Travel With Travis

UPDATE #1 Honduras

MONDAY NIGHT

I sit in out room late at night with the sounds of Spanish TV in the background. Our local friends helping us this week love to watch TV very loud, very late at night. And since the World Cup Soccer is in full swing, I am being educated about Latin America’s favorite pastime.

Being in a new culture is always fresh and exciting. Today we were finished with schools early enough to walk the neighborhood and pass out invitations to tonight’s GodMan presentation. Being the leader, and a little more willing to experience new things, myself and three others decided to get coconuts and papayas out of a roadside tree. After our 15-year old female translator climbed a wooden latter into a tree to find out she was not tall enough, a local man came out of his house with a machete. At first I though we were in trouble for climbing his tree. Then I found out he was going to help us get some coconuts.

He hacked at the tree and got four or five coconuts down. His wife came out with another machete and chopped the ends off. We sat in front of this tiny two-room house and drank fresh coconut juice. It was warm, and not very good, but an experience I enjoyed for the novelty of it.

Our translator spent a few minutes talking about coconuts, and then the lady went inside to get something for us. She came out with a plate of homemade coconut candy cookie bars. All the warnings of “do not eat street food” rushed through my mind. But not wanting to offend, and enjoying the experience, we ate….and we liked.

Tomorrow may be a day of diarrhea, but today is a day of new adventure.

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We are in the city of Choloma doing our ministry, just north of San Pedro Sula. Tonight we showed the GodMan for the first time. It was excellent, and it was effective. We advertised it all day in the schools. Our three groups did three different showings of the animated story of Jesus. Combined, there were 1,600 people who viewed the movie. At my venue, more than a hundred children and adults responded for salvation. It was amazing. People are hungry for God in this city.

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We are in a training room at the hotel every morning at 5:45 a.m. for pray and devotions. Then a 6:20 breakfast and load the vans at 7 a.m. The days are long, but packed with God moments where children and youth are hearing the truth about Jesus, and realizing they can have a personal relationship with Him.

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I preached Sunday night at church. I had a message prepared from home, but the pastor announced to the church Saturday night I would be speaking on the Second Coming of Christ. Well, good thing I’ve seen Thief in the Night…so opened of Thessalonians and Matthew and preached on Sudden Events that Change Lives. For such little preparation, I believe God gave me a good message for that night.

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Now that we are in Choloma doing ministry, there is one restaurant we eat at. It’s a Christian owned all-you-can-eat buffet serving incredible food. Well, looks like I’ll have to hit the gym as soon as I get home.

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Love and miss Joy and the boys. Wish you were here. Have a great week.

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TUESDAY

I forget that most American kids have never seen true poverty. I’ve seen the one-room wooden homes that have no door and a few slats of wood for a roof. I’ve seen the raw sewage in the street or the river. I’ve seen the babies running around naked because they have very little clothing.

But today I watched a team of high school students slowly get off a van and wonder where they were at. Why is the school so run down and dirty? Why is there no electricity? Why is everyone looking at us…even more different than the other schools?

It was true third-world poverty. The children had no shoes. The babies had no diapers. The house next to the school only had a dirt floor with a wood-fire stove. A one-year-old was running around with a box found in the trash and the brothers and sisters were sitting along the road starring at us.

I talked to the team about third-world poverty and told them to look around and appreciate what they have at home. It was our last school of the day. They spent some extra minutes playing with the neighborhood children. They took pictures for memories. Then, as boarding the van, they asked if we were going back to the hotel now that the last school was finished. I looked at the two kids sitting on the edge of the road, nodded my head yes, then climbed in a truck for departure.

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Schools were good today. One school of 600 elementary students were so chaotic we sent them back to the classes until they could calm down. We finished this crazy school and then moved on to a school of 26 students. It was awesome. A small school sometimes is more moving to the heart than a student body of 800.

Why do we like huge crowd if ministry is more effective in smaller groups?

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Health…everything good. Coconut cookie doing fine (see Monday post)

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Talked to Joy today from a internet/telephone café. It cost one dollar for 20 minutes…wow! Cheap. It’s right next to our lunch buffet place, so students can call home more often, now.

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Plans for tonight: No late night ministry so we are at hotel to rest for a big day tomorrow. Pizza, pool, and a movie on a big screen. We are calling it REST here…I’m sure some of you reading this is rolling their eyes saying…tough trip. But we are up doing devotions at 5:45 a.m., eating at 6:20 and on the road at 7 a.m. And it’s hotter than….hot.

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Evan Courtney's group from Macomb

posted by travis spencer @ 4:08 PM