This month my team and I are working with a ministry called Hope at Hands. We are staying in a beautiful town in the mountains called Valley de Angeles, Honduras. The colors are gorgeous this time of the year: lush greenery and bright blue skies. Mostly sunny, mid-80s, warm breeze. Have you ever been so high up you’re actually in the clouds? It’s pretty neat. This month has been full of experiences. In fact, I admitted last night to my team that the last seven days have been my favorite 7 days thus far. Here’s what’s going on….
This month we are thankful for flushing toilets, doors that close all the way, and couches 🙂
Our first project was cleaning out/landscaping the garden of the ministry’s home base. Missy (background in agriculture) and Kathryn (background in landscape design) are heading up that project. They have the eye and the knowledge to know what kind of plants/vegetables. I was just the grunt with the machete trying to hack the weeds and not kill the banana tree with my crazy swings…
If you’re hungry, head to the kitchen and you’ll find Kelly (our master cook). She works with our contact to plan and prepare meals for us and for the kid’s feeding program. Honduran favorite meals so far: enchiladas (nothing like the kind you think of): open faced crunchy corn tortillas with a yummy mixture of potatoes/chicken/carrots I think. I’m also partial to a typical Honduran meal of fried green banana chips served with a cabbage salad, tomato-based vegetable sauce, and topped with goat cheese. There are some days we don’t come home for lunch and instead bring it with us. Our “sandwiches” consist of frijoles revueltos, scrambled egg, maybe rice, and some shredded goat cheese smashed between 2 corn tortillas.
Mondays thru Thursdays my team and I load in the red pickup truck and head to a school higher in the mountains. There are about 20 kids, grades 1-6, in the same classroom. I absolutely adore the kids and the ministry that takes place here. It’s something special and if you want to see the Holy Spirit in action every day… make your way to this place. Hope at Hands has been able to get into this school by means of a feeding program – which means we bring a large snack/small lunch to the kids every day. During this early afternoon meal time, the students participate in a bible class, usually put on by our hosts: David and Scarleth Jones. Only this month, the Jones’ get a bit of a break and have passed the reigns to us.
The past couple weeks my team has been giving messages about faith. Soon our lessons will be shifting into prayer. The school year in Honduras begins in February and the first month David & Scarleth spent most of the time teaching on Jesus. Their philosophy is to begin the school year teaching on Jesus, faith, and prayer as those are the foundation for the remainder of the school year’s lessons. They also focus on reading from scripture and teaching the kids that it’s not the “leader” or person speaking or pastor who holds the power or “way of life”, but that truthful teachings come from scripture/God’s word/Jesus’ message. Solid teachings. The kids are eager to pray for one another, their teachers, and us. Prayers of protection, guardianship, blessings, healing, and strengthening. It’s truly a gift being a part of these daily moments.
After feeding and giving the message to the kids, we spend some time playing in the very small school yard. Picture twenty-five people, give or a take a few, chasing after a futbol in a space an eighth the size of a basketball court. Laughter and squeals and limbs flying everywhere. It’s gloriously terrifying. Since the school yard is so small and the school is in the mountains, our hosts have given us the assignment to work on enlarging the play area. We’ll spend 2-3 hours of an afternoon with pick axes, shovels, hoes, and wheelbarrows slowly chipping at the clay-rock-clod soil. The ultimate goal is to lower one section two feet or so and raise another section likewise.
Fridays we go to the school and worship with the kids for a couple hours and hang out with them while they have music class…. by the way.. why doesn’t everybody have music class like this??? One group onpercussion. One group on keyboard. One group with guitars. Remember how old they are? And when they come together to worship, the teacher, Juan, asks if any of them has felt the presenceof God. So sweet…
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Some days my team visits Dona Santos. She’s an endearing 69-year-old who can’t read or write and lives mostly alone in a shack in the mountains. For 8 years her house consisted of a rackety little dwelling about 3’ x 5’. About a year ago another team built her a one-bedroom wood house with a concrete floor. Her original shack still leans next to the house and acts as a kitchen. Dona Santos has a little mattress, a table, a bible, and not much else. On a cold day last week we brought her 4 sweaters and some medicine, read her some bible stories, and prayed.
On Saturdays we head over to another part of town to make adobe bricks for a guy named Walter. He needs 1000 of them to build a small house next to his mother’s place. Brick-making is hard work. We pick axe the clay ground. Chop up the clay. Add water. Chop more. Add straw. Chop more. Shovel. Chop. Water. Straw. Shovel. Chop. Under the sun. The mixture gets slopped into molds which are about 8”x10”x18”. If you don’t press into the corners or smooth really hard your brick isn’t going to work. These bricks will take 2-4 days to dry in the sun. When Walter doesn’t have a crew like us he works a full 10 hour day and makes about 100 bricks. With our help that time cuts in half and we can get about 138 of them in.
In a few words my time in Honduras can be described as full of beauty, depth, and the Holy Spirit. The ministry here is making an impact and raising up faithful, confident, sweet, prayerful children of God. We are also reaching out in the community and responding to the unspoken needs. If you would like to support Hope at Hands with their feeding/bible program or other ministry outreach plans please contact me and I’ll send you information. Also, if you could please pray for our hosts, David & Scarleth Jones…. They are a young couple who have a passion for this location and ministry. Their specific prayer request is for the piece of land close to where they are renting from. They would like to own the land to build an office, home, and house/building for the short-term missions teams which come through.
Thank you for those of you who have supported me and my team financially and in prayer thus far. I believe the blessing you have given to us will come back to you. The experiences over a few short months have been transforming our hearts and hopefully those we come into contact with. We are grateful the Lord chose us to come after Him in this way this year.
Love,
Amanda
