Elections in Honduras–praise report!

Dear friends and family,

Starting on June 25th, I sent out a series of emails requesting prayer about the political crisis in Honduras. Please know that yesterday, God answered many prayers – free and peaceful elections were held here in Honduras! Several notes below describe our thanksgiving in words that are much better than any I could have chosen, so I will defer to them and ask you to read the notes below if your are interested in learning more about the elections yesterday.

Suffice to say that God miraculously intervened in this tiny little country and helped them avoid losing many of their freedoms. Thank you for supporting us and Honduras through your prayers!

Please know that our family is well. We’ve just moved into a new (different) house and have been very busy over the Thanksgiving holiday. We are healthy and the kids are doing great. We will be sending out a newsletter in a couple of weeks with more info, but we wanted to get this out as soon as possible.

Please join us in thanking God for His divine intervention here in Honduras and please join us in our continued prayers for the people and country of Honduras.

Take care,

Dave and Marinajo Fields
Mariah and Benny

———- Forwarded message ———-
From: Sally Mahoney
Date: Mon, Nov 30, 2009 at 4:52 PM
Subject: elections in Honduras–praise report
To: sally mahoney

Dear Cornerstone Friends–

God has been at work, and He deserves all the praise we can give Him. When I wrote to you in early November, an agreement had been signed between Honduras and the representatives of Zelaya. The agreement said that the Congress of Honduras (with input from the Honduran Supreme Court) would vote on whether to allow Zelaya to serve the remainder of his term, and in exchange for this the United States and other world powers said they would recognize the coming elections in Honduras as legitimate. Once Zelaya began to realize that the Congress wasn’t going to vote about what to do with him until after the elections took place, he began to issue complaints/threats/rants from the Brazillian Embassy, but miraculously and thankfully, even the people who had represented Zelaya at the talks were standing by the signed agreement. During the last days leading up to the election there were a few terrorist-style attempts to make Honduras afraid to proceed as planned, but those attempts did not succeed.

Yesterday (Sunday the 29th) the elections took place, and we cannot give God enough praise for how it went. The turn-out was very, very high (near 64% or so) and peaceful and without any untoward incident. There were over 400 election observers from around the world, and all declared the elections transparent and exemplary. Five of the Loma de Luz missionaries–Jeff McKenney, Don and Suzanne Rumbaugh, Brad War, and Ian McKenzie–were asked by the Honduran government to serve as election observers in their region. They had the same glad news to report for their region as did the observers in the rest of the country–peaceful, very participatory, very done-right, very free.

The winner of the election and next president of Honduras is Porfirio Lobo. When Jeff wrote me last night, the polls had closed but the vote count was not yet finished. But the main story was not who won the election but that the election took place, took place in the manner it did, and that it will be recognized by the USA, Germany, Japan, Costa Rica, Panama, and a number of other nations. By the end of the day yesterday, they didn’t know who’d won the presidency, but it was clear who had won on the larger stage. It was clear that God had triumphed over all, and Honduras had won the battle that came to them. Thank you so much for praying. Please continue to pray for Honduras. There are still decisions to be made about what to do with Zelaya, there are still bad guys who have reason to hold a grudge against Honduras, etc. So don’t quit praying. But this is a time to stop and pause and rejoice and praise.

We can’t thank you enough for praying.

I’ll just copy Dr. Jeff’s words below.

We are proud of Honduras, thankful to you for your prayer, and praising God.

–Sally Mahoney for Cornerstone
30 November 2009

—– Original Message —–
From: Jeff and Rosanne Mckenney
To: Sally Mahoney ; Marty McKenney
Sent: Sunday, November 29, 2009 6:21 PM
Subject: Elections

The polls in Honduras officially closed at 5:00 P.M.. The newspapers are all reporting what was also our experience here: there was a massive peaceful and successful turnout. All Intl/ observers are reporting the same thing in the papers. This has been a great day for Honduras. We are in such a vastly different place than we would have been if the People had not stood up for their democracy and stood against those who would have stolen it and sold it cheaply.
Preliminary results are scheduled to be announced by the TSE ( the supreme electoral tribunal) at 1900. ( Here the press is not allowed to call an election). But, regardless of which candidates win or lose, everyone is in agreement, Honduras has won. I believe the Lord has seen Honduras through.
-j