So apart from visiting the prison, we also got to spend a week of ministry in Los Pinos. This was probably the best week I've had here in Honduras so far. As I've described in blog posts briefly, Los Pinos is just one of many large neighborhoods or sectors of the city. It is exceptionally poverty stricken, as it was set up earlier in the decade to house local refugees after a huge hurricane wiped out many fragile structures. The houses are really more like shacks with tin roofs. Almost all of them are built on steep hills with narrow and really sketchy paths leading up to them. To get to one we literally had to hike and climb up a cliff.
Anyway, what I really enjoyed so much was just getting to visit and pray with the ladies living there. We never got to see much of the men living there because we'd usually go during the day when they were at work or elsewhere. One of the ladies we visited was Naomi, who was the mother of the Honduran boy, Arielle, who lives with us at Zion's Gate. As far as I know she was healthy, but she was definitely struggling with working and providing for herself. I was disgusted to hear her tell us that she works for the government by picking up trash in the streets for about 250 limpiras a week. That's about 12 USD which is about a third of minimum wage in this country. She went on to tell us that sometimes she's not even given gloves and she even has to pick up dead animals with her bare hands. Eventually the conversation steered in a different direction and we got to hearing about her favorite hobby of making jewelry. The girls on my team, especially Kaitlin and Arielle, did an amazing job at showing interest and giving the lady a sense of pride and dignity in her work. It was incredible to see how a half hour visit could evoke so much joy and excitement in this lady. Before we left, we got to pray with her and she told us that if we were to come back the next day she'd be right there waiting for us. I wish we could have, but things didn't work out that way. Thankfully, we'll have another week in Los Pinos later on and even better- if all works out according to plan, she'll be living at Zion's Gate in the girls home getting ready to be built.
My other favorite part about our week in Los Pinos was visiting Louise's grandmother, who everyone just calls Abuela, which is just the word for grandmother in Spanish. I truly cant explain how wonderful and adorable this old lady is. We visited her our first day there, but what was really cool was that we were invited back to visit again to celebrate her birthday with her Wednesday night. We went to Los Pinos at night for the first time that day and we could already see how dangerous it was. There were just lots of high men walking about and as we quickly got out of the car the girls on my team were whistled at and teased by a group of probably either drunk or high men. We didn't pay them much attention. Anyway, we got to Abuela's little house safely and it ended up just being a party with us, Louise, his dad, and a young man named Ronnie. We brought her cards, cake, and little gifts of next to no value to us that we picked up in a Walmart like store. It was just incredible to see her light up at all of this. Ryan and I gave her some really cheap candles and the girls gave her things like cheap glasses and I don't even know what else. But Abuela was just so overjoyed. She told us she's never received gifts like ours in 77 years of life. I actually felt pretty guilty when she said that just because of how little thought and effort I put into my gift. But anyway the whole night was just incredible. we just sat in a circle and played some of the dumbest and most fun family games I've ever played in my life. What was also really cool was Abuela's son and/or Louise's dad really came out of his shell. We were told that he used to be preacher but had somewhat fallen away from his faith when he started on drugs and quit work. However, the night of that party you would never have been able to tell. After we played games, he shared some really cool stories of faith with us and even shared with us some of his analogies he used as a preacher.
It was just amazing to see how much fun we could have in such simplicity. When we got back to the property that night I heard Cassie tell Tony that that was the most fun she's ever had in Los Pinos after 10 months of living here. The only thing I didn't really get about this week of ministry is that there's sort of a floating expectation of the leaders that spending a week in poverty would take us to a state of brokenness. Not a bad brokenness. A brokenness that puts one in a state of reliance and total dependence on God and the comfort only he provides. While I would say I did experience this to a small degree, I would say that overall this week has been a joy and a blessing for me. I feel like I was literally spiritually and emotionally fed by the crazy amount of joy and hope in the eyes of these people. I feel like I finally understand what Jesus was talking about when he said over and over the first shall be last and the last shall be first. I think most people view the poor by things and material wealth that their missing. But really I think they have something we should want. There's something they just get about the gospel that actually makes it good news and the joy they have is just undeniably contagious.
There's just so much to learn from so many different kinds of people. I praise God for this experience.
