A day of Adventures

A day of Adventures

Sunday morning February 2^nd, at 7:30 am, Lise and I found ourselves waiting on the sidewalk outside Iglesia Bautista Hermón for the bus coming from Nuevo Pacto church, that was to take us to San José de Panes, whence we would travel to Matasanos for a day of evangelism. The bus finally arrived around 8:15, and we were on our way.

The Road to Panes
The scenery on the way to Panes is beautiful. The road is horrible. It was a two hour trip, along narrow dirt road, twisting and curving among the mountains.

 Apparently on rainy days, buses sometimes tumble down steep precipices. The pastor of Panes had told me that on some hairpin turns, one of the bus’s wheels would sometimes be on empty space. That didn’t happen this time for us. We had an excellent driver.

When we arrived in Panes, Pastor Rafael showed us his church building. He said it could seat a hundred people (they would be quite crowded, I would think).

 No toilet facilities, so the ladies would have to wait till we got to Matasanos. (Literally, “Matasanos” means “kill the healthy” and is a term sometimes used for a quack doctor. I have no idea how this village got its name!)  Matasanos is a new daughter work of the church in Panes. The bus could not handle the road to Matasanos, so some of the group walked, and the others distributed among three pickups.

Visits in Matasanos
When we arrived, we divided into several groups of six people. Each group had someone from Matasanos or from Panes to guide us.  While different groups walked off to different villages around, our group was to visit the homes in Matasanos to invite people to the service at 1:00 pm. I looked around and there didn’t seem to be more than half a dozen houses. That wasn’t quite the case. They are small houses on steep hill sides, hidden from road by coffee plants. (The economy is entirely dependent on coffee). No roads reach those houses. You have to walk along paths, pushing branches out of your way, to get to the houses.

The first house we visited, was quite poor. A lady named Emerita received us. She listened attentively as I explained the gospel to her, and indicated a desire to have what Jesus offered. I prayed with her, but I don’t know just how much she has yet understood. Then we went on to some other houses. One was built of dirt, literally, that was packed down with boards. About twelve inches of dirt, a board to pack it down, then another twelve inches of dirt, and another board to pack it down, etc. 

When we worked our way down to it we found that there was no floor in it. Just earth. The lady was not too receptive. Other houses that we saw, while not built with dirt, were really not much better than this one. Several had no floors, just earth.  We were able to talk to a few men, but they were mostly women. Most of those with whom we talked do not know how to read.  Did you know that there are communities in Honduras where there is no school at all? Someone visits them once a month to teach the children! At least this happens in parts of La Mosquitia, in the south of the country.

The lady who guided us led us to another house near the road around 12:15. I thought this was going to be our last visit. But she led us down through the coffee plants to another house. Then another. Then down further to another. It was now 1:00 pm, and we were still inviting people to a service that would be held at 1:00 pm!  I thought, surely this was to be our last visit. But our friend had more houses she wanted us to visit. So down the steep slope we continued, another house, then a long way down, another one. That was the last. After we made a very short presentation of the gospel and invited the people to the service, it was time to make our way back to the church “building” (A roof with a few posts around it to hold it up; no walls yet).  So our friend pointed the way back, and led us off. A straight climb up the steep hill, or mountain, as you would have it. Half way up I thought I was going to die! Three quarters of the way up, I “knew” I was going to die! J I was feeling every single day of my 64 years!!!   However, we made it back to the church at around 1:40.   We would have an hour wait for the 1:00 service to start.  We had not brought anything to eat, thinking we could buy something there (we couldn’t), but pastor Francisco and his family had thought to bring a lot of extra, so we sat down a little away from the church building for a picnic lunch.

Gunfire!

While we were eating, we heard some explosions. I thought at first someone was playing with firecrackers. However that wasn’t the case. As I looked around, just a few yards from us, I saw someone running toward us with a pistol and a machete in his hand, and two others were chasing him with machetes. The man with the pistol either must have had only a couple of bullets that he used up, or else he was really very unsure of himself!  I think he must have gone in to threaten the family next door to the church and was surprised by the two men with machetes. As he ran off he fired his pistol at them to slow them down. No one seems to have been hurt. (Sorry, I took no pictures of this particular incident!)

The Evangelistic Service
Finally, the service began.

Several people who had been invited through the visits showed up. The next door neighbours (the ones with the machetes) appeared to be listening intently from their yard.

There was some singing with a guitar and loud speakers. The evangelistic sermon was preached by a member of Nuevo Pacto church. I have been teaching a Homiletics course to some of the leaders there, and the brother who was preaching had started my course, but then dropped out. I do wish he had continued! He is very eloquent, and made some good applications of the story of Zacchaeus, but he seemed to have so many goals to his sermon that it was hard to follow. He made a number of different invitations at the end, but nobody responded.

There are so many gifted leaders in Honduran churches, but such little training!

The Way Back to Panes
When all was over, we prepared to return. As the trip to Matasanos in a vehicle had been quite rough, and I felt recovered from our previous climb, I chose to join the walkers. Some tried to dissuade me, but I was stubborn. We started walking down the road, downhill. 

It went down, around a curve, and down, and around another curve, so steep my poor knees were putting on the breaks continually. Half an hour later, we were approaching the bottom. We crossed a little bridge, and I though: “Is the uphill as long as the downhill?” My knees would get a break, but my lungs! Well, I started to walk uphill. But then we heard a vehicle coming back for us. Praise the Lord! One of the pastors had told a driver “John can’t walk all the way, he has bad lungs. Better go back for him.” Only one other man got into the pickup with me. I jokingly pretended I was just “being polite” by accepting the ride! As it turned out, the uphill was not at all as long as the downhill had been.

Back Home
We got on the bus in Panes, and started the trip back to Siguatepeque. At one point we had to stop and do some tricky navigation, as a large hole had appeared in the middle of the road, and on one side was a precipice, while on the other side was the forest.  However, we made it, and were home by 6:30 pm. Muki was glad to see us.

Exhausted, we were in bed by 8:30 and slept till 6:00 this morning.