BIG WORLD (little me)
About a year ago, Denny Wilson, the senior pastor at WCC challenged our congregation: "Step out of your comfort zone. Stop focusing on yourself." He challenged us to look at our world and our lives from a different perspective and to help refine our focus on living a purpose-driven life --- a life with signficance.
Steve and I just returned from our first mission trip. The experience was beyond what words or pictures can describe, but it had an eternal impression on our hearts and our faith. Here is a glimpse of our week in Honduras. We extend a sincere invitation to share our experience with you personally.
First of all, since the trip involved Jungbauers, you know that there HAD to be drama. This time the drama began before we even left. One week prior to leaving, we discovered that you cannot travel to Honduras unless you have at least six months before your passport expires. I will spare all the sordid details, but after many phone calls and FED-EXs we received our passports just hours prior to departure.
We flew into San Pedro Sula, a city of 800,000 people founded in 1536. It is about ninety minutes from the northern coast of Honduras and in the lowlands surrounded by mountains and banana plantations. Temperatures never dip much below 80 degrees.
According to the guide book, it is the most dynamic business city in Honduras and and much maligned by travelers as a place to get out of as quickly as possible. It has the highest crime rate in Honduras, so armed guards seem as common as stop signs.
Forty percent of Honduras' GDP is generated in San Pedro Sula primarily from banana plantations and maquilas. Maquilas are factories that assemble clothes from fabric imported tax-free and then re-exported tax-free. Forty percent are owned by the US and indeed, many of Steve's NIKE wear was "Made in Honduras."
Local vendors and mobile vendors
Honduras is full of contrast. Modern yet primitive. New yet old. Rich but poor. Hopeful but hopeless.
Icons like Coca Cola, Pizza Hut, Wendy's, and Office Depot seem to dot every corner yet are frequently adjacent to abandoned, dilapidated shacks. Peddlers stand on street corners selling fruit or water. A Catholic church stands in the center of every town. Just a few blocks from our hotel was this Warsaw icon.
Obviously, San Pedro is not a tourist town. You won't find menus in anything other than espanol and even a NASCAR driver would be challenged to survive the roads, sidewalks and parking lots. (Headlights and tail lights are optional, drivers create their own traffic lanes and one-way streets are just a suggestion.)
We were very glad to have interpreters, taxi drivers . . . and Guardian Angels!
Trinchera, is a village about 30 minutes outside of San Pedro Sula. This is where we spent our week working. Most of us would call it a ghetto. You cannot tell where it starts or ends; it seems to go on forever, but just runs into another village that looks the same with a different name.
The houses are rarely more than a few feet apart or more than a few crowded small rooms. Most have dirt floors and are constructed from scraps of wood, metal, fabric and plastic. There are open sewers that the children cheerfully run through like mud puddles. Many cook over fire pits. Laundry is done by hand and strung anywhere to dry. Children take care of the children. Trash and chickens are everywhere and despite the primitive living conditons, most houses have a TV --- and a barbed-wire security system. The "affluent" have houses of cement (with broken glass and razor wire security systems) and maybe even have a car. Large public buses from "outside" squeeze through the moguled streets of the village multiple times daily, but for most, Trinchera is the only world they will ever know.
The streets are studded with small shops in the front part of the houses. Some sell handfuls of groceries and many sell Coca Cola or Pepsi. Some serve food or have a small selection of clothing or other small household items. In one form or another, you'll find all the modern conveniences of home like a cell phone vendor, electronics store, barber shop, bakery, billiards hall, gym and of course, an internet cafe. There is even a meeting place for AA and a strikingly new medical clinic, though it's usually closed due to lack of staffing.
You can even get ice cream and cotton candy.
Our first interaction with the people of Trinchera was in small groups walking through the streets and stopping at houses to share staples of beans, rice and prayer. No matter how meager their living status, we were always warmly welcomed inside of their homes.
Sunday night we attended one of their church services. We arrived after the service began and were escorted through the crowded congregation to reserved seats in the very front of the church. Our comfort zones shattered and we were acutley aware that we had no idea what we had gotten ourselves into. As we looked out at the congregation, however, their overwhelming love, energy and passion for worship --- their love of God --- quickly calmed our insecurities. We later discovered that they expected us to arrive late so to show us special attention and honor.
The little girl in green, Alejandra, immediately stole my heart that night. I sheepishly snapped this photo trying to capture the passion of the moment. Note how their focus is not on us or anyone other than our Almightly God.
This is the Pastor and his "Praise Team" standing on the cement-block stage in the open-air dirt-floored church. Note how crisp, clean and white everyone was despite the primitive living and sanitary conditions.
The offering baskets overflowed that night --- a fore-taste of things to come.
Monday morning we returned to Trinchera. Most of the men were on the construction team and the women, teens and a few brave men were on the children's ministry team which held a Bible School for the kids. We were told to expect about 50 kids for the first session and perhaps another 50 for the second session.
Here is the church in daylight . . . . with at least 50 kids already waiting for us the first morning.
Before long, the church was busting at its seams with at least 150 kids on the first morning.
When we returned after lunch, the church was completely empty. Our hearts sank.
A few kids started to trickle in, but then Wilmer, one of our locals, drove around town in a pickup truck playing his trumpet like the pied piper. Within minutes, we were overflowing with kids from all directions.
The following morning when we drove in, not only was the church FULL of kids waiting for us, but they loudly clapped and cheered for us as soon as they saw our van. We could barely even get to the stage because they had put their chairs right up against it.
They could never seem to get close enough to us. We felt magnetic.
During our time with the kids, we taught them songs, watched a movie about the life of Christ from a child's perspective, colored pictures, made beaded cross necklaces, played with balloons and bubbles, made a prayer tree and shared the love of God.
The kids' favorite song was Yo Tenga Un Amigo, (I Have a Friend Who Loves Me) which they also learned in English. They loved to sing and when they did, it gave all of us chills despite the blistering heat. (You HAVE to see and hear the video.)
While we were busy with the kids, Steve worked with the construction team to "remodel" a house and put a new roof on the school. He redefined dirty and smelly. In keeping with Jungbauer "traditions," he was also the only one that got injured. (He cut his finger on a piece of sheet metal so I had to glue his finger back together.)
He also spent alot of time playing ball with the kids hanging around the construction sites.
The kids loved hanging out with (and on) Steve --- especially Darcy. (Talk to Steve for details.)
At the end of the week, we were all honored with a special ceremony and meal prepared by patrons of the school.
This church on the top of the hill was irresistable, so one afternoon, the ladies and I went on an adventure hike through Trinchera (and beyond).
Along the way, we ran into a helpful teen on a bicycle that redirected us (in a safer direction) and then a little further down the road we ran into another kind soul that then become our tour guide to the top.
She even recruited her family and more umbrellas for the journey.
Atop the summit, we found these boys flying their home-made kites.
And on the way back down . . .
. . . this is what we found laying in the middle of the steep downslope.
Mingling in the streets on the way home
On Thursday, we took the day off and drove out to the beach. It rained. (My typical day off.)
On our final night in Trinchera, we held in a "Crusade" with multiple local churches. At least 2000 people attended and the locals performed in a special dance ceremony while "our kids" danced with us.
All the gringos got up on stage and sang the kids' favorite song "Yo Tenga." The crowd begged for an encore. Some of us gave personal testimonies and all of us collected countless hugs and kisses.
More special faces and memories:
Our driver Javier with his sons, Javier and Gabriel.
Steve Petty and his fiance Reina
Steve is the pulse behind our mission in Trinchera. Reina grew up along the tracks in Trinchera.
Estella and her family outside their family store
Estella was a meek teen that barely spoke a word, but graciously helped us every day during Bible school. We tried to buy something from her store, but her mother insisted on giving us something instead.
A proud mother . . . full of hope, holding her six-week old infant . . .
I'm still trying to process our experience. It seems that what we received far exceeded what we gave. I don't know what kind of lasting impact we had on their lives, but I know they made a permanent impact on our lives. We were overwhelmed by the out-pouring of love and generosity: no matter how little they had, they joyfully gave.
But there is another world in Trinchera that is easily overlooked. It is not the world we want to remember, but the world that we should remember.
They did not choose where they were born, but we can choose how to use the gifts that God has given each of us. No act of kindness is too small. To love one another is to love God --- and if we refuse to extend love and grace to one another, we refuse to love God.
Love is more than a feeling. Love is a verb.
We must all live more simply so that others may simply live . . .
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