After a month of being with only the ladies of Team Super Mario and Via Gloria at a Guatemalan orphanage for children with special needs, we were reunited with our men and the rest of the squad for our month in Honduras. The bus ride to Honduras was definitely my number one worst ride ever! Seven hours of motion sickness is no bueno. Despite the ride it was quite eventful seeing that one of the young natives along with his friends that sat in the back decided to get drunk and disturb those sitting around him eventually somebody complained and the bus ended up taking a pit stop at a local jail to kick them out. Another was when we exceeded the assumed time of our bus ride due to a concerned bus driver who thought it wouldn’t be a good idea to let us out where we were supposed to meet our contact because the area looked dark and not a good place to drop a group of foreigners so we spent another hour figuring out what we can do and the bus directly taking us to our ministry site. Nice man he was, not so much of a driver but I’m thankful for him.
Living situation: 40 people in one big property, most slept under a big tin roofed building in their tents and 5 of us slept outside in our tents. For me, living outside was great, despite the numerous bug hunt in my tent, because it was peaceful, less crowded, and had a great view of surrounding hills. The lavatory was coed and included 3 stalls and 2 showers which I found amusing considering our circumstance but others thought otherwise. Food was given in small portion because not only did it feed our squad but also the people that live in the property. It was unfortunate for some of our men even those with small stomach that gave them their food…oh World Race how it took us 10 months to put into use what we learned from training camp about food portion.
About Zion’s Gate: Tony Deine was a camp director back in the States who sought fulfillment in Christ by leaving behind his old life and walk in the life that God wanted him to pursue and that was to run a ministry that help boys from Honduras seek salvation in Christ and away from a life run by drugs, gangs, abuse, abandonment and broken homes. He established Zion’s Gate 5 years ago along with his wife Nidia, a native of the country and a terrific sister in the Lord, and house 5 teen boys while we lived there and 2 new ones a few days before we left as well as a couple girls. We ministered to the boys, poured into our contacts, visited prisons, communities and churches, worked at an institution mainly for girls doing several activities (arts, crafts, writing, beauty stations, dancing) as well as with babies and children with special needs, played soccer in different communities, yard work, created a farming section, painting, taught English and evangelized on street corners. We sang worship songs, performed skits and shared testimonies in most of our activities. In several of the activities we partnered with a few Honduran pastors that greatly showed their passion as God’s warriors in their native land. These pastors are also a few in the country that took the initiative to bring Dad’s glory such as having the opportunity to share about Jesus in public schools! Our time in Honduras was crazy but how else do we bring His glory but to be such.
Nicaragua blog soon to come…
