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?
