The River Church Community

[Andy helped lead the Honduras ICE trip this year]

Hey everyone.  The Honduras team returned a few days ago, and I wanted to send out my report of what we experienced.  Warning: it's pretty long.   Honduras this year was much more difficult than it's ever been, but then all-the-more triumphant and rewarding in the end.  You'll remember the plan to use our long layover in San Salvador to tour around some; well, that first flight ended up being delayed three hours, which meant we waited/slept at SFO until 4, got to San Salvador around noon and didn't have enough time there to make it worth the money, hassle and risk to leave the airport.  We flew from there to San Pedro Sula expecting to board a bus there, but that TACA desk had never heard of that plan.  They did have us booked on a small flight, though, which we'd never heard of.  So, they had to rush us through the ticketing process for our whole group and hold the plane for us, and then we had to rush back through the terminal and out to the tarmac - I came through last after paying the airport fees for everyone, and I ended up running from security with shoes in hand, socks on pavement.

Then, because that plane had been so small, about half our luggage didn't make it to Tegucigalpa.  The next day, I went with Benji Guerrero and Jairo, our main Honduras contact, to the airport to retrieve the bags.  This turned out to be a much longer, more painful experience than I'd expected.  We found out that so much luggage had been stranded in San Pedro Sula because people had to take these small planes that TACA was flying an entire plane load of just bags - one couple at the airport had been without their luggage for five days.  But, once they arrived, the customs agency in Tegucigalpa held them back because TACA needed to pay a fine.  Essentially, our luggage was a hostage in an ongoing power struggle between the government and the airline.  We waited about three hours for the release and then brought the bags to a very appreciative team. 

The next day we went to church and I ended up in a difficult conversation with Jairo and others.  Our work project this year was to remove and replace the roof of the church in La Tigra, but the word Jairo used for the old material was "asbestos".  Turns out that Hondurans use "asbestos" to name any kind of roofing material, but we were alarmed and felt uncomfortable sending people to the work, especially our youth.  So, we came to the conclusion that they would hire people to do the demolition and then we would put on the new sheet metal, which added some expense to the project.  (The old material wasn't asbestos after all.)

That evening, people started to get sick.  In particular, Benji had something far beyond the usual stomach issues happening, such that he had serious trouble breathing at one point.  At that darkest point, after three days of hardship, we pulled together and turned the corner.  With everything going on, we had a sense of being under spiritual attack, which inspired a time of desperate prayer for Benji and the team.  After that, we gathered to discuss all that we had seen and experienced so far, and then we went to Bible study.  As the evening went on, our spirits continually lightened.  This is the experience I most want to hold on to from the trip: feeling battered by powerful forces and then lifting out of it by inviting God and each other into the situation.  Benji ended up getting some medicine in the morning and taking a couple days off.  (Those of you at The River, you'll see more of this story next Sunday.)

The work week went very well.  We finished the roof project, though a few guys had to take an extra day up in La Tigra to do it, and the VBS was great as always.  Our final day included an altar call, and I had the privilege of praying with two boys, Dani and Maurisio, as they invited Christ into their lives.  The week ended with the youth conference, one of our big question marks going into the trip.  We had to be flexible and accept a lot of uncertainty, but the conference was a big success.  Friday night we had a rally with bi-lingual worship, a brief talk from Kyle and ice cream.  Saturday included a talk from Jairo about leadership in the Church, a guided interactive group study on Jesus's leadership from me, lunch, and an afternoon of crazy youth group games.  The last part may have been the most important because, as Jairo told us, the evangelical church has a reputation in Honduras for being boring and serious all the time and we worked -- played, really -- against that stereotype.  Throughout, our theme was the body of Christ, with our gathering of youth from San José, Tegucigalpa and La Tigra as the example.  We're already dreaming and scheming about doing it again next year, with a much bigger group of youth drawn from several churches.  This is especially important because it's a true partnership between the churches.  Usually, either we've been serving them or they've been serving us, but we've been wanting ways to serve together and this is finally it.  

Probably my greatest joy as the trip-leader was seeing our youth build tight bonds with the youth from Iglesia en Transformacion.  That connection was all I could have hoped for.  Interestingly, the friendships were forged by playing Mafia together at a party in Jairo's house.  If you've ever played Mafia, you know it's not necessarily a game that brings people together.  From then on, our youth and theirs took every opportunity they could to hang out together.

So, despite some serious setbacks at the beginning, this was an excellent trip.  We did our usual ministry and added the youth conference, setting us up for future partnership.  And we enjoyed and deepened our relationships, particularly between our youth and theirs.

Thanks for your support.  I hope you've enjoyed reading about the trip and been blessed by the news.  Let me know if you have any questions or anything.  See you soon.   -- Andy