to Honduras.

In the mid-2010’s the Valley visited our church partners in Saba, as they do every year, but during the visit the missionaries walked to a local soccer field to play with the kids. The fire station is right next door to the field. The group playing soccer told another missionary in the group, who was a firefighter at the time, that he should go see the fire station. At first he didn’t want to because he is at a fire station all the time and he wanted some separation on this trip. But God laid it on his heart and he went. In his conversations with the firefighters he discovered the city of Saba was in desperate need of a ladder truck. Again he wrestled with this because the Valley wasn’t in the fire truck business. I don’t know the exact details between the decision to say “yes” and when the fire truck was delivered in 2017, but the team thought “ok we were obidient to God and now we can go back to be missionaries.” What the team didn’t know was just how big this gesture of love meant to the Hondurans. Upon arrivals for the dedication ceremony, reporters from the local news, the mayor and a huge crowd were at the fire station excited to greet them and thank them! This was so much bigger than anyone could have imagined, but it didn’t stop there - even though the team thought they were out of the fire truck business.

Fire truck deliver to Saba

In the after years of 2017, the team would be called again to restore and deliver another fire truck, but this time for Le Ceiba. La Ceiba is the 4th largest city in Honduras with a population around 233k people (approximately the size of Dayton), and they do not have a SINGLE working fire truck! Can you imagine? Gods call to help was strong and He delivered. In 2021 a ladder truck was donated to the church and a year later it was ready to be transported. Delivering things to Honduras is very expensive, therefore the Valley looked for alternative delivery methods. They discovered the Air Force can deliver it as a humanitarian mission. How amazing! If you know my family, you know that Trevor flies the C-17 and could be the pilot that delivers the firetruck! As of now the truck delivery is delayed due to paper work, so unfortunately it was not here when we arrived, but that didn’t stop the celebration! We visited the La Celine fire station on Monday and they were so excited to see us! They ordered pizzas, they made a tunnel and clapped when we arrived, and they told us stories. They never complained about the delayed delivery, they were beaming with happiness. What we didn’t know was that they were recording our visit so they could share the goodness with the entire city via the news channel!!

The boys got to check out the La Ceiba fire truck in May

In all of this, the most incredible part is seeing God in action! Everything about these trucks and the firefighters involved screams Gods goodness! Every time the La Ceiba truck is in a parade in Ohio or parked at the church campus in Piqua, it plants a small mustard seed in their hearts and with continued exposure to Gods goodness, that seed will grow!

So yes, it is more than a fire truck - it is friendship, it is hope, it is knocking down the language barrier, its love! God is good all the time!