Honduras

This is Pastor Ambrosio... the hardest working pastor I've ever met. On our 2nd night in Honduras, we drove to the tiny hill country village of La Colina (outside the city of Seguatepeque) with 20 team members from Menlo Park Presbyterian Church - mostly high school students - for a church service in the village we'd be serving in all week. One problem: It was pouring rain, pitch black outside, and they don't have a church building yet. (That's what we'd be building.) But Pastor Ambrosio seems unperturbed as he puts up a tarp and strings a light bulb with suspect wiring in the heavy rain without a raincoat or umbrella. Though Ambrosio is drenched from head to toe in his dress clothes, he radiates joy and excitement. When all is set up, about 40 of us crowd under a small tarp in the mud during a downpour for a worship service we will never forget.
Ambrosio worked non-stop all week on the church construction crew, along with our team, several men from the village, and pastors from 5 other churches that Ambrosio has started in the last 5 years. Here's a picture of what the church site looked like when we arrived. Ambrosio and his wife and 5 children were with us all week as we started building the new church from the foundation up. Ambrosio has been in ministry for over 16 years. He has a vision for helping the poor in Honduras through educational, vocational, and dental programs sponsored by local churches. In partnership with Ambrosio, we helped with two projects: building a new church and putting on vacation bible school programs (sports, songs, crafts, puppet shows) for the children in the village.

We were fortunate to be under the leadership of Steve Reed from Partnership Ministries. Steve leads up to 30 groups a year from the U.S. to partner with local pastors in Honduras and Guatemala. He knows how to lead teams and how to work effectively with local churches. He was joined by his wife Laura, Eric & Gloria Hodel, and Katy Medina. We benefited tremendously from the organization and experience of the Partnership Ministries staff. They handled all the logistics so that we could focus on serving with the people in the village.

Our team stayed in a hotel in Seguatepeque. Every morning, we would drive about 15 minutes into the nearby hills to La Colina. We spent mornings working on construction of the new church. Though we worked hard, it took at least 3 of us to match any 1 of the Honduran men. They were tireless, kind, and patient with us even when we were taking five times as many breaks as they did. On one of those breaks, one exhausted student looked over the work site and proclaimed, "I think I'm better at management than labor." We got the foundation and all the walls up by the end of the week.


In the afternoons, we put on day camp programs for about 60 kids in the village - sports, songs, crafts, and puppet shows. The high school students did all the pre-trip planning and they were well-prepared. The kids loved the activities and would walk long distances to join us each day. The children were delightful... full of energy and love.

One child that stood out for me was Gravin. Gravin is deaf and mute, but he has one of the most amazing smiles and joyful attitudes I've ever seen. Whenever you look at him, he breaks out in a smile that is like the sun breaking through on a cloudy day. Though life as a deaf mute child in a poor Honduran village must be difficult , you'd never know it from Gravin. He had a lot to teach us about being joyful in all situations.

We saw another vivid example of joy and gratitude when we visited a church that Ambrosio started in a nearby village. They were just beginning to build a house for the pastor. It was about 20 feet by 20 feet and will have 2 rooms. This small house is intended for the pastor, his wife, and 5 children! But the pastor and his wife were genuinely thankful for what they considered to be a blessing.

I'll leave you with one last picture. I don't know this girl's name because she was too shy to tell me (even though she told me it was ok to take her picture). She was sitting outside a small house in La Colina and embodied for me the friendliness, authenticity, hope, and dignity of the Honduran people.

At the end of the week, we went to a beach at Tele on the Atlantic coast of Honduras. And while we were enjoying the warm ocean, sand, and palm trees, we already missed our new friends from La Colina.

As we watched our 20 team members head back to San Francisco, we went to Gate 9 departing to Managua, Nicaragua...

- Steve