by Brent Billings Youth Team Member

Shared By Brent Billings – Age 18 on Sunday 8/24/2008 at Berea UMC

Good morning. How is everyone doing this morning? Good?? We’re sitting in our nice cozy pews, in our fancy dress up cloths, in our cool air conditioned church. We even have windows and doors. What about that. It’s nice to be rich… “Rich?! I’m not rich!” Is probably what most of you are thinking right now. Well let’s define rich shall we?

We wake up every morning from our soft warm beds, take a long hot shower, and pick out what we will wear for that particular day from our wide variety of cloths in our closet, fixing ourselves a tasty breakfast, then get in our cars and leave for work or school. That’s not what rich is… That’s middle class…… Well if that is our definition of middle class, then what do we view as rich??

Is Rich waking up in a mansion, having servants pick out your cloths for you. The chef has your breakfast waiting for you on the table and it’s still warm. You get in the limo and your driver takes you where u want to go that day. Is this what we see as middle class and rich??

Now before you decide, take a second and imagine this lifestyle. Put yourself in these shoes…

Waking up on the dirt floor of your one room house with your family of 8, it’s hot because there are no windows or doors to keep out the hot sticky summer air. You are hungry because you didn’t have dinner last night so your kids wouldn’t go hungry. You are curious to see what’s for breakfast….or if there will be breakfast. No need to worry about what to wear because of the two changes of clothes that you have (one which you are wearing now) and the other being your church outfit which you only wear to services. There is also no worry for a shower because it hasn’t rained in the past week so no water. And even if there was, it would be cold, dirty rain water that gets caught in a big rain barrel out back. You can leave the kids asleep on the dirt floor. Don’t worry about getting them off to school because you don’t have the money to send them. They will wake up whenever they want and run around in the streets with the other kids during the day.

Now what would our society classify that lifestyle as?? Poor?? You see its funny because our society defines them poor and us as middle class, where as their society classifies their lifestyle as middle class and ours as filthy rich.

Ok let me make a transition and ask you another question.

Are we happy?? Shouldn’t we be happy?? I want you to raise your hand if you have been upset or unhappy since you woke up this morning. What about the last 24 hours. Ok now I want you to think about that time or a time recently when you were unhappy about something. Any why. Why were you unhappy? It couldn’t have been that big of a deal right. I mean look at everything we have to be happy about. Why are we unhappy??

While in Honduras our team met and saw A LOT of people. And you can ask anyone who was on that trip with us how many unhappy people we witnessed. There wasn’t a single one I can remember.

Let’s think about this for a second shall we??

As a whole, people in our society today are unhappy and complain about too many of things. If the people in Honduras saw us right now they would ask “They are rich. They have everything. What are they complaining about? They shouldn’t be worrying about anything.” But yet we still take everything we have for granted.

So with all this new insight, lets define rich again…..

Our first definition was – A nice house, nice cloths, a lot of money.
I think our new and real definition should be “rich – love, happiness, and Jesus Christ in your heart.”

And that’s what Honduras has. Loving, happy, Christ filled people.

This VIM team went to Honduras to help a poor broken nation. But instead what we got in return was help in our own lives from the richest people I have ever met. We did a lot of hard work down there but I honestly believe they helped us and touched us more than we even began to help them. Its funny to see how God works in his mysterious ways. He used what we thought were the poor, needy, and helpless (which are truly the most helpful, rich and bountiful) to help the real poor and needy……..US.

Reflection by Chuck Conley Team Member

I volunteered to go on the Honduras trip, and then I decided I could not go. Then over the next two weeks I simply could not get it out of my mind. I told my Sunday school class that I had no idea why but I just had to go. So, I did.

I had traveled to Central America in the past and I believe I knew what to expect. I found things different than before. On one hand they seem to be connected, at least to the internet and other modern trappings to which we are accustomed to in the U.S. On the other hand the poverty I remembered was still there.

I remember how confused I was as a younger man at my inability to make sense of how the poor people of Panama seemed otherwise to be happy. This was magnified on this trip because the construction of the church was in its third year. How could these people be pleased with progress so slow? Why I could get a crew from the U.S. to come down and with just a few more modern methods we could have this up in no time.
Then I remembered my promise to myself before leaving Berea. First, I wanted to bring to the trip no prejudgement. God loves all people no matter how they live and where they live. I needed to have that acceptance and love as well. I decided there were three things that I could do to help me reach this goal, a lofty goal for me. Number 1, I started the week before going with introspection. Why was I going? How could I be what I needed to be at the right time and place? Then simply to take a good hard look at who I am. Number 2, I wanted to be a part of a team and really it appealed to me that I did not know some of the people going very well. What better way to learn about people than to be with them for 10 days of service to others? Number 3, I wanted to be able to minister to the people I traveled with and especially the people we were going to help.

I never worked any harder in my life. I was dog tired at the end of each day. I did take the time to sit down each evening and evaluate the day, and then we did it as a group. This helped, yet I was unsettled about some feelings of frustration. We could do this much faster if we had the right tools. Why can’t they get supplies to us when we need them? At the end of the week we finished the task set before us, and in record time. Still I was frustrated because I knew with the right tools and materials on time we could have done a great deal more.

Then I thought over the church services we attended with the people we were helping. They were grateful to their Lord for the progress, for their lives, and their blessings. They laughed easily. The dog was welcome in church. After church we left for the last time where we had labored for a week. What I remember are the happy faces, the handshakes, the children who had been our constant companions and hugs from all expressing their thanks. It was hard to leave.

On the return trip something kept nagging at the edges of my consciousness. I just could not quite figure out what was there. After a week at home and not being able to get my mind off of all I had seen and heard. It finally struck me. I went to minister to them and they had been the ones doing the ministering to. I also realized that the speed that the church is being built is of no concern to these loving people. Indeed, it had provided for nearly three years a stream of other Christians from far away coming to them to help reach a goal, and in so doing, the spirit of Christ permeated that place for all the participants. They reveled in the joy of anticipation of what is to come. One day a church. One day Christ.

In conclusion, everyone wins when one serves others, and as I found out the servers become the served. Our beloved Berea United Methodist Church is a winner for the encouragement provided to our team members. In the event you have an opportunity to serve, here at home or somewhere far away, keep in mind that by doing so you will create a community of winners in Christ.

Sincerely submitted by,
Chuck Conley

Team Sharing Dates

If you are interested in hearing more about our experience in Honduras please make plans to come to one of the following events at our church.

Sunday Worship - August 24 The team will be sharing at the 8:30 and 11:00 services.

Wednesday - September 3 - Our church is having Pot-luck meal and the team will be making a presentation at that time.

We also will be scheduling at least one over event.

Back Home

We haven't posted in a couple of days. Everyone is resting up and sorting through the volumes of photos. We just want let everyone know we made it home safely, and that good ole American cheeseburger and fries sure hit the spot.

We'll have more updates soon, and also posts on other mission work going on.

Back in Tegucigalpa

Just wanted to let everyone know we are back in Tegucigalpa at the Casal Bed and Breakfast. We will be going to dinner soon.

We met up with Ron and Loretta here and they took us to an artisan village to do some shopping. We had to spend the last of that Honduran currency some place!

I'll try to get some comments from some of the other team members and post them later tonight.

Tomorrow we are leaving for San Pedro Sula. It is a 6 hour journey, but believe me, by the time that 6 hours are over you feel like you've driven to Oregon in a car with no suspension. It is very taxing.

Thanks again for everyone's prayers, we are all safe, all of the little queasy stomachs are better now.

We all can't wait to get home and see everyone.

Wednesday in El Paraiso

First of all thank you to everyone praying for us. Please continue your prayers as some of our members are little under the weather including Alehandro. Nothing serious, just some getting used to the food I think.

Church is on Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday nights. The internet cafe closes at 8 local time so tomorrow there will not be a post. However on Friday morning we are leaving for Tegucialpa again. We should be able to post Friday evening and Saturday, and hopefully on Sunday from Houston.

I thought for this post I would just post some random notes from my personal journal and then on Friday we are going to post some from team members journals and comments.

Tonight I put comments on the pictures I posted the other night and I'll try put up some new ones.

Thanks again for everyone's support.
Bob

Day 3 - Sunday

We went to the work site after breakfast. It was a 15 minute walk through streets deep with mud and ruts from tires. There were a couple things that needed done before tomorrow that should have only taken a couple of hours. However the trustee with a key to the tool shed was two mountains away and had to come by bicycle. That took a couple more hours. So we waited and played with kids who flocked around us.

Alfredo was a huge hit, drawing them pictures. Chuck made them some paper airplanes which they flew all over the place, and Josh, Brent, and Alex played soccer with them in the muddy street.

Finally the trustee arived as did a load of sand. The sand was shoveled into buckets and passed brigade style inside the walls, up a scaffolding, up a ladder and dumped into piles onto the roof. A second load of sand was delivered and the process started all over again.

After we got these tasks accomplished we went back to the hotel and took showers, then went with the pastor and Alehandro to Danli where they showed us around. We got to see the Methodist church there that is the model for the one we are working on. It is really nice. It is the second largest Methodist church in Honduras. We also got to meet the pastor. He told us they have about 110 adults and about 80-90 kids coming to their service. He said they have about 165 members.

After we got back from Danli we went to worship with the church and to hear Pastor Santos preach. They had an extra guitar and asked Brent to play with them. He did an awesome job. The service was fantastic. Very lively and the people just welcomed us and were so grateful we had come to work.

A couple things about the service that really struck me was the enthusiastic singing and the fervent, heartfelt prayers.

Day 4 - Monday

Today was our first real work day. We are all amazed at the un-organization we face at the job site. The culture down here is very different from our fast paced, hectic days. They think nothing about waiting two hours for a load of sand or gravel. And EVERYTHING gets re-used. Nothing is wasted. Some of the boards we are using as supports have long seen their better days. But they get the job done.

Yesterday and today we formed bucket brigades and moved 5 loads of sand and gravel from outside where they dumped it to up on the roof. Brent and Josh kept looking to see if their biceps were any bigger. It was a tough job, but everyone jumped in and got it done quickly.

Again today the kids were all around us when school let out. They are so fun. They loved to have their picture taken and today took Donna's camera and took her picture with it. She ended up with a huge number of pictures, most of them of fingers in front of the lens and the ground. The kids just bond so easily with everyone. By the end of the day today, when we left to walk back to the hotel they were hugging us and giving us kisses. The boys love shaking hands and doing fist bumps.

Day 5 – Tuesday

One really cool thing today is that Melvin invited me, Corey, Alfredo, Alehandro, and Jon up to his house. We went in and his sister immediately started getting out chairs for us to sit in the living room. She made is this fantastic coffee, and served it to us in a china tea pot with cups and saucers. During the conversation they made mention to Melvin's dad that Jon wanted to ride a horse. The next thing we knew, here comes Melvin's dad leading a horse through the house! He brings it in the back door, through the kitchen, through the living room and out onto the front porch. It is about half a meter down from the walk to the street. He leads it down the sidewalk to where the walk meets the street and into the street. Jon got on it and rode bareback up and down the street a few times. Much to the amusement of all the locals who came out of their houses to watch “Gringo” ride past on a horse.

After that we walked up to the top of the hill to where the big cross is that overlooks the town. From there you can see all of El Paraiso and have a great view of the church we are working on. We also realized just how close we are to Nicaragua. We had discussed going there to cross the border and get our passports stamped, but Pastor Santos said that was not a good idea and we respected his wishes. From the top of the hill, the very next hills over is in Nicaragua. Less than 10 minutes away from the center of El Paraiso.

Day 1 – Travel and Arrival

This post today is from the journal of one of our team members, Chuck Conley. The internet connection here is really slow and the cafe closes early. Tomorrow I will try to post two posts if possible. Tonight I also was able to post a few photos. You can see them from the link to the photos.

Everyone is doing great and we are all safe.

Chuck's entry:

We left Berea about 12am on July 10^th. Arrived at the airport in Knoxville at 3:30am. Houston at 7am, then San Pedro Sula at 11am.

The drive from San Pedro Sula was quite an experience. This was a 4 to hour trip to Tegucigalpa. Our drivers were aggressive as are all drivers here, and although most miles were on 2 lane highways all the driver considered them three lane highways. What appeared to us to be narrow escapes were, I am sure, every day driving experiences. Another surprise was the mountainous terrain. Most of the driving was up mountains and then down. It was high enough to make the air much cooler.

Tegucigalpa was a surprise in that it was in a bowl in the mountains with houses stacked on the hills and 2 lane streets with buildings and houses right up to the street. Traffic was chaos. No stop signs and if there was one occasionally ti was ignored.

It was a shock to many of our gang to find guards with shotguns at places we stopped.

The hill sides have been denuded with very few trees to provide fuel for cooking. Man 1 room shacks, no doors, no glass in windows. They use cloth coverings. Many hammocks on porches. Many bicycles on the roads, along with many older vehicles. Horses and cows tid up on the side of the roads where they grazed.

We stayed in the Casal Bed and Breakfast in Tegucigalpa and had dinner in an Italian restaurant down the street. Charles Bertrand gave a short devotional.

After about 22 hours of traveling every one was extremely tired. We went to ed about 9:30m local time. It is 6:50am on the 12^th and we are getting ready for breakfast and the two hour trip to El Paraiso.

The team is an interesting mix. I have bee surprised at the lack of awareness of time and place. Perhaps this comes with age. I think Alex is opening up more as many of us have been showing support for him. It is good to interact with the younger people. They are wide eyed. Maxine did not go to dinner last evening. The day was difficult for her although Jon and I handled her baggage for her. She seems recovered this morning. Although I left not feeling well I did Ok yesterday and feel still better this morning, not 100% yet.

It is a great asset to have Alfredo with us. It makes everything much easier. He is also a great people person. He reminds me of Morris.

One of the funniest things was watching people sleep on the 5 hour trip to Tegucigalpa. Bobble heads were everywhere!