Month ten has begun! We have arrived to Zion’s Gate Ministries just outside Tegucigalpa, Honduras. Tony and Nadia Deien are our ministry contacts and they have done a wonderful job casting the vision for what we will be doing while we are here.
Our whole Squad is together for the month. We set up a tent city in this blue and yellow building. A building that used to be home to a very notorious cantina is now home to almost 50 missionaries (In addition to our Squad of forty there is a Passport team of eight joining us this month). I am jazzed to finally be using the tent I’ve carried around the world and the introvert in me is thankful to have a place of refuge when I have had my fill of people.
(Mine is the almost white one in the bottom left of this picture!)
Tony, who hails from Utah is but a mere decade into his faith but has lost no time making a meaningful impact for the Kingdom. An entrepreneur who owned his own company, at forty years old he decided that the American dream was leaving him sapped. Selling off toys a plenty he moved to Honduras, met his Nadia, and now lives in a house with sheet plastic windows.
Why? To redeem the lives of cast away street kids.
The children of Honduras, most notably those in a community called Los Pinos, are our charge this month. About ten live on the property, eight boys and two girls. When we are not on the property we will be working on any number of projects including teaching character curriculum and English in schools, visiting the Los Pinos community via outreach events and prisons or juvenile facilities around the city.
Five Sense Showdown Honduras
Sight – Over the wall, the hills of Honduras green as can be. Down the road filling the valley are the lights of the capitol, Tegucigalpa.
Sound – The main though fare, a two-lane highway, to the capitol is 100 yards from my bedside. The lull of semi trucks, buses, and other commercial vehicles is like the white noise of the ocean were we living on the beach.
Smell – Like rain. Each evening a thunderstorm camps over us. I love it. It cools everything off and gives a wonderful light show.
Taste – American contact, American food, yeah! We’ve had hotdogs, corn on the cob, coleslaw and FRUIT! Except for Saturday. We had fried plantains, black beans, eggs avocado and homemade tortillas for breakfast and Honduran spaghetti made with 3 liters of Coke for dinner. Delicious!
Touch – Making up for years of lost affirmation, the kids who live on the property are affectionate! Hugs abound, as does sitting close during worship/teaching because it is absolutely appropriate to love the ones you are with.
