Sunday, October 23, 2016

Ten Years of Partnership in Honduras (2006 - 2016)


Carmen’s Place, Part 4.


Bienvenidos a Tegucigalpa! Welcome to Tegucigulpa! This is a huge, sprawling city set among steep mountains. In the States now the issue of the vast distinction between the very rich and the working class is a public discussion. Here in Honduras, the distance between the rich and the poor is glaring and blatant.  The high walls, razor wire and security guards keep the upper class protected and cocooned. 

We work with the poorest. I am proud and blessed by the fact that the Presbyterian Church of Honduras is immersed among the poor both in the city and in the rural areas. This, of course, is not true of our PCUSA. When we come here the spiritual and theological lessons about being the church among the poor and for the poor often challenges our comfortable worldviews. 

I had a quiet, personal conversation with Pastor Juan last year. We visited his congregation to distribute food to their community in response to the devastating drought. He needed to ask me a question; I could see the pain in his eyes. He humbly asked if it was okay if his own family could receive a food packet or should he give theirs away also. I assured him that he should indeed take one of the packets to his own family. I remember Pastor Enrique sharing a miracle story with our group. His family, which includes three young children, had run out of food and was, at last, sharing one egg for their whole family dinner. Before they ate it together they prayed, and their children prayed. The next day members of their congregation arrived with some basic food supplies to carry them through. Enrique tells this story with a tone of powerful rejoicing in the providence of God. I hear his story and my heart aches with sadness. While working at Carmen’s place which had taken on the feeling of a construction site – concrete being mixed on the kitchen floor, bags of mortar piled in the corner, a pile of sand on the front porch, blocks piled high in the living area – I asked if she was going to sleep there that night. She responded, “Yes, of course”, and pointed to the roof. I interpreted her sign as meaning that the roof over her head was most important, despite the construction mess within. This is not a family who has the option of staying at the local Hampton Inn for a night while their kitchen is being remodeled. 

I was theologically educated in the  era which included Liberation Theology as part of the conversation. I studied the idea, and I truly believe that the Gospel of Jesus Christ has a “preferential commitment to  the poor." I do not fully understand what this means. I wish our church conversations today were more interested in the exploring this idea together. What are the great gifts which  the poor offer to the church today?