Curfew due to end?

After another night, Tuesday night, of curfew and vandalism in the capital, and a the cries of the country about food shortages in homes, the de-facto government was reluctant enough to suspend the curfew for 7 hrs during the day, Wednesday. As people ran to the store and gas stations around the country, there was nothing there to buy. Many stores in Tegucigalpa were vandalized. Like I wrote last night, no one worked on Tuesday and delivered were unable to be made and supplies were no where to be found until later in the morning. As for La Masica, the little town I live, hours from the violence, our shelves were empty in the morning. David went to the store and was able to come back with corn flake, flour, and oil. The rice was long gone and we have one of four rice mills in the Honduras, located in our small town. But by late morning, early afternoon, delivers were being made. We even had to wait for propane gas tanks to be delivered in order to cook. We were told they'd be delivered at 11am, but didn't show up until 1:30pm.

Eventually most people in the country were able to buy the goods they needed. Video of the cities showed city streets blocked up for blocks and blocks of people waiting on gas. As for me, the early afternoon rain kept me for the most part. But I did venture out in my bike to buy something at 3:30, 30 minutes before the original time for curfew to start back up. The pharmacy I went to closed just as I buying my meds. People were starting to close up to get ready for the curfew. In the evening, an hour after the curfew was back into effect, I decided to let some of kids go on a short walk around the block since they'd been suck in the project for three days. They enjoyed it very much, even though it was short. We had church service tonight in our La Masica church and after dropping off a couple people at home after service I decided to venture into the center of town to get some food since Tuesday night most people were still open at 9pm. Being a small, the curfew is a bit more flexible. I actually haven't seen a police officer yet, but I'm not looking either. I figured they're at the highway entrance to town with a road block. Even with out a curfew the have normal rock blocks. But when I made it into town, everyone was closed, even the bars that say open until the early hours of the mornings. With pics of the capital from the night before, some fear seemed to have set into the business owners. I actually found one pulperia open, little shop that you buy goods from a window, usually a front room of a house. The town seemed like a ghost town. I got my OJ and and few little bags of chips.

As I got online tonight, I read an article from the AP that the curfew is set ti expire in the morning. We had already decided to have school tomorrow, with or without the curfew b/c of reports of a no police sighting during the day in our area. With this, the people in most of the country will be able to return to some normality to their lives.

I pray tonight is not like last night in the capital and other large cities in Honduras. Video from last night, showed vandalized stores and the sounds of assault rifle gun burst. Sounds we hear from video from a battle in Iraq. The gunfire was continuous, not a shot here or there. The vandals that were caught on video, we're people stealing for necessity. They were young 16 -25 yr old punks stealing cell phones and chargers, not food or water. In my time in Honduras, I've found that many Hondurans don't have fear. They don't fear the police that are willing to shoot first and ask questions later. A doctor at a hospital told the news that they had 25 injured civilian, all had gun shot wounds. With the violence the police already deal with in this country with riots and curfews, it's not a surprise the police shoot first at night when they feel in danger, b/c many other have guns, including the one I watched get arrested in a store.

If you didn't hear, the UN told Honduras that they are suspending their electoral aide for the upcoming election. They feel Honduras is in no condition to hold the election until this crisis is resolved.

With the curfew being lifted, it looks like I'll be able to go to the missions conference in Copan tomorrow (Thursday). Thank you, Lord.

Also please pray for peace tomorrow during a planned pro-de facto government march in Tegucigalpa.