I am LOVING Honduras! We arrived last Monday after layovers in Amsterdam, Atlanta, and Miami and headed straight to a remote outdoor hotel for debrief. We spent Monday-Friday there having team debriefs, relaxing, adjusting to a new culture, and sleeping away NINE HOURS of jet lag. The hotel was really nice; we had cabins with 4-6 people, showers, hammocks on our porches, and all our meals cooked for us. I definitely wasn't ready to leave Friday evening.
That is, until we got to our ministry sight! This month, our entire squad is serving together on the outskirts of Tegucigalpa and tenting on the property of an incredible ministry called Zion's Gate. Zion's Gate is a community that was built from the ground up by our contact, Tony, to take kids off the streets and out of the dumps to teach them about Jesus and equip them for a better life. The beginning of Zion's Gate came a few years ago when Tony took in Anderson, a now 7-year-old boy who begged him for food every day at the fast food restaurant where he went for internet. Today, there are 15 children living on the property ranging in age from 2-20, and so many more who visit consistently, including Hector, whose mother works 12-hour days at a restaurant; Hector used to sit in a booth from 8-8 on the weekends and 12 (when he got out of school)-8 on the weekdays waiting for her to be finished. Now he spends his days at Zion's Gate playing with the other kids and spending time with staff and volunteers.
Tony and his wife, Lydia, have no legal rights on the kids so they are free to come and go as they please, but as long as they are here there are rules they must follow and they are to be productive and helpful around the property. They may not like some of the rules, but this is the only sense of family and/or parents many of these kids have ever known and they are offered a life here that is immeasurably better than life on the streets. I've come to find that even though many of the kids still have friends and/or family where they used to live, they LOVE Zion's Gate, Tony, and the second chance at life they've been given here.
There is also a woman named Karen living here on the property, who only arrived a few days before we did after living at a ministry run by Gracie, a friend of Tony, for 6 months. Karen is about 20-years-old, but other than that there is almost nothing known about her family or background. Karen is deaf and knew no sign language when she was taken in by Gracie. She lived 20 years without any form of communication! She now knows minimal sign language and has two or three one-hour lessons during the week, that include all of the Zion's Gate family so they can communicate with her as well. Karen loves to clean, watch movies (for the motions), garden, and do art. Right now, Tony is on the hunt for ways to increase the speed of her learning because she seems to be very intelligent and the 2-3 hours of lessons a week just aren't cutting it.
The eventual goal that Tony has for Zion's Gate is to have it be self-sustaining, rather than supported, and to be run by the Hondurans more than himself. Right now, projects are in motion for a mini soccer field with a pulpria (a concession stand), and for building a walk-in rabbit cage to breed rabbits and sell them as pets. Other plans include a small park with benches and picnic tables, not only selling snacks but also lunches from the pulpria, boys' and girls' dormitories for the kids who live on the property–they currently all live in Tony and Lydia's house–allowing Zion's Gate to take in more children and maybe families, a missionary house, a veggie garden, a bike shop run by Henry, and so many more. Tony's dream for Zion's Gate is for it to not just house and care for the children and young adults who come to live here, but also to be an inviting, safe, and fun environment for the entire community to enjoy.
So what are we doing this month to partner with Tony and further the ministry of Zion's Gate in this community? We have a tentative schedule splitting the teams between yard work–excavating areas for planting a garden and for the walk-in bunny cage and painting rocks for the outside wall, teaching in two schools, visiting the slums in Los Pinos and a garbage dump, and hospital ministry. Six of the eight teams will also spend two days at Heart of Christ, the ministry run by Gracie as a refuge center for teenagers who have had children as a result of incest. Last but not least, we will organize two youth nights for the kids who live here and for any of their friends they would like to invite to attend. It's going to be a crazy busy month, but I'm loving every minute of what we're doing here, even if it means going to bed at 9 o'clock every night because the sun comes up at 5:30 AM.
We don't have internet where we live and are only scheduled to have it for three days out of the whole month, so updates will be sparse. But I'll still be writing and hopefully posting every week, so keep an eye out!
