I am here in Macholoa, Honduras, which is about an hour outside of Santa Barbara. Our team are by ourselves this month, staying in our tents again inside of a local church here.
Since our team is by ourselves this month, since this is the first team the WR has sent a team to this place, and since this is the first time they themselves have ever received missionaries, this has been new experience for everybody. Even sense the first day, we have really felt the weight of being “professional missionaries.” We are looking to them as the local church to see how they do ministry in this area, so we can come alongside them to aid, support and serve them; but, they are also looking to us as missionaries to see what kind of ministry we want to do and how we want to do it.
During the day, we usually will walk through the town visiting different people in their houses (some Christian, some not, some associated with the church, some not) praying for people. We’ve been sharing the Gospel a lot, and doing a lot of prayer ministry. Every Monday so far we’ve gone in town to Santa Barbara to the hospital (very different than hospitals in the States), praying for the sick there too. It’s pretty cool how open people are here to not only prayer, but also prayer for healing. When we went to the hospital the second time, we had people coming up to us asking us for prayer for their sick loved ones.
We are also teaching an English class at the church 4 nights a week. There are about 27 grade school kids that come, 15 high school aged youth, and 6 or so adults. We’ve had to quickly learn how to assess the kids, become teachers, write curriculum, and keep a Gospel-centered focus on teaching English.
The church we are staying at is one of 4 Christian churches in the area, and there is one Catholic church (here in Central America, I’ve noticed that they draw a huge distiction between “Catholic” churches and “Christian” churches, whereas back in the States it’s usually Catholic/Protestant). Some of the need that I’ve noticed here is that at least one of the churches was formed because of a church split. Divisions in the church are a huge issue here. In one neighboring town, San Nicolas, there is a very rural place up in the mountains that just has a house church. But some people won’t go to church depending on who’s house it hosting it, because they don’t like the people that live there. I actually got a chance to preach that night at that church on unity in the Body of Christ, divisions in the Church, and forgiveness.
Also, another issue many of us have recognized is that many of the people here consider themselves “Christian” or “saved” (i.e. “going to heaven”) only if they go to church. If someone doesn’t go to church, they aren’t considered Christian. This has made it difficult sometimes during our house visits when we’ve had the opportunity to share the Gospel, and they think they are saved, but when you ask why, they say it’s because they go to church. They know about Jesus, often they are still caught up in works-righteousness, but not having that relationship with Christ. It is very evident to tell, however, the people that do have that relationship, because they are just so full of joy and love, alive in the Spirit. I’ve never known how evident that could be!
Finally, for our team, we have experienced a lot of people during some of the prayer ministry in the houses and during prayer for healing in the church services who fall over “in the spirit,” but there have been a lot of questions and discussions about that among our group. We are just trying to seek out the truth of the matter and what Scripture has to say about falling over in the spirit, seeking out what is of the Spirit of God, what is of the enemy, and what is just people being fake in an emotional charasmatic setting.
