| Honduras
Newsletter Ten March 17, 2005 Dear Friends, It’s Sunday night and three hundred degrees in Tegucigalpa (give or take a few) and I’m determined to nail down my letter to you all. I just took my garbage out and some of you will be happy to know that I walked my garbage bags down the stairs and set them on the curb instead of dropping them from my balcony three stories above. Indeed some of you have now heard of the time Keyra (the youth director from San Nicolas) and I dropped the garbage late one night from my balcony. (It was very late and we felt uneasy about going outside). Unfortunately, the second bag we dropped landed on the power line, we stared in gaping horror at the sagging cord, said a prayer that we wouldn’t blow the neighborhood’s electricity, and ran down the stairs. Armed with a mop and broom, we frantically jumped and swung at the garbage bag until it fell. Since the incident, I have again dropped the garbage from my balcony, but I’m working on reversing my reputation as the weird girl from the United States (though I live alone, run for exercise, have no television) so I now try to go the extra mile (or three flights of stairs) and walk the garbage to the curb. My family, in a united effort to bolster me with a little support send my brothers down to Central America to spend a few weeks with me this past month. It was of course excellent to have them with me. They sat in conferences and read novels while I participated in planning meetings with church leaders; they numbered books for the library while I hammered out the content of a women’s workshop with Rubi; and they listened as Xiomara and I planned civic involvement events for the youth and bible studies about violence. Pete hung out a ton with the youth, and Andrew taught the kids in Olancho how to hackey sack. They watched me with shock as I drove the enormous truck through the crowded and crazy streets of Tegucigalpa. At one point, returning from a community with Peter and Rubi, we somehow managed to pick up a twin bed sized metal rack of bed springs under the truck. I don’t know how long we had been dragging this bed through the streets of Comayuguela, but all of us were completely oblivious until an old man motioned us to the side of the road, told us we were dragging a bed, and in panic, I turned onto a one way street into the fruit market, floored the gas. We managed to lose the bed (as mysteriously as we picked it up) and continued driving, breathing easier, until, at the next stoplight, I saw in my rearview mirror, two well-meaning men running after us dragging the bed thinking we had lost it! I pleaded with the light to turn green, but before I could crawl through the intersection, the two men threw the bed into the truck, gave a friendly wave, and went on their way. I managed a feeble gracias and a weak smile. We have finally begun the new year of activities in the church here. I am pleased to say that I am broadening my concentrated focus on youth to include work with women and children. I say I am pleased, and I am, because with all of the workshops, pastoral visits, and communication with the youth groups in the past year, Xiomara and I have seen significant growth. This is incredibly rewarding. It’s a little sad, however, to step down from my role with the youth…though I happily relinquish it to several of the remarkable, talented, and capable youth leaders that have risen into leadership roles in the past year. There is nothing more satisfying than walking into the offices and seeing a table with two or three youth leaders working together to plan a workshop or a bible study or an event. I will certainly continue working with the youth, in part because it’s with them that I have my strongest relationships. One of the current goals now is to begin identifying various female leaders in the communities and forming women’s groups. Hopefully in time, the women in the church will also see rewards, as the youth have seen, and be able to build on their successes. I have also made several visits to the congregation in Olancho. Happily in my last visit (two days ago) the church was full, the pastoral team in action, and the youth planning their next fundraiser. In the next few months, we’ll work on forming a stronger women’s group and continuing to strengthening the youth group…and of course working on our hackey sack skills with the kids. Please remember in your prayers this month the youth leaders in the various ICLH congregations. With Hope, Lindsay Lindsay Mack Iglesia Cristiana Luterana de Honduras Apartado Postal 2861 Tegucigalpa M.D.C. Honduras, C.A. |