La Puerta de Sion

Welcome to Zion’s Gate, Honduras!

First of all, thanks to everyone for being patient while waiting for these blogs and continuing your prayers in spite of not hearing from me. Internet access is likely only to happen twice this month (this being one of the times-which is why you’re getting blogs in bulk!) Though it is a lot of information at once, I pray you take the time to read each blog carefully in hopes that you will be blessed by the stories you read and encouraged to pray more specifically for the mission here, though my writing skills cannot do justice to what I am experiencing here at Zion’s Gate this month.

Summary Information about our Ministry Location this Month:

1. 7 out of 8 teams on our squad (49 Racers) are together for ministry this month. The other team is in nearby Tegucigalpa.
2. We are serving at a ministry called Zion’s Gate (La Puerta de Sión). It’s located just outside the city, and the only things within walking distance are a few little stores and home-run restaurants along with a tiny soccer field and a few housing neighborhoods. The views are precious, as we can look out from the top of our mountain at the city below.
3. We are once again camping in our tents outside all month.
4. The weather is comfortable. Similar to Ohio summer during the day and chilly enough at night to require my thrift-store flannel (see previous 2 blogs) and jeans.
5. Meals are provided for us, which is such a blessing after the stress grocery-shopping and cooking created last month. We eat cereal daily for breakfast (oatmeal on the weekends!); a tasty (really-I love it!) mixture of rice and beans every day for lunch, and varied local dishes for dinners. I’m happy to get authentic food this month!
6. Zion’s Gate is an AMAZING place. God’s work is clearly seen and felt both through its ministries extending around the city and within its walls (which-by the way, are not gated or surrounded by barbed wire for the visual purpose of being a place that welcomes those seeking refuge rather than sending a message that they are to stay out like the rest of the buildings in the area). Here on the property, lives a “family” of about 30 missionaries, short and long term volunteers, and Honduran boys between the ages of about 8 to 22. Two or three Honduran girls are also residents here. This family represents a demonstration of redemption and restoration. Most of the children here have spent years of their lives living in garbage heaps, begging for food, being ignored or abused by parents (or not having any at all), and being addicted to the local drug that literally almost every man uses: sniffing paint thinner. Now, however, through the ministry at Zion’s Gate and the grace of the Lord, they are living happily and healthily with a strong earthly father figure for the first time in their lives. Even more importantly, they are learning about their heavenly Father and recognizing the love He has for them. They themselves are serving in the ministries Zion’s Gate provides. They are attending school. They are learning discipline and respect for authority and what it means to be able to trust someone. The transformation is beyond expressible and truly is a tangible representation of the effects of God’s grace.
7. World Race Teams will be serving at different locations around the area that Zion’s Gate supports, and we will rotate a few times during the month. The ministries my team will be involved with include:
   1. Cultivating relationships and trust with people living by a neighborhood trash dump in the city. The houses in this little area are made of scraps of metal and plastic found in the dump, and many of the men are high on paint thinner 24 hours a day, as a means of numbing themselves to the hunger they feel and their depression. By consistently sending people to talk and spend time there, Zion’s Gate is not only providing hope and to kids who have felt trapped by those circumstances, but is also breaking down the stereotype that these people are worthless and un-savable.  By just reaching out a hand to greet them, we are teaching them that, because they are made in God’s image, they have so much value.
   2. Helping out at a ministry center that provides health care attention, protection, daily care, and social-work type services to girls who have faced rape & sexual abuse from family members or other men in their lives and have become pregnant and now have to care for babies of their own. Most of these girls are around the ages of 10-15 years old and have faced such traumatic experiences during their young lives, and receive no sympathy or help from Honduran society or the government or justice system. The woman in charge of this ministry and her husband are Americans that have sacrificed so much to offer help to these girls and their children. When my team is helping there, we will live on-site (about 3 hours away from Zion’s Gate) for most of the week.
   3. Landscaping on Zion’s Gate’s property. The property is a safe-haven in a community facing so many hardships. Keeping it looking nice and welcoming is so important so that people WANT to come here and see what it’s all about. We are making the entrance more inviting by adding another garden and are also painting, weeding, and digging a pipeline for additional water access. Part of this ministry also includes working on the home on the property where the missionaries live along with all the boys they are caring for from the community.

Other opportunities for getting involved in the community are constantly opening up here as well. Spending time with the boys on the property is a joy as we share in living out what “the church” really looks like in our daily interactions with them. We’ve participated in local soccer games, bingo tournaments, & horse-back riding competitions (but only as the lovely ladies handing out the prize sashes). Tomorrow, I plan to begin tutoring a young woman who wants to learn English. There are constantly families wandering onto the property that we get to talk to, curious to know about all the Americans and their tents and why we’re here. It is truly a ministry that never stops. We are living out the Church here, and ministry has extended from the idea of volunteering our time from 9-5 every day to 24-7 loving the people around us with a grace that can only come from the Lord. And it’s week #1 here. All praises to God for the work He is doing in and through us and all that we will learn this month as we discover what seeing through God’s eyes is like.