Month two is off to a great start! The first several days of being here, I felt out of my comfort zone. I quickly realized that in order for me to make the most of this month, I would need to be very intentional to build relationships with the teenage boys that live on the property where we are staying. This has been happening and I love each one of these kids … even the ones that challenge me!
Ministry
Seven out of the eight teams on my squad are together again this month at Zion’s Gate Ministries. Zion’s Gate Ministries is an organization that welcomes in street kids and provides them with temporary or permanent housing. Currently, there are primarily teenage boys that live on the property, but they are not opposed to girls. However, currently there is not adequate room for more children to live on the property. These kids that live on the property must have a true genuine desire to want to explore, learn, grow and actively engage with learning about their Christian faith. They are required to complete two hours of work on the property each day and must have a desire and show interest in wanting to change their lives around for the better. Many of the teens who now live here, have had difficult pasts, been addicted to getting high off of paint thinner and living in some of the poorest areas of the city, Tegucigalpa.
Ministry looks quite different than last month in a lot of ways. In Honduras, ministry isn’t about going to specific location to do ministry (although this does happen too), it’s more about constantly just living daily life together on the Zion’s Gate Ministries property and constantly interacting with the teenage boys who now live on the property. The good moments and the bad moments included.
In addition to living life here on the property with these 15+ teenage boys, our teams are doing various other ministries as well. My team specifically, has become English teachers for the month of August. Every Monday-Thursday for about 45 minutes, we are teaching English to 6th graders. The 6th grade class has been put into smaller groups, so that hopefully it encourages more interactions and learning with the students with a smaller teacher: student ratio. I have a group of three students that consist of a twelve year old boy and two eleven year old girls. After class, we then spend time preparing for the next day’s lesson and work on various other manual labor projects around Zion’s Gate Ministries.
Our afternoons this month look different each week. For example, this week we have been playing soccer and Frisbee with kids from both the community and the school where we teach. Next week my team is scheduled to participate in a combination of hospital and house visits and then the final week in Honduras we are going to spend time building relationships at a nearby building where a lot of people seem to hang out from the street.
Lodging & Food
We are camping out together in our individual tents again this month. The introvert in me enjoys this, as it allows me at least a little bit more alone time then what I would experience if we were sharing rooms and space. We are staying on the property grounds of Zion’s Gate Ministries. We have a community bathroom with three toilets and two showers that my entire squad, along with several visitors and a local family that also live on the property use. We have limited supply of water and not knowing when the water truck will stop by to refill the tank, we have to be very conservative in our water usage. Otherwise we run out and don’t know when we may get more. YES, this has already happened and we quickly learned how to cope. However, we were fortunate that the water truck came less than 12 hours after we ran out. Providing we have water, we do have showers. They may be cold, but after getting cleaned up they do feel refreshing even though in the moment they may not be the most comfortable in regards to temperature.
We are blessed this month to not have to take turns specifically rotating and cooking meals for our entire squad, as the food is prepared at Zion’s Gate Ministries. However, we do volunteer to help out with preparing the meals so that it takes some of the work off of their hands. We also rotate in cleaning up after meals and the community bathroom.
Community
God continues to work in my life this month, through the challenges, overcoming obstacles and pursing a deeper relationship with Him. He continues to show me just how loved I really am by being surrounded by a community who loves me, prays for me (and with me) and genuinely cares about me. Pray that I would continue to be moldable and teachable to what God has for me, even through the difficult times that require change.
