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Latest NewsFirsly, sincere apologies to those who have visited this website earlier and found only last year's information. It has been a very, very busy year. At last ... here goes :o) The concerts: This year under our new name, Musica Buena, we have chosen to make a grateful pilgrimage through Handel's Messiah. Not only is this superb music widely known and loved, but it is very versatile in the forces required to perform it. Performances down the centuries have involved both very large and very small numbers of people. Nowadays, society has moved musically into a period of widespread awareness of early performance practice, with instrumental and vocal style, resources and pitch more like those of Handel's day. We use 9 nine voices - 2 of each with 1 extra soprano - single baroque strings and harpsichord/keyboard. There are 4 Messiah concerts, culminating with a performance of the work complete with all scriptures sung or read. Please go to 'This Year's Events' for venues, dates, times and futher details of both the four Messiah concerts and the other five concerts at which we will be raising funds for Honduras this year. October 4th concert change of venue: Please note that the concert will not be at Redland Parish Church as previously announced, but at Tyndale Baptist Church. This is due to the size of the church and the number of musicians. We look forward to another concert at Redland next year with equally wonderful music and fewer people! Visit to Honduras: My husband and I (Malcolm and Mary Yates) had a wonderful visit to Honduras in 2007. Our visit was in springtime, when Darwin Pavón was at Portishead on John Redman's diary farm - you can read more about that in the Introduction. For both Darwin in England and M&M in Honduras, that Spring was a time of rich blessing and encouragement. Darwin gained knowledge and expertise that have since enabled him to graduate successfully from university, and M&M drew closer to Honduran friends, young and not-so-young, at both El Hogar and Project Micah. In a nutshell, M&M found both El Hogar and Project Micah hard at work and triumphing! The overall situation for the poor in Honduras remains grim, but these two projects - amongst other dedicated and heart-felt efforts - are making a real difference. At El Hogar, our visit coincided with celebrations marking the 28th anniversary of the founding of the Home. Wonderful! A church service, a real fun presentation of how the Home began as spoof-filmed by a kids 'documentary team from Honduran TV', and a superb bbq meal beneath the gently rustling boughs of the El Hogar playground shade trees. With Project Micah, visiting Darwin's family and sharing photos of him with the Redman family in Portishead was a special joy. The most moving experience of our visit was at the Tegucigalpa city dump, where Project Micah staff and youth have prayerfully and painstakingly succeeded in building up a ministry with the families who scrounge the dump for recyclables. Their lives have, for generations, been totally insecure, very unhealthy, very dirty, very dangerous and very miserable indeed. Now things are changing. On my previous visit in 2003, I stood at the dump with Jonny Ordoñez and listened with pounding heart as he talked to me about his vision for the dump families ... washing facilities, a clinic, a dining room, a school, a church ... Amidst the filth, degredation and violence, it seemed impossible. But nothing is impossible with God. He has proved Himself in the human heart yet again. Jonny is now ordained, funds have been raised, land has been bought, a solar-powered well has been sunk, 2 beautiful big houses have been built where all the services Jonny longed to provide in 2003 are now available. The dump families have trust and hope. Life has promise for them for the first time ever. Praise God indeed! It is all very moving. It is a very wonderful thing to be part of such activity. |