Honduras Trip – Day 1

February 2, 2014 – HO-372

By Lisa Pickering

The first week of February, I had the opportunity to travel to Honduras with Compassion International.  Many of the children in Honduras live in poverty, and their families live on less than $1.25US per day. Most of the homes have dirt floors, and are built with scraps of wood or mud/earth/clay/adobe. Some of the homes have electricity, but most do not.  If the family has a restroom, it is usually separate from their homes, and does not have regular sewer system and running water.

The first day we went to a Compassion Center HO372, near San Pedro Sula.  Since it was Sunday, we enjoyed a worship service at the center.  One of our translators, Joel, translated as the Pastor Elias preached, but you did not need the complete translation to feel the love and passion of the members of the church.  Joel was able to translate not only the words from Spanish to English, but also the love and passion that pastor Elias was preaching. 

During the service several of the young girls danced to the music. The girls danced with passion and activity for almost two hours.  You could see the sweat on their faces, but they continued to dance.

After the 2 ½ hour church service, we were given a tour of the facility.  The facility is a newer Compassion center, and there has been a lot of work that has been going on in the facility.  The children come to HO372 for at least 8 hours each week, to be able to continue to participate in the Compassion Child sponsorship program.

We enjoyed a small meal with the center, and visiting with the children and adults.  The small gifts that we brought to the center were greatly appreciated.

Pastor Elias told us (with the help of Isaac) that at this center there are 170 children enrolled in the program, and they walk up to 30 minutes to arrive at the center, twice each week.  Pastor Elias talked about the generous donors who helped provide the funds for a well and filtration system.  The water was tested, and still is not safe for the children to drink, because it needs a different filter system.  Behind Pastor Elias is the monitoring for the well.  Up above is the filter system and pump.  The center has the plans to build a wall around the filter and pump for protection from the elements.

Pastor Elias took us out back to show us the area where the children can play.  While we were there some of the adults played a small game of Futball (Soccer) with the boys and girls.  They had a lot of fun, but had to be careful the ball didn’t go down into the creek. The children had fun challenging the adults, to see who was faster.  There was no goal, so they just played back and forth.

Pastor Elias continue to tell us that during the raining season, many of the children are not able to attend, as they must cross the creek that is behind the center.  The creek will swell, and the children are not able to cross to get to the center.  The water in the creek is very unhealthy, with trash all along the bank.  (and you could smell the trash and garage in the creek.)  Pastor Elias told us of the need for a bridge for the children to safely cross the creek ($7,000 US).

We enjoyed the visit at the center and the time we got to spend with the children.  The children were all smiling, and were all asking questions, and loved to give hugs, and get their “Foto” taken.  There was one little girl that was so sweet, and dressed in her best dress for the visitors from America.  She was so sweet, and was following us around, but never really said a word.  She was a little “Princesa”.

Later, walking outside the center, I look down the street, all the houses were small, and there were no cars in sight, just people walking, and a few bicycles.  The children were outside paying in the “street”, which was just a dirt pathway between the buildings.

After leaving the center, we took a little ride to the ocean.  It was a large contrast to the Compassion center and the neighborhood that we were visiting. The beach was so pretty, and hard to imagine that there were people living in such poverty.

We were reminded how important our sponsorship of these children is, and how it can impact not only the children in the program, but also their family.  Some of the children attend the program, but their parents do not believe in God.