Day #2

Sunday was a day for worship, rest, and orientation.  We started out the day with "gringo church", which is a worship service for just the MTW staff.  There is another short term team here as well, from South Carolina, and we enjoyed the worship service together in the our kitchen/dining room.

After the singing, Mike Pettengill gave a brief message, and then Phil administered communion for the group.  There is not a pastor here full time, so the only time the MTW team gets to partake in communion is when short term teams with pastors on the team come down.

Right after church, we piled into the van and trucks for a tour of La Ceiba.  It was a pretty brief tour, but we got to see a diverse set of places.  There is a lot of poverty, but definitely pockets of relative wealth.  We drove through some places with western stores and restaurants, but saw a lot of street vendors and shacks as well.  La Ceiba is named after the Ceiba tree, which are a soft wood tree that grows very wide.  Below is the largest in La Ceiba, but they said it's pretty small comparatively.

One of the things that looked funny to us was the telephone/electrical wires.  It was a mess at every corner.  Apparently whenever a new business moves into a building they just run more wire, and it was an absolute rats' nest.

We had some free time after the tour.  Half of our group took advantage of the time and slept.  The other half walked to some nearby sports fields and watched part of a men's fast pitch softball game and another soccer game.

We then went to a Spanish language church.  It was a different experience for sure.  Mike said the majority of Hondurans will tell you they are Roman Catholic, but typically that's because that's what their parents told them they were, and they are not practicing.  The church we went to was a protestant church, and it had a very concert like feel.  During the singing portion there was smoke and lights going everywhere, and camera guys getting different shots of the guitar players and it was all shown up on the screen like we were at a huge concert...but it was a small room with about 100 people in it.

We came back to the compound for dinner and then hung out as a team and talked about our roles in the week to come.

Phil's Perspective

Wow! Already two days into the 2012 missions trip to La Ceiba, Honduras. Hard to believe. Our trip down here was uneventful, shorter than last year's but still tiring. We had to leave Tucson at 12:30 a.m., drive up to Phoenix, fly to Houston and then to a resort island off of the coast of Honduras called Roatan. We finally arrived in La Ceiba at 3:30 p.m. But we were wiped out. Most of us only got 2-3 hours of sleep.

Regardless, we've had a great time in the last 27 hours. We've been well fed but I still missed having the homemade blueberry pancakes I fix every Sunday. We went to two worship services today. The first worship service was what the missionaries call “Gringo Church” because it is just the Honduran missionaries. Mike Pettengill taught from 1 Timothy 5 on the treatment of elders by their congregations. I was honored to be able to administer the sacrament of the Lord's Supper, something Team Honduras only gets to have when they have an ordained pastor come down on a mission trip.

After lunch we went on a tour of La Ceiba in which we were able to get a clearer view of not only the city but the way of life here. I was shocked once a again to see the poverty in which these people live and how much I take for granted in my own life. Of course, there were the beautiful homes and cars sprinkled in among the shacks and junkers. This seems to be a country in which the very few rich take advantage of the many poor.

I'm really enjoying having Caleb here with me. He and I have been hanging out and talking a lot about what we're seeing and experiencing. He's also been enjoying hanging out with the older members of the team—one older teenager, three guys in their mid-twenties, and Richard who is in his fifties. Caleb has jumped right in and is eager to serve and help out with anything asked of him.

God has put together a great team for us here. We are getting along really well and having some great conversations about what we're seeing but also what we see God doing—and what we are praying he will do in us and through us. We had a great discussion tonight—as we prepare to go the the work site tomorrow—about being 'other' focused and making the most of the relational opportunities.

We had a mild scare last night as one of our team members, Richard, had a severe allergic reaction. We still have not determined what caused it but he is feeling much better today. Erin Pettengill is an RN and was on her game in administering treatment. He will be taking steroids around the clock to make sure it doesn't happen again.

Well, almost time for bed. I'm looking forward to what God has in store tomorrow.

Travel & Day #1

It's been a long first day, but we have safely arrived and had our orientation.  We met at the church at 12:30AM to drive up to the Phoenix airport for our 5:00AM flight.  Thanks go to Dave and Dan Jorg who helped with transportation.  We flew from Phoenix to Houston, and then on to Roatan.  Here we are getting ready to board our first flight.

Roatan is a small resort island that's not too far from La Ceiba and we got pretty cheap tickets into there.  Apparently it's a big scuba diver destination.  It was apparent as soon as we landed that we were in a completely different country.  The airport was tiny--with only one runway and no taxi ways.  We had to wait until several planes landed, and then all the planes taxied back to the terminal together.  As soon as we got off the plane we were immediately hit with the humidity and the smell of the salt air, and the tropical vegetation is completely different than what we're used to seeing back home.  The driving here is crazy too.  We took two taxis from the airport to the ferry terminal, and it was very clear that pedestrians do not have the right of way, and neither do any other cars other than the one you are in. We made it safely to the ferry terminal, and got our first taste of the Honduran cuisine.  Here are Phil and Caleb waiting to board the ferry.

The ferry ride took about an hour and a half, and the ferry was actually really nice. It was clean, comfortable, and air conditioned.  A few of us got some sleep on the plane rides or ferry, but in general we've all been up a long time by this point.

Two of the missionaries met us at the ferry terminal and brought us to the missionary compound.  The driving in La Ceiba was just as crazy as Roatan.

 

The compound is definitely a compound.  It seems like we must be in a pretty rough neighborhood.  All of the houses have very high walls topped with barbed wire, razor wire, or electric fence, and our place is no different.  The compound has a dormitory that is still under construction, which is where we are staying.  The first two floors are finished, which is where we are sleeping and eating, but the third floor is basically open roof at this point.  There are lots of avocado and mango trees, and we're free to eat from them....but they won't be ripe for a couple more weeks.

Here's a look at the dorm rooms we are staying in.  We're in one big room together.  Some have confessed to being chronic snorers....

After getting settled a little bit we walked over to a nearby soccer field where a couple of local club teams were playing a soccer game.

We met a couple of kids at the game that we talked and played with them some.  I was sure I was going to get stabbed.  One of the kids was running around with a rather large paring knife and pretending to jab it at his friends and throwing it back and forth between different kids.  It was a weird experience, and hard to know how to react.

All in all, the first day went very well.  We are looking forward to a full day tomorrow.

Packing Clothing Donations

One of the events we put together this summer to raise funds for our trip was a rummage sale.  The sale was very successful, and we still ended up with lots of leftover clothes and a few extra suitcases thanks to the generosity of the church members who donated.  We met up Wednesday night to pack the extra clothes to take down with us to give to the Pettengill's street children and mercy ministries.  We're also taking some soccer balls, school supplies, tools, and vitamins.

We leave a little after midnight tonight.  Please pray for safe travels.

Honduras Trip 2012

In less than one week our team from Rincon Mountain Presbyterian Church (RMPC) will be boarding a plane to Honduras.  We will be in the country from August 4th to 11th.  While we are there we will be working with Mike and Erin Pettengill, a missionary family that our church supports.  Mike and Erin live in the coastal city of La Ceiba, Honduras where they run a medical clinic and are building houses and a community center for the poorest of the poor.  They have had a busy summer full of short term groups like ours, and will have hosted a total of 16 teams by the time summer is out.  

Our team consists of 8 men and we are excited about both the help we will be able to provide as well as the new perspective and the impact that ministering to this community will have on us.  Our ministry will be in the suburb of La Ceiba called Armenia Bonito.  Each morning we will be driven out into the community to one of the ministry construction projects that the Pettengills oversee and work along side the locals.  In the afternoons we will play soccer and other games with the children.  Mike also runs an organized kids club that we will be able to help out with.  Evenings will be spent together as a team back at the missionary compound.

Please keep our team in your prayers as we undergo our final preparations.  We would especially like prayer for safe travel, good health, and that we could be a blessing to the people we meet.