It is hard to believe that it has been a month since we returned from Honduras. We knew that your prayers were at work for us before we even left the States. When we arrived at the Atlanta airport, the international departure counters were swamped hundreds of people destined for the four corners of the earth. It looked like we would have to wait in line for hours. Then a very kind Delta ticket agent took pity on us and opened a special check-in line just for our team, eliminating hours of frustration and waiting. This was the first of many doors that the Lord would open.

We arrived in San Pedro Sula Honduras safely after a pleasant flight, settled into the Agua Azul fish camp. The next morning, we began teaching Bible school to the pre-schoolers of Santa Elena. After lunch, the team divided into two smaller groups. Group one (Chap Shearouse, Robin Hyde, Kristin Ellefson, Valerie Marsh, Philip Belger, Will Royster, Katherine Manci, Laura Fife, Sarah Edison and Bob Fuller) went up into the mountains to the Village of Los Pinos with Hope Shearouse to conduct a Youth retreat for twenty-two 15-20 year olds. The retreat was much like a retreat here in the States (music, games, food, Bible Study), but with one major difference, the language barrier. How do people share the gospel when they do not share the same language? The Spirit of Pentecost showed us the answer as we learned to sing together, play together and even play word-trading games to teach each other. With the help of the Holy Spirit and translators, we saw how the gospel expressed in actions, songs, giving and prayer transcends the language barrier. God’s power to bridge the gap was on full display on the second-night of the retreat when six young people surrendered their lives to Christ.

Group two (Mike Ward, John Shearouse, William McGhee, Linda Miskelly and Morgan Fuller) stayed in Santa Elena with Steve Shearouse and began construction work on a new brick house for one of the families in the feeding program and completed work on a house that had been started by another previous team from Indiana. When the two teams got back together at Sunday Morning Church, we shared stories. It became clear that the Lord was really giving us a chance to be apart of his kingdom building in ways we did not expect.

Throughout the week, that Kingdom building continued as we worked alongside the Mission on the Move missionaries and translators. For thee days, we conducted Vacation Bible school for the children in the Santa Elena feeding program. In addition to leading music, activities, and crafts, the team helped with feeding, bathing the children, harvesting sweet potatoes, and organizing and distributing the many gifts that the mission team carried from Fairview. The group also visited homes, sharing Bibles and tracts with families in the village.

Meanwhile, members of the group were also hard at work in the house construction project. The cinder-block house is for a woman named Francesca and her family of nine. Francesca’s husband was murdered and she and her family have been forced to live in a shack with a mud floor and two twin size beds. A tattered sheet covers the door and they cook on a wood fire in the corner of the shack. The family often pitched-in, lifting bricks and the spirits of the construction team. Together, Hondurans and Americans, adults and children sifted sand, hosted blocks and mixed cement. The methods were primitive. The construction team joyfully pushed themselves to exhaustion every day, driven by the knowledge that a new house would make a remarkable difference in the lives of ten people.

When the team left Santa Elena on Wednesday, we left with the feeling that we had accomplished much, but that there is still so much left to do. There are many more stories to tell, and we are eager to tell them. The point of this trip was not to simply go see and do, it was to build a relationship between the people of Fairview Presbyterian Church and the people of Honduras. Now that the way has been cleared, we should set a goal to maintain these relationships and continue the work the Lord started. Please pray that God would help us to support the projects of Mission on the Move and the Kingdom building taking place. Maybe God is calling you, to this new way of connecting people to people and people to Christ.