Honduras

Newsletter from Kyle Huhtanen for May 1997

May '97 report:

Kyle Huhtanen / Honduras Missions

May: A month of Unity

Sitting in a small dark unfinished building a group of Christians gathered in a lopsided circle on the afternoon of April 29th, 1997. A lingering sun beam penetrated the dust at a hole that had been left for a window. The bare adobe walls stood alone as a burden to light and ventilation, yet a necessary element to support the roof. Worn down by a month of dry summer heat that had brought an abundance of burnt fields, dusty houses, and smoke clogged views, the people had taken on a death of their own. This day was like every other, but the time had been set aside to pray as a body and so they gathered. Looking at one another, the leader was ambiguous, the energy was absent from the faces of these brothers and sisters.

Yet, a song whispers out of one mouth and slowly all start to join in the words and lift their heads to give God praise. It is Anael who holds the seed of hope as he now bellows the words out of his heart and his hands begins to accentuate his feelings. All are singing and the each member is repairing the knots in the string that binds them together. Suddenly I take notice that I too am present in this lopsided circle and I too, need to check my adjoining strings for knots as we have gathered our many parts of the one body. In this time of events and plans, my mind had wandered far from the people who I was communing with. It was lost in the logistics of how we were going to get the food ready for the seminar, the supplies for the group projects, the water for our latrine. The train-track that my mind was rattling down had well separated itself from those hearts that God had blessed me with at this moment. Now that God had gotten my attention I started to look at the eyes of the faces in this circle. It was a small circle of faces, but it was not too small to accomplish all these tasks that I was storing in my mind. I saw this circle of hearts and saw the thread we had woven together while striving to grow closer to God.

I went on to announce a focus of unity for the month of May. We had the opportunity to take our small group and give while drawing energies from the brothers and sisters we were going to unite with in the month of May. May 6th would unite us with all of Olancho as Amacuapa had challenged themselves to host the seminar for the Preachers of Olancho. May 12th a group of fifteen Americans would be coming to our community to encourage and unite with us to grow in the same Lord. May 17th would give us the opportunity to strengthen a unity that we had with our neighboring town as they were hosting a revival with visiting preachers from San Pedro Sula. We shared some versus about the unity that Paul urged to his distant brothers and prayed for God's hand to be in control of this busy month to come.

God answered our prayers and blessed our town, our efforts, and those who came to be with us. The seminar with the Preachers of Olancho brought close to 50 brothers and sisters to commune with us. Don Prantl, a missionary from Arkansas, gave a powerful lesson on maturing as a Christian leader. The afternoon lesson was given by a preacher and good friend, Reiner Maneli. His talk was on how to delegate leadership and grow in the number of men you have who are willing to lead. The church did a great job in putting together the food and other hospitality needs.

As the leaders departed we quickly changed gears to prepare for 15 more people to be living in our house. The improvements in the house were something we had been working on, but there are were many details still unsolved. We were feeling a little discouraged that all our work on the water project was not going to benefit the group as lingering problems still kept the pipe empty. The group arrived to find that not only was the water not running, but rain in the mountains had caused the river to rise quickly and be filled with mud and sediment. The spring which was our only source of drinking water had been flooded over by the high waters. Thanks to God, the water was running on their second day there and remained running the whole two weeks. This was an unprecedented event and I still don?t think they understand how much of a blessing that was.

The group's presence can be expressed in the five 'E's. Encouragement, Excitement, Enthusiasm, Energy, and Efficiency. The two weeks that this group spent working in the mission field of Amacuapa will be a topic of conversation for many months to come. I will here about the way the girls were shoveling cement, the way they rejoiced to work in the fierce sun, and the way they gave shared with each other in accomplishing a task. For us as the more permanent mission team, this group touched more people than we ever thought possible. It is quite exciting to list the things that they finished and almost more exciting to see the new things that they got started.

Work Projects: 2 Concrete Floors: Anael's house, and Esperanza?s house (Amacuapa) 2 Latrines: Chusita?s house, and Solando?s house (Bebedero) Plastered and White washed the interior walls of the church building Enclosed the roof on either end of the church building 4 Church Pughs 2 windows framed in Helped with the adobe construction of three different houses in the community A pila for our house.

Evangelism Events: Random visits to three neighboring communities in addition to Amacuapa. Greatly encouraged the Growth Groups in the towns of Bebedero, San Antonio, and Amacuapa Hosted a devotional in the town plaza of Amacuapa which gathered about 100 people. Were essential in initiating the first family devotional using the radio program to broadcast the signal into every home. Attended the Bebedero revival and glorified God with people from over five different towns.
Community Events: 3 school visits were made to give classes of English and a fun time of games. The sport of volleyball was introduced to this town and became a great opportunity for the girls to enjoy a form of recreation. Constant entertainment of kids who were often visiting our house.

I feel a great sense of comfort in the time we had with our American visitors. We wanted to think of MESH as a tool for the work we were doing. We didn?t want to cater the work to impress or comfort their ideas. We did change our schedule to use them and accommodate their presence there. Yet the comfort comes in that they were infused into the people's lives. They were immersed in a community that was willing to embrace their presence. This group took some brave steps to tear down comfort zones that had been well constructed in our American society. To walk up to a stranger's porch and converse in a language foreign to your understanding in a culture slightly more perplexing is something everyone in this group became a part of . Their time was more than work projects, more than a presence in a church service, more than a common customer in the pulperia, their time here was an exchange between two groups of people. It had the elements of sharing, the elements of self separation, the elements of unconditional love.

For this, the time we had remain exciting, because now I return to answer their questions of continued curiosity. The questions that were not understood and therefore unanswered. We feel encouragement down here on our side of the fence. We know that people will be talking about the group, about the actions of a certain one, the jokes of another. The tools that came have done their job and God?s work will continue with his other set of tools. We pray that we can function as effectively as they did.