Sunday morning we had a small church service at the children’s feeding center in Cantarranas where we were staying to prepare our hearts for the week’s work and share the gospel with the people from the village who were in attendance. It was not a large service, but a good opportunity to reflect on how we would allow the Lord to work IN us, THROUGH us, and AROUND us, not just here in Honduras, but also back at home.
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| Pastor Prosser preparing for the service |
Since the remainder of our schedule for the rest of the week
was so full, Sunday afternoon was the only opportunity we had to pick up a few souvenirs
for family and friends back home. We drove
about 30 minutes to another small city called Valle de Angeles (Valley of Angels)
which is also up in the mountains. The
closest comparison for this city I can think of is Gatlinburg, Tennessee 20 or
more years ago.
Sunday evening was absolutely wonderful! We drove out to one of the smaller villages called Suyapa taking with us bags of clothes, flip-flops, goodie bags for the kids,
and Gospel tracts. After driving through the village we distributed
the materials out of the back of pickup trucks in the middle of a dirt soccer
field. One of the best parts of this
visit was singing and playing with the kids before the service started and
hearing their laughter as we handed out balloon animals and goodie bags. Even though it was just a zip-lock bag with a
balloon, pencil, toy, and a toothbrush – to the kids in this area, it was like
Christmas. Just being handed a new pair
of flip-flops seemed like the best thing in the world to them. A few from our group sang a couple of songs for
them in Spanish and English.
It wasn’t just the children that were grateful and excited either,
many of the mothers’ faces would light up as they were handed a size of
flip-flop that was close to one they needed or a shirt that may fit their
husband. They would crowd around the
trucks as we tried our best to sort through all the different sizes of clothes
and shoes. It was really good to meet
this small need for them.
As dusk approached, we hung a big movie screen from one of the soccer goals and used a generator to power a projector and laptop so we could play an evangelistic movie for them. This particular village was so poor that the nearest TV was probably a couple of hours walk away, so being able to see a movie on a big screen was a real treat for these people and before we knew it we were surrounded by a crowd of roughly 200 men, women, and children!
We sat with them
there in the dirt during the movie and were fascinated by their amazement. For me, sitting there that night was one of
those moments where you want to take a mental snapshot of exactly where you
are, who you are with, what you are doing, and every little detail you can see
around you. I just sat there and told
God how grateful I was for being able to have such a small part in sharing His
love with these people. After the movie Tim
Posey (on staff with Final Frontiers) gave an invitation and told them that we
would be back another night during the week to have a church service with them.
The village of Suyapa does not have a church building or a
full-time pastor, but a piece of land was recently purchased here so that a building
can be constructed. They do have a man
named Pastor Wilson who is one of the local, indigenous preachers that comes
once a week to hold a church service for the people, but this is in addition to
the 5 other churches he pastors in the area!
There is a tremendous need here for a full-time pastor to
lead and train the people and a building for them to worship in. Please pray that more local pastors like
Pastor Wilson can soon be trained and supported.
The part of this visit to Suyapa that burdened me most is that there are hundreds of thousands of villages just like this one all over the world. Final Frontiers Foundation is successfully working to help meet this need in 90 countries globally (see their mission statement below), but the need is still great! I challenge you to go to their website and see how you can help.
"Through the funding of national and
native preachers, we endeavor to effectively advance the Gospel where it has
never been preached before."
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