The name of our ministry this month is Puerta de Sion, or Sion’s Gates, and is the work of Tony and his wife.
Tony has a great story about having achieved the American Dream but discovering that it wasn’t fulfilling, deciding to enhance himself physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually, and so on a missions trip here about 5 years ago discovering God for himself. He has been growing in his faith ever since and has been living here in Honduras.
Originally shadowing a Honduran pastor and working for their church he found he had a passion for the street kids that he would meet who literally had to claw through rubbish dumps and bins to find food to eat. He had been running a breakfast programme for kids in the area and upon encountering the street kids who started to attend he knew that his calling was to make a difference in their lives. These are boys who are typically neglected or even abused by parents (assuming those parents aren’t absent in the first place) and end up in drugs and alcohol, or even in gang violence in some cases.
Tony looks after eight boys here, having moved on from the church he was with to start up this ministry (living by faith for the finances and resources) and they have recently moved into the current property.
The boys each have moving stories of addiction and neglect, some of which we have heard, some we haven’t because it is up to them what they choose to share with us as we get to know them, but are an amazing example of the value of this kind of work as their lives have been turned around.
Tony works from a respect-based authority, so whilst there aren’t a lot of hard and fast rules, the boys here understand what is expected of them, and more importantly believe they can achieve it, typically coming and confessing to any wrong-doing without any prompting, even if they might have thought they could get away with it.
It’s inspiring to hear Tony share how they have matured in areas such as swearing, physical violence to each other, leaving behind addictions, but also in the things they are growing in, especially in the area of their faith. It’s so moving to hear the things that they share in the ‘family gatherings’ that they have each evening about how God is moving in their hearts.
And so it is a privilege to be able to work alongside these boys this month, as a focus of our ministry but also as a group to do other ministries alongside, the nature of which I will share with you in my next blog.
