[Wow! Has this week gone by quickly. I leave for the U.S. tomorrow and will speak at Oklahoma Christian on Friday. This afternoon I have found a little bit of unscheduled day and an opportunity write briefly. I am beginning a series of blogs to share some reflections from this trip.]
This trip to Honduras has been different from any before in at least one sense—I have never been here during an earthquake! In fact, I had never experienced the earth tremors and shaking of an earthquake before. I really appreciate the generosity of the church (Main and Oklahoma congregation in McAlester, Oklahoma) in allowing me to be gone to help with the important mission work being done at Baxter and the clinic.
I attended church Sunday morning at the Kennedy congregation. The congregation has almost 300 members, and uses small groups in their outreach efforts. They purchased an old warehouse 5 or 6 years ago, and they have done marvelous things with it. They use the ground floor as an auditorium (although the supporting pillars present some line of sight problems) and the upstairs is classrooms for the children and teens. Previously they met in a public school building and the area where they met was very cramped. Back then there were only about 70-80 in attendance. I remember being in Tegucigalpa in 2003 and helping knock down some of the interior walls in the warehouse with sledgehammers. Then the fire trucks came and used high pressure hoses to completely wash out the interior. It was quite a sight to see so much water rushing out of a double door under extremely high pressure. It is good to see how the church has matured. They are working on planting two additional congregations. There was one baptism Sunday morning—the father of one of the members. The preaching staff includes two Baxter graduates, one who works with the church full-time and another who teaches at Baxter and also helps with the ministry at Kennedy. In addition, Baxter students are assigned to various congregations as part of their ministry training, and there are two Baxter students serving there as ministry interns. The church is in the process of identifying elders and deacons.
Sunday evening I attended church at La Vega, and heard a good sermon from their family minister (they call him minister of matrimonies). This church also has a Sunday morning attendance of about 300 and has elders and deacons. They have very effective outreach programs. The pulpit preacher is a Baxter graduate. They are having a prayer service at 5 a.m. every day this week to pray for evangelism and their community. They are having about 100 present each morning. I will use this example the next time I hear anyone call Latin Americans lazy!
(to be continued)