It's hard for me to describe Honduras, the country of families without fathers, and public buses (school buses) decorated in stickers ranging from Playboy bunnies to cartoon characters to slogans such as "Dios es amor", sometimes all right next to each other.
It's a complex country. The Costa Ricans told us that Nicaragua was a dirty place and the Nicaraguans told us that Honduras was a bad place. But I speak for most of the people who stayed at Zion's Gate when I say that Honduras was the first time our hearts felt at home in ministry.
I'm grateful that I had the opportunity to spend a month at Zion's Gate Ministry, a property on the side of the highway just outside Tegucigalpa, a safe haven for broken souls. Tony and Nidia are honorary parents to fifteen boys and girls who would otherwise be on the streets.
But because Tony is a Kingdom builder, he didn't keep us to himself. We were sent out. Our first week my team smashed, hauled, and piled rocks to build a beautiful rock wall that surrounds the Zion's Gate property. It was rough. We're accustomed to having some sturdy male figures on the job and when it was just the seven of us, things moved a little slower. But by the grace of God and some good humour, we survived and turned an inconveniently placed pile of rocks into a beautiful reminder of God's strong and surrounding presence around the property.
The next week we taught at Loyalty School, a bilingual institution. I taught the 3rd grade. And when I say taught, I mean I made a fool of myself and asked the all-important question, "Barcelona or Real Madrid?" I talked about the human skeleton and made everyone hop around like frogs and listened to the kids eagerly read in English about "Leah's Pony" and then have absolutely no clue what the story was about. It was frustrating and humbling and exhilarating. These kids made me feel worthy to be in their classroom, showering me with hugs and notes on the whiteboard.
I sent one girl into the hallway for distracting everyone with her whisper reading while one of her classmates was asked to read the text and after blowing me off for a high five at the end of the day, she reconsidered and swooped me in a hug and told me she loved me. I could get used to that kind of treatment.
But for our last week we were gathered in the kitchen and eating cereal at 4:45, ready to catch the bus at 5 to head up into the mountain town of Tolanga to work with Heart of Christ Ministries. This is a home, a refuge, for girls who have babies from instances of rape or incest. The moms and the babies live there, along with two girls who have cerebral palsy and three 2 year old boys who were abandoned by their mothers (one of whom had a tumour the same size as him and now runs around unhindered, with only a scar on his side as a reminder).
The girls, as young as 12 years old, have school during the day so our primary task was to play with the babies. I almost always found myself with Genesis, the chubbiest baby in the bunch. Her mother, Miagro ("Miracle") touched my spirit. You see, she still had her spunk. She was goofy and laughed at me when I tried to communicate with her or had to change her baby's diaper. She hated math and loved to sing. She was so normal. And it's only because of the work God is doing through Heart of Christ Ministries that she gets to feel normal at all. If not for Gracie, these girls would be outcasts, victims of further abuse, dead, hopeless.
Those days were draining for us. Five hours a day on buses (sometimes standing like packed sardines) and the emotional challenge of the ministry itself took a toll on us, but now we get to share their stories and our own stories are enriched for it. And I encourage you, if you feel compelled, to partner with these ministries and the Kingdom work that they're doing for the otherwise forgotten.
http://heartofchristhonduras.org/
https://www.facebook.com/pages/LOYALTY-SCHOOL/144204782004
https://www.facebook.com/zionsgatehonduras
