From Guatemala, through El Salvador, to Honduras…here we are! We arrived at Zion’s Gate not far from Tegucigalpa, Honduras.
Our first couple of days at Zion’s Gate were spent connecting with the staff and street children who live at the property. We were treated to a day of fun involving BINGO in Spanish, and a horse tournament. The riders lope (run) their horse past two posts that have a line of rings attached to them with numbers on the rings. They collect a ring at a time with a stick that looks like a chopstick with their horse running at full pelt. We were amazed they didn’t get “clothes-lined” while doing this. Each ring corresponds to a lovely beauty who is wearing a sash. The young woman puts the sash on the cowboy who is on bended knee and the cowboy receives a kiss on the cheek. Aaah! The last ring on the line is stole and the cowboy wins and his corresponding beauty gets crowned princess. One of the gals on our team got this honor and even got to ride the winning horse.
Our first full week my team spent the week off-site with a ministry that works with women and children who are a result of rape or incest but not defined by this act. Some of the children also come from families who have abandoned their child due to cerebral palsy and other developmental delays. We helped watch the children infants to around age 11 while the mom’s worked to complete grades 3rd, 7th, and 8th grade. The moms are young teenage women …some came to the facility pregnant at the age of 11 or 13. Their desire to learn and to improve their lives is incredible considering what they have gone through. Most the women have little or no contact with their families shunned for what their fathers, grandfathers, uncles, or friends of the family have done to them. They are becoming new creations in Christ and it’s quite beautiful to watch.
We had two different nights where families came to seek refuge at the ministry for various reasons. Some come to use the facility for the night as a safe house to flee domestic abuse and others are women who have been raped and are waiting processing or a court date for their case. They come from the mountains and have traveled a long distance. Imagine coming to a place in the dark where you don’t know anyone with only the shirt off your back? Life is ever changing as people come and go, there are power outages, you never know what to expect…its kind of exciting living life that way. The ministry contact is working fervently to insure that victims of these crimes are fully processed and can see the walls of a courthouse despite their economic situation. She is often called on to help out at scenes of domestic abuse, murder, or homicides to make sure each facet of the process if followed through.
After our first week we worked at Zion’s Gate Ministry (our main contact location). Our responsibilities range from building relationships with the street boys and girls that live at the property, collecting rocks, painting rock walls, filling pathways with gravel, and digging trenches for a water line.
Our team also went to play futbol at La Kennedy our second week in Honduras. We stepped out of the van to a bus parking lot. The dumpsters are brimming over and birds, dogs, and people are scavenging through the spoils. We hike down to one of the squatter villages where families are hanging out. I wouldn’t want to write disrespectful stuff about your messy home…but I can say this is the closest I’ve ever seen families living in a garbage dump. We didn’t bring cameras partly due to safety but also to be respectful and to continue in building healthy relationships.
Names are exchanged and we gringos (white foreigners) are laughed at often for our pronunciation of Spanish words. It’s a hike through tall grass to get to the futbol field which is actually a basketball court. Paint Thinner doesn’t discriminate…young and old partake…some even while playing futbal…so much for drug testing. The kids carry a liter of thinner with them and a rag that they hold to their mouth. Thinner numbs everything…hunger, sorrow, reality..and it’s cheap…way cheap. Just being in a room of paint or thinner makes me gag and burns my nose and throat imagine that’s your addiction? I can’t.
So we don’t come in guns a blazin’ saying to know Jesus you must stop using Thinner…we start with relationships and trust that eventually with the partnership and love of the ministry we’re working with they’ll be able to make this choice and have people walk along side them in the process. Some play futbol, others watch from the stands, and if we can we start up conversations. It’s simple stuff but its real life. This is something Jesus would do…play futbol with drug addicts …and He would love them well.
This upcoming week involved more rocks, visiting La Kennedy with food, hair dye, and nail polish…the guys and gals loved this, and doing house visits. House Visits are just down the road from Zion’s Gate. You stop by the house of someone the ministry knows and strike up a conversation. While the Pastor is visiting some of us try our Spanish, hold a baby, play futbol, or whatever we see as a need while hanging out. It’s a chance to build relationships and maybe pray or encourage the families we meet. Some are repeat visits and sometimes we’re meeting with folks for the first time. This can be a bit intimidating your first few visits.
It’s hard to believe we’ll be headed to Nicaragua for a 4 day debrief with our whole Squad. Nicaragua will be our last Central American country before we head for the Philippines, and our teams will be splitting up to do ministry this next month.
Lessons learned this month…we were thankful for running water even though it worked intermittently….for toilets that flushed and cold showers or bucket showers. We had a wash machine which nearly brought me to tears (the first wash machine in over a month) and a clothes line under a tin roof to hang our clothes out to dry. Longest I’ve gone without a shower on the World Race is one week….whew! Dramamine is my new best friend on our bus rides in the mountains or to town for a free day. It was a stark contrast to go and watch Wolverine in the theaters at the City Mall in Tegucigalpa on our day off and eat at Applebees…we almost forgot we were in Honduras!
I am so thankful for your blog comments, e-mails, Facebook likes on my photos, and financial support. If you’d like to follow my World Race blog or financially support my mission trip you can go to erinjohns.theworldrace.org . To support my trip (on my blog) click on Support Erin, complete the information, and submit. I am 79% funded and need a total of $15,500 to visit all 11 countries on my route. My route is: Guatemala, Honduras (I’m on month 2 of the World Race), Nicaragua, Philippines, Thailand, Cambodia, India, Nepal, Uganda, Kenya, and Rwanda.
