We are community.

Never more than now on this Men’s ministry trip.  Saturday morning, Pastor Felix and 14 men in matching shirts arrived from San Pedro Sula (3 hours north) along with Pastor Ramon and 4 men from Danli’s La Cofradia churches.  Together with our group of 9 men, Rigo, and Raphael our translator, we made for a formidable group! 

mentrip1-4We jumped right into all day construction on the mission house — floor 3.  We moved 2,500 bricks from the ground to the 3rd floor and then split into many smaller groups do various rebar, shifting sand, digging a hole for the cistern, making cement forms and other tasks.  It was really fun work with each team having representatives from our different home churches.   Mid-afternoon featured a work stoppage (no, we didn’t strike, although this work has low wages and no chance for promotion….) when a scheduled delivery of materials failed to appear.  Instead, we held a very good discussion group on the third floor on the Honduras men’s ministry and what is means to our Honduran brothers, some of whom are experiencing men’s ministry for the first time.  

In the early evening, we headed out for a soccer game, which featured rotating shifts of our men in 2 teams.  It was great fun,  brought us together like sports always does for us guys, and totally reinforced why we take baseball so seriously in Kansas City!  Our group picture is from the soccer game.  mentrip1-2

Back at the mission house, we enjoyed a fabulous dinner, devotional on the Apostle Peter led by Chris and an evening of Chutes and Ladders and other card games led by Ben.  (Ben reported he trained for this trip by playing the game with his young daughters at home.  We need to have them attend future team training sessions and train us all!).

 Today, we headed back to Ciudad and worshipped with Pastor Daniel and his congregation, in typical high energy Honduran style!  This was followed by a group lunch during which Pastor Daniel and Pastor Felix shared what they do in their men’s ministry and why being in a men’s ministry is so very important.  We all enjoyed seeing our many friends at Ciudad and our mentrip1group lunch afterwards.  

 After lunch, we said good-bye to the San Pedro Sula team, who needed to get back to their church for their regular main Sunday worship at 6 pm today.  The rest of us, including Pastor Ramon and his group of men toured the Christ Statue before they departed back to Donli.  Late afternoon, we toured downtown Tegus, and enjoyed coffee in the downtown park which was packed with people, street musicians, and vendors hawking goods. Eclectic energy and great fun.

 Our evening featured a Honduran restaurant meal, where we met a mission team from Nashville that include a mom who knows Kat and Derek who led our RezDT Honduran mission trip last year.  Small world!

We head off to bed amazed at the community we built in just 2 days with our friends in San Pedro Sula, La Cofradia, Ciudad, and Juan Wesley.  We are blessed, we feel God’s love and Holy Spirit with us.

 We are community.