May Ministry->June Ministry

What’s up everybody?! I have moved into month 6 and into a different location.

The month of May was a lot of manual labor as I have said before. A bunch of time building a church, which included a lot of different jobs. Digging out the ground and trying to make it firm with barriers to keep the dirt up. Digging holes and placing large trees in those holes to start building the foundation. Which means we also had to carry these huge logs down this mountain a couple of times, certainly the most painful job yet. Outside of building the church, early on we dug spots for tents and fixed up the campsite in a few ways. We “fixed” the road. Took rocks off the road then replaced them with different rocks..? Idk pretty sure we made it worse. On the last ministry day we got to visit houses and share the gospel/pray over families, followed by soccer in the PM.

Was really sweet to see relationships grow whether talking about myself or even others connect especially when it was with the Hondurans we were working with. As the month went on we had the wonderful opportunity to see more and more of Pastor Paul and his wife Tania’s heart. They shared their dreams and desires (school, church, an agricultural something or another, and I think more) to transform this mountain and their willingness to not only rely on God completely with finances but also just with their lives. They’ve risked it all for the kingdom. 

At the end of the month/early June we had a short debrief where we raised up some new squad leaders and had sweet times of worship.

Now it is June and like I said a month ago, us nine guys have left the mountain for good while the ladies remain up there. We drove idk maybe 4+ hours north to a village/town an hour and a half down this gravel road called “Urraco.” I am already sad we only get two and a half weeks to work with Pastor Rony here because it is a sweet location. Our living conditions are far better than we were anticipating. We have beds and bathrooms! All you can ask for. Pastor Rony and his family feeds us every meal, some really good food over at his house like 3 minutes away.

Ministry might look like a lot of things. We have only had two ministry days so far so it will look a lot different at times. Our first day we visited houses and prayed over people, then afterwards sat in on a church or women’s group… we don’t totally know because nobody we are working with speaks any English. Yesterday we started the day off in the 90+ degree sun with probably 60% humidity on top of that. We got to start clearing a piece of land for the future location of Zoe church. Which meant rolling huge fallen trees to the outskirts of the land. In the afternoon we got a few hours off before walking maybe 20+ minutes to the church at 5. Three of the guys lead worship, and two spoke. I played my part by sweating my butt off playing with the kids towards the end with a couple of my buddies. Future ministry could also include more children’s ministry, feeding program, business classes and a lot more manual labor.

So this spot is sweet with the ministry we get to do, already falling in love with the people we get to do it with, and plus having it be a sweet time with the men of the squad. As pastor Rony says it is going to be a “good time”

So there is a quick update of my time thus far in Honduras. If you have any questions please leave them in the comments so I can address them now or in future blogs.

Love y’all a lot! Jesus loves you a heck of a lot more!

Peace,

JD