Second Month in Honduras

Second Month in Honduras

Pastor Luis leads a church in a small mountain town called San Miguel, in the south of Honduras. When he has First Principles classes to attend in Alubaren, he walks several hours to attend. Pastor Luis has a heart for the villages around his area, several of which have no electricity. As it is only in the evening that he can gather people there to hear the gospel, he wanted to purchase a generator to take with him. But he had a problem. He had no money. He thought: “What should I do? Should I appeal to the Association?  But they have no money either.” He prayed about it. Then the thought came to him: “I have no money, but I have a horse! I can sell the horse and buy a generator!”  That is just what he did. He sold his only horse, and bought a generator in order to be able to preach the gospel in villages without electricity. We are so used to taking things for granted: having electricity, having money, being able to buy what we want.  And when we don’t have what we need in order to preach the gospel somewhere, we can easily throw in the towel.  But that is not what some pastors here do. They find some way of giving sacrificially, even when they have no money, in order to get the gospel out.

We are grateful for your prayers and support as we continue here in Honduras. During the last month we have had a variety of interesting activities:

1.       Starting a new discipleship group with First Principles in Nuevo Pacto church

2.       Beginning private theology courses with Miguel Orellana

3.       A medical brigade to Carbonero

4.       Earthquake

5.       Treatment for a respiratory infection (probably another pneumonia)

6.       A trip to the south of Honduras (Alubaren)

First Principles at Nuevo Pacto

Lise and I have begun attending Nuevo Pacto church half-time. Nuevo Pacto is a daughter church of Iglesia Bautista Hermón, where we are members. So, for one of our two Sunday services we go to at Nuevo Pacto, as well as our Men’s and Women’s meetings on Friday evening. This way we are getting to know the people, and the needs of the church and pastor. Together with the pastor, we have begun a First Principles class every Tuesday evening. As this initial group will be the key to starting other groups, I did my best to discourage participation! In spite of that we have 16 students.  Lise and I will facilitate the discussion for the first few times, then I want to get the pastor to facilitate, and have students take turns doing it.  It is important that they be able to take over completely. As I have mentioned to them repeatedly, I want to be able to leave and not be missed (except for friendship’s sake).  We are thinking of splitting the group in two if they are agreeable. The group was quite keen for the first lesson, which was held last Tuesday, and the pastors and leaders have agreed that all new converts and new members will go through this. The facilitators will be those in the initial group.

Private classes

Miguel Orellano is a young man, recently married, who practices dentistry as well as teaches in a remote village called San José de Panes during the week. He very much wants to learn all he can. He comes into Siguatepeque for the weekend, helping with AWANA on Saturdays and teaching a Sunday School class on Sunday morning.  Last year when I taught Inductive Study of Colossians to a group in our church, he absolutely wanted to follow the course, but could not be present. He asked if he could do it through the internet. So I gave him an electronic copy of the course, and he would do all the work and projects involved. He ended up being my best student! Now he has asked me if I can give him private classes. We have begun studying an Apologetics course on Friday afternoons, which I put together when I was in Spain. He is applying himself quite seriously.

Medical Brigade

Early Saturday morning, on October 18^th , Lise and I left Iglesia Bautista Hermón by bus along with a large group from the church to take part in a medical brigade in the remote town of Carbonero. It took us about half an hour to get to Comayagua, from where we got on to a narrow, muddy dirt mountain road for about two hours. There were some screams as we took a curve by an extremely high and steep precipice! We arrived a little after 9:00 am, unloaded medical supplies (we had two doctors and two nurses with us) and loads and loads of boxes and bags full of used clothing. A group was already waiting for us. There was a long lineup of people waiting for medical help all day long, and people were coming into the little hut where we distributed the clothing all day long. The medical help was done in a one-room school house – a school that goes up to sixth grade, with only one teacher. The school has a library, about the size of a small bathroom.  The people showed a lot of appreciation for both the medical help and the clothing.  (Did you know Americans last year spent $330,000,000.00 for Halloween costumes for their pets? – and five billion dollars for Christmas gifts for their pets!?)

Earthquake

One evening I was lying down on our couch, reading a book, when I suddenly began to feel a pleasant swaying, as if I were in a hammock! It lasted over a half minute, I think. It was enjoyable, really. However it was not so enjoyable for those who were closer to the epicentre. We learned it was at 7.1 on the Richter scale, centered in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of El Salvador. One person died as a result in El Salvador, and one man died of a related heart attack in Honduras. A bridge in Ocotopeque (Honduran town at the border with El Salvador) was destroyed.

Respiratory Infection

I couldn’t understand why I was not managing to get my energy back after our trip here to Honduras in the third week of September. Always wanting to lie down, (feeling even lazier than usual!). What I didn’t realize, was that I was fighting a respiratory infection. Last week, on Monday, I went to see a doctor at Hospital Evangélico, as I was feeling some pain in the chest and ribs, and feeling more tired than ever. It turned out that I have an infection somewhere in the respiratory area. Most likely it was in the lungs, as I have already had two cases of pneumonia here in Honduras. So I started on a set of antibiotics. 

Advanced First Principles in Alubaren

Josué Claros had asked me to accompany him to Alubaren, in the south of the country, to help the group of pastors who is studying First Principles. So Thursday afternoon I took the bus to Tegucigalpa, where Josué picked me up and took me to the old seminary, which is now used for conferences and dormitories. I was still on antibiotics, so I was in bed by 8:30. At 5:00 am, Josué and I were on the road for Aubaren. It is a two and a half hour trip, about two hours of those on a road of dirt and rocks. (No ordinary car would be able to make the trip. It has to be a 4-wheel drive). We began at 8:30 am, facilitating the first two lessons we covered, and then observed as three others facilitated the next three lessons Friday afternoon and Saturday. Many of those pastors have a lot of difficulty with the most basic parts of those courses, as they might not even have finished primary school. A few have completed high school. So some, as they would read the material out loud would “have trouble with their glasses”!

Overnight on Friday we stayed in a hotel in a nearby village for $15 each. (We were on the bottom floor, so it wasn't too far to get buckets of water to supply our respective bathrooms!)  

Saturday afternoon we left at 3:30, and Josué drove me all the way back to Siguatepeque. I was home by 8:00 pm.  I was happy to learn that Lise had not been without electricity even once during her three days alone. Blackouts have been an almost daily event since we have arrived.