Pastor Pinto's church in Tegucigalpa

Pictures from the Transitional Home.

Our day at the Transitional Home last Saturday: our visit to the city centre with the boys; Duncan gives the boys a gift - a model helicopter; Rosalie and Jonathan; the boys making wristbands.

Pictures of the nursery at AFE

The wonderful nursery at AFE. These small children would otherwise be on the rubbish dump while their mothers worked scavenging for things to sell on to be recycled.

Monday - so far

Today we visited AFE - a wonderful project for kids, whose families work on the city dump. Rosalie visited it when she was here in April and it blew her away. It was great to see the new nursery where small children can come to be cared for, fed and even begin to learn - much better than accompanying their mothers as they work on the dump. (Often, small children are put in cardboard boxes to keep them safe - you can imagine the danger this sometimes places them in.) AFE is an inspiring place with a clear vision for transforming the lives of children who otherwise would have no future and no hope. We were also driven round the Linda Miller Community - see here for more info - another inspiring place.

We spent the afternoon with Rene, who has just started studying to be an engineer at college. He was the first child that the AFE started with, 10 years ago. This summer 9 kids graduated, the first year group to have completed High School.

We're going back to AFE tomorrow - when we should be able to visit the dump. (It wasn't so practical today, as it rained last night which meant the ground would be very soft and potentially boggy underfoot.) Rosalie is also hoping to have some conversation about the crafts they produce - she has brought samples with her of the work done by a project on the Philippines where our friends Sue and Stan Rothwell are currently based.see here for more info

Sunday

Yesterday was another full day in Honduras. In the morning we went to two services at Pastor Pinto's church. Walking in we immediately felt at home and it was great to worship with the congregation - all the songwords were projected onto a screen, which helped a lot. Duncan gave a testimony about his own beginnings with the Manuelito Project and we introduced ourselves. Mark spoke for about twenty minutes, with translation into Spanish from a member of the congregation. (We repeated this at the second service)\

The church has a thriving children's ministry - across both services there were 180 children in the Sunday School - and they provide some lunch for all of them.

It was good to hear from a young woman who leads worship there something of how the story of how the vision for engaging with the street children was introduced into the church - not without some resistance from members at the time. (Those who heard Pastor Pinto preach at St Peter's will remember him speaking about this.)

We spent the afternoon with many members of the church and friends of the Pintos at a beautiful place high up in the mountains overloooking the city, where we received fantastic hospitality. Mark played basketball with the men - there were a lot of pastors on the court, which naturally meant it was a very competitive and not always "clean" game! Rosalie, meanwhile, attended her first ever baby shower with all the women - quite an experience!

Arrived - and more...

Well, we're here! It's 8.30pm on Saturday evening and we finished our evening meal not long ago. We're staying in the Mission Guest House in Tegucigalpa, which is run by the World Gospel Mission. Our hosts have been wonderful and we're getting to meet all sorts of great people.

Today we've spent at the transition home for the Manuelito Project.This is where children who have come off the streets spend time before, hopefully, moving onto the main home in Talanga. Some of the children have come directly a kind of youth prison into which the police have put them, having removed them forcibly from the streets.

The home is an amazing place, run by people who deeply care for the children. We spent the morning going into the city centre with them, where they needed to buy some wool  to make friendship bracelets, which they sell to raise money. We all had an ice cream in the main square.

After lunch we spent quite a bit of time going around the city in a minibus trying to find a spare football pitch. Eventually we managed to get one and had a massive game of football. Mark played (kind of!) while Rosalie watched (in the shade - she's not stupid!). More ice creams, then back to the home where Duncan gave his testimony and we prayed for the children.

The home is a very necessary place for the work here and needs lots of resources: for example, the water was off for a long time, which is a frequent occurence in the city, and it would be great for the home to have its own water tank, but that costs money.

Tomorrow we're going to Pastor Pinto's church where Mark will be preaching at both morning services. In the afternoon... well, we'll tell you about that later.

We both definitely knew Jesus' presence with us today at all sorts of points. Seeing the faith of the people involved in the home - including young men who were once street children themselves - has been unforgettable.

Links

A couple of links to give a background to what we are doing

Street Kids Direct - we'll be accompanied out there by Duncan Dyason and staying for the first few days with Pastor Jorge and Marta. I'll be preaching at Pastor Jorge's church on Sunday.

AFE - Amor,Fey y Esperanza - we hope to visit AFE on Monday and Tuesday next week

Manuelito Project - we'll be in Talanga visiting the Manuelito home from Wednesday next week

Youth trip to Honduras 2011 - on which Rosalie was a leader and which has led to this return visit