First week in Honduras and things are going great. We are at a ministry called Heart of Christ (El Corizon De Cristo). Heart of Christ is a ministry that works with woman and children who have been victims of rape and incest. We are here to help with daily tasks, like taking care of children, construction projects, and helping with a new food assistance program. This involves taking surveys of the village, to see who qualifies for the program. It will help support women who are pregnant, have a child under two years of age or have a child with a disability such as cerebral palsy. During this time we are focusing on getting to know the community and building relationships with the people who live here. In doing so we are able to share our faith with these people in a way that would otherwise be impossible.
Before leaving on this trip I had many people ask me why I was going. People would say “Why not just stay here and do mission work, it is needed just as much as overseas” and to be honest I never really had a solid answer. All I knew was I felt God calling me to “Go”.
The people here are delightful, and friendly. With such joy in their smiles they are contagious. The landscape is breathtaking. This country has such a natural, awe-inspiring beauty about it. It is tropical yet mountainous, lush and fertile yet barren and desolate.
Never in my life have I experienced such immense and overwhelming poverty. On the outskirts of the capital city, Tegucigalpa, there is a seemingly endless expanse of shacks and shanty villages. Trash littering every street and hillside, children on the sides of the road burning trash. Starving, mangy dogs on every corner and sidewalk. Though their smiles are joyful there is hopelessness behind their eyes.
I know now why we are needed here.
In the U.S there are always churches willing to help. We have the Salvation Army, Manna Food bank…etc. We also have well fare, food stamps and other government aid, the list of organizations willing to help are endless. Here these people have no one. The government provides no aide to people living in poverty, and churches barely bring in enough money to keep their own doors open.
These people need hope they need someone to look out for them, to lift their spirits with a simple smile, or kind gesture, and most of all these people need the hope and pure joy found In Christ Jesus. In the short time we have been here people are already being led to Christ and lives are already being changed. And not just the lives of Hondurans. Our lives are being chanced as well. God is working on me every moment of every day. Breaking my heart for these people and giving me grand visions, of ways we can help.
