Church News  Site Content Missions Updates (Text) |
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Short-Term Mission to Honduras |
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08/20/2008 - Our team leader is Susan Brooks, formerly of PVCC and now living in Bossier City, LA. Ben, Susan and their daughter Beth have traveled to Honduras for many years on short-term missions, and Beth lived in the country for a few years teaching English. She teaches Spanish here in Arkansas.
Our home base is the Iglesia de Cristo (Church of Christ) in Gualaco, Olancho, in the central part of the country. (Google Maps)
There is an association of churches that have collectively built up a mission dormitory and kitchen off of this church sanctuary. Day trips are made to work locations, which can be minutes or hours away by van over rough dirt roads. (The state highway is about 3 lanes wide, but it's all dirt so driving "rules" and the notion of "right-of-way" are pretty much ignored. If you hit a cow, however, you'll have to compensate the rancher.)
This year, we spent six days shoveling dirt into portable, gas-powered concrete mixers, lifting half bags of cement, and hauling wheelbarrows of concrete into houses. Our team of 14 poured concrete floors in 25 houses, sometimes 2 or 3 rooms in the house. Twenty-five families no longer have to
deal with dirt floors!!! We had seven local men who assisted as masons:
they took our concrete and made colorful, level floors. We also poured a church floor, replacing one laid more than 10 years ago that was damaged by poor construction and use.
We also presented two Bible stories to six groups of children (approximately 300), and spent time with each group working on a related craft project. Our ladies attended a Woman's Bible Study and Susan Brooks delivered a message on the Peace Of Christ. Our men and some of our women also participated in some friendly soccer matches at Gualaco's arena soccer field. We didn't win, but we weren't a total embarrassment.
We are grateful for the support we received from the Church and several families and individuals who made contributions on our behalf. We know that people were praying for us: we didn't lose luggage, all of our travel connections (car, plan, train, truck, bus, van, taxi) were relatively uncomplicated, no one was sick for long, though we shared a stomach virus for a few days. In addition to our travel, the funds contributed to our trip were used for: the construction materials; compensating the local laborers; our food and lodging (including the water purification system installed at the compound); school supplies left with four one-room school houses in Gualaco, Las Joyas, and El Tabon; Bibles for the local churches to distribute; and shoes and clothing bought during our visit specifically for children and shut-ins identified by the local church.
~ Laura Riedinger
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