Honduras- Month 4
We were placed with a ministry called Aaron’s Mission Outreach (AMOR) in Talanga, Honduras. Talanga is a peaceful mountain community just a couple of hours from Tegucigalpa, the capital city of Hondruas. We weren’t entirely sure what ministry would look like this month, so we didn’t know what to expect. Our ministry hosts were a married couple named Vickie and Keith, along with their daughters Maggie, Shaylee, Tori, and Gabby, as well as their interpreter Josjue and the pastor of the local church, Ever, and his wife Gladis.
We were able to participate in several different types of ministry this month including: working at the local school teaching English and math, working at the local free clinic, participating in the feeding program that went deep into the mountains, loving on our hosts and sharing devotions with them, investing in the people within the ministry, giving our testimonies and preaching at the churches, praying for people, doing construction work and housework, helping the women make tortillas at five in the morning for the feeding program, and putting on fun days for the little kids and the young adults of the church.
A typical day involved us getting up around seven, eating breakfast, doing devotion at 7:30, then those that were going to school and the clinic left that day, and those who weren’t going stayed back and had some downtime before construction or housework started at 8:30. There was one other team from our squad that we were with this month (team Overflow) so we did a weekly rotation of who would go out for ministry, or who would stay back as ranchhands. If we went out for ministry, we either went to the clinic or the school (if the teacher happened to be there that day). I went to the clinic at every opportunity and dispensed medications prescribed by the physician, as well as taking vital signs and in my best Spanglish trying to figure out their chief complaint. If we stayed back as ranchhands we would get to work with Keith on the project of the day. We helped dig a foundation for a carport, poured a cement drainage ditch, helped organize the in-house pharmacy, and helped to clean and get a house ready for the pastor and his wife to move into. We would also participate in the mission’s weekly church services on Sunday, Tuesday, and Friday afternoons.
Tuesdays were our off-days and they were pretty relaxed. Our first Tuesday we got to go into Tegucigalpa and go to the mall and the PriceSmart there. I was also blessed to be able to see a few friends from back home. They were working in an orphanage in Nicaragua and came up for the day to visit and bring some special deliveries back from the States. The rest of the Tuesdays we were not able to go into Tegucigalpa again, so we typically went to the local internet cafe to get wifi.
Honduras is a beautiful country, full of beautiful people and I hope that I can revisit it in the future.
