Throughout this month, a huge part of everyone’s ministry has been interacting and building relationships with the kids who Tony and Neidia (our contacts) have basically adopted and taken off of the streets. Even though we go to our specific ministry outside of the compound, we are always doing ministry because even when we come ‘home’ we still are building relationships with the Honduran kids.
Every so often Luis (14 years old, one of the Honduran kids) would come with us to Los Pinos to our church ministry to hang out with us. Los Pinos is the area that Luis grew up but also got engulfed by the temptations of the streets. He had been asking for a while if he could go visit his family up on the mountain in the barrios (slums) and we had received the okay to do so from Tony. So a couple of us headed up to his house about a 20ish minute walk up the hills to his house where cars were incapable of driving to. It was quite an eye opener to see the conditions of the locals houses and see how they live. We walked up dirt ‘roads’, through mountain side trails, and up and over sewage run off from above till we finally reached Luis’s house. After this long and exhausting trek to his house, we come to find out no one is home…he is quite disappointed since he hasn’t see his family in quite a while. He lets us in to his humble abode which is about 10-15 square feet, where his grandma, sister, and dad lives.
After some frustration, we were able to learn more about Luis life and hear that his mom left his family when he was younger and has no interest of seeing him, and that his dad has another family down the hill; therefore, switching off every two days at each house. Luis was basically raised by his grandma and it began to make sense why it was so easy for him to fall away into the troubles of the streets, but then such a testimony of God’s continually seeking after Luis’ heart. God coming in and grabbing him out of the streets through Tony’s ministry was so cool to see and realize the importance of reaching out to troubled teens with family issues.
Luis has been living at Tony’s away from the dark streets for a little while now, being able to see what a loving family looks like. It was a blessing to be apart of that and get a little glimpse in the life of a Honduran teenager raised in the heart of Sector F (the most troubled barrio in the city) and see how redeeming and persevering our God is.
