Honduras Day 5 Feb 2011

From Honduras Day 5 Feb 2011

It was another beautiful day in Honduras! Today I was struck by the juxtaposition of poverty and beauty in this land. There is so much of both, and they seem so contradictory.

We started our day back at the school where we installed the water treatment system yesterday. We did not get finished yesterday, and as we were winding down, we realized that placing the system outside was not a good idea. We did not realize until late in the day that the campus was not secured. We made the decision to move the system inside. The move went pretty smoothly and quickly, but we still did not get finished. Something was not working quite right, so Steve is going to ponder it overnight. We will probably return there tomorrow afternoon, after we build a house in Mateo.

Around midday we went to the dump to help feed the people who live and work there. Marc Tindall prepares food each week and is building relationships. He tries to speak to each man who lines up for food, shaking their hands. The dump is indescribable. I think it is the most disturbing thing I have ever seen. It is certainly the most disturbing place I have ever been. It’s nearly unbelievable. I wanted to weep but couldn’t/didn’t.

From the dump you can see, off in the distance, the back of the famous Jesus statue that overlooks Tegucigalpa. Some have said it appears that Jesus has turned his back on those who live in the dump. Forgotten. Unloved. Uncared for. It’s not true. Many care about those folks and many are striving to help them. I saw it clearly today.

I felt helpless/useless at the dump. Totally. I shook a few hands and gave a few hugs. Behind the filth and the face masks are image-bearers of God, dearly loved by him. It seems to me that many of these folks long for touch; perhaps to touch someone, to connect with someone, who lives in a world far beyond theirs. Hope?

The sights, the sounds, and smell are so striking at the dump. Surprisingly, you hear a lot of laughter. Some seem very happy. There are lots of smells, as you can imagine; it is a garbage dump. There are lots of smouldering fires. A word that Jesus uses fairly often, the one we translate “hell,” is a Greek word that points to a smouldering trash dump outside the city of Jerusalem in his day. It was a horrible place, a place to avoid. The dump in Tegucigalpa is some kind of hell.

I am so thankful that people are working to rescue these folks from hell. The school across the road is an amazing ministry, as is the regular feeding. All kinds of folks are trying to do all kinds of things to help these people escape this present reality. We met some of the children of dump workers today. They are sweet and beautiful. If not for the school, then I think they would be up on the hill looking for scraps of things to recycle and perhaps for some things to eat along the way.

The Jesus statue may have its back toward the dump, but his people are looking at it squarely in the eye. Thank God.

Here is the video I shot last year at the dump.