Out West Trip (Summer '02)
One man pretends to be rich, yet has nothing; another pretends to be poor, yet has great wealth.
Proverbs 13:7 (NIV)
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Out West Trip (Summer '02) |
One man pretends to be rich, yet has nothing; another pretends to be poor, yet has great wealth. Proverbs 13:7 (NIV) |
In the Spring Break of my freshman year, I had the incredible opportunity to go with my church to the capital city of Honduras, Tegucigalpa. We went there in order to help the Iglesia Bautista Emanuel (Emanuel Baptist Church) build a new church building. The first day we were there, we went to see the current church building and what it was like. I'm not kidding when I say the church was the size of my living room (which isn't that big) and they were squeezing in around 165 people in there! It was pretty apparent that we were God's answer to a lot of prayers
Before I tell you what our jobsite was like, let me tell you about the Honduran Christians there. I have never seen people so on fire for God. It was incredible to see what God did there. We had fourteen different college students from different colleges around North Carolina. He used fourteen different students, all with totally different strengths and weaknesses, and turned them into one single ministry. The team unity was definitely a big theme for the week. To illustrate this, whenever we prayed as a group we would interlock fingers with the person next to us. The illustration is that our fingers are definitely where our strength comes from. We use them to grasp and grip and pretty much for all that we do. However, the webbing in between each of our fingers is a weakness to us. Just ask anyone who just got a paper cut there and they will tell you that it immobilizes your hand for a while. By interlocking fingers with the person next to us, we were taking our "strengths" and covering their "weaknesses" and that was definitely true with our work crew. We had folks that were very centered on getting the labor done, folks that concentrated on ministering to the children, and folks that concentrated on trying to establish relationships with the Honduras fellas at our worksite. But, God used all of us to do his work there. It was amazing how most of us didn't know each other, but we just kind of clicked.
We were the first of seven teams from Calvary, so our job was to begin building the foundation of the new church. Since most of the congregation didn't not have cars, we would have to build the church in the same area where the other was. The neighborhood, which was poverty stricken, was already crammed for space, so the only place that we could build was an area of about an acre straight out of a mountainside. Therefore, since we wouldn't have a prayer at getting a bulldozer down there, we had to shovel all of the dirt by hand, and that is basically what we did all week. That may not sound like we did a whole lot, but my lower back can testify that we did a LOT of shoveling.
1. The team unity that was present among fourteen strangers (not really, but I didn't know half of our team at the beginning) showed me God has some incredible power. -Again, the strengths and weaknesses concept
2. We see our material possessions and nice houses as blessings and luxuries, but so many times, all they do is distract us from hearing God's plan for our lives. Here, where we are so "blessed" and Christianity is the accepted thing to do, hypocrisy runs rampant. But in Honduras, Christianity is the real deal, and life is so much simpler and that's where my faith in Christ went from intellectual to relational.
3. A fella in Honduras said, "You know, in Honduras we have a lot of poverty, a lot of sickness, and a lot of problems in general, but none of that matters because the joy of the Lord is our strength." WOW. The Bible doesn't say our 401k plan is our strength, or our GPA, or whether or not we get into the business school, but the joy of the Lord is all that we need for strength. -"That'll wake up the Country Club" - Andre Agassi
4. The Hondurans there had so little and made so much of it and we have so much and we make so little of it. All we do is complain about what we don't have.
5. Too many times, when we come off of a spiritual high and resolve to read the Bible more, or pray more, or go to church more. But that logic implies that we can work our way back into God's holiness. I learned that God just wants us to let Him love us. All we have to do is be His child. That simplifies things so much, just to be open to his blessing and as a result I haven't been able to get enough of my Bible and prayer is a real conversation now. Since Honduras, I know who I am praying to.
6. I learned what true faith is.
GUYS: (left to right): top: Dave, me, Hal, Jake, Adam, Matt (squating) GIRLS: (l to r): Allyson, Jennifer, Hannah, Jill, Annie, Marissa and Su-Yeng
bottom: Jeremy, and David
Taken from the house of the missionaries who were our "connection" Just a few of the precious Honduran kids
This was our dig site. It used to be a mountainside. We shoveled some dirt! This bridge just collapsed unexpectedly the day before we arrived
This is the inside of the Iglesia Bautista Emanuel...pretty small This was our bangin' "ride". Needless to say, we didn't pick up any girls.
These are just two pictures of the views from the Christ statue. Tegucigalpa is in the valley of a large mountain chain.
This is the statue of Christ that "looks over" the city (Most folks there are Catholic) This is the seminary where we ate lunch everyday
Oscar's (the preacher) wife and daughter with Hannah and Jennifer Action shot
Yeah, we needed a little help...I'm not gonna lie This is us with our two wonderful housekeepers