Travels With Wesley

The first part of the day on Friday was taken up by the drive to Moroceli and a business meeting with Padre Carlos, Mayra and Sandra Hernandez, a representative from Aaglidesh. Sandra first gave us an introduction to Aanglidesh (a topic for a different venue.) The rest of the crew took a walk around Moroceli while Mike, Kathy P and I stayed to get the priorities from Padre Carlos and Mayra. Amazingly enough we did get their laundry list. The meeting was a zoo with Sandra trying to translate, and Mike and Kathy P. carrying on a side conversation. It is difficult to hear at the best of times, but with multiple conversations going on, it was well nigh impossible. The end result was satisfactory I guess.

The last two rollers were at work in the cigar factory, and I got some decent pictures of them.
Another.
On the way to Zarsal, we went through Yuscaran, and stopped for a few minutes waiting for Jeannie Loving, a SAMS missionary. A couple of shots from Yuscaran.

A Bull Gator must live here.

A nice view.

Zarsal is the home town of Father Dagoberto Chacon, the Dean of the El Parisio Deanery. This is another secluded community in the mountains. I’m not sure that I would qualify the path to Zarsal as a road, but Hector was able to get the bus up the path. As it turns out, this wasn’t the worst we would see in terms of roads.

I sat beside Dagoberto’s mother, she is 88 years old. Dagoberto is one of 18 children as i said yesterday. The oldest is Rafael who is 74. She started early. she gave me a warm welcome and hug as i sat down beside her. During the peace, she got up and walked around greeting everyone. I helped support her as well as during the Holy Eucharist. she is quite the lady, proud of all her offspring, several of which have connections to the ministry. Zarsal is on the top of one of the mountains, and parishioners come from other mountain tops. we gave a ride after the service, as we were on our way out, to three ladies, one quite old. they had walked from the top of one hill down through the valley up to to the meeting house. Wearing heels, and I’m not kidding. Or at lest the had the heels on at church and going back down the road when we caught them. These people valuer their religion. We should copy their example.

I took pictures of children as usual.

Same little girl, she is precious.

More.

I asked, via sign language, of one mother to take a picture of her and her daughter, probably 1 1/2 tears old. As I squatted to take the picture, the little girl turned and saw me, and immediately went into hysterics. She did not want anything to do with that camera, or the ugly old man behind it!

The clergy, ordained and lay, are spreading the Message through the backwoods of Honduras the way the apostles and disciples spread Christianity in the First Century. We are seeing tru First Century Christianity in action here in Honduras.

A good nights sleep, except for getting up at 3:30 A.M. and trying again to connect to the internet.

Started the day with morning devotional after breakfast. Before that, I asked for help again to connect my laptop. A lovely young lady, Michelle Alvarado, came up, and after a few minutes, took my laptop to the IT department for help. After the devotional , she returned the laptop, connecting with no problems. We boarded the bus about 9:00 A.M., and headed out to our first stop, the small community of El Rancho. The church there, Santa Maria de Virgen de Mercedes, was founded in 1984. The current vicar is Rafael Chavez. Rafa is the oldest brother and sibling of Dagoberto Chacon, the Dean of the Deanato of El Paraiso and Rafa’s boss. Dagoberto has 18 siblings.

Dagoberto Chacon on the left, Rafael Chavez on the right.

We checked out the church and the new house behind for the parsonage, then got together in the small sanctuary and Rafa and another fellow got out their guitars and we had a singalong in Spanish. The three songs were:

Mi Pensamiento Cresto
Pescador De Hombres (Fish for men)
Padre Nuestro (Our Father to the tune of the Simon and Garfunkel classic Sound of Silence)

I must admit that I got teary during singing Padre Nuestro. Rafa has a great CW voice and the whole thing was moving. These are wonderful people. I got some fairly good photos of the kids.

Three pretty young ladies.

Mother and child.

We left El Rancho and headed back down toward Villa San Francisco. On the way Kathy P. pointed out a blue water tank on a nearby hill. Another project of the Episcopal Diocese and missions. The Diocese also works with the Texas Water Ministry, a charity that drills wells for water all over Central America. Potable water is a major problem in Honduras and one of the most effective mission project is to try to alleviate this where possible. For example, Moroceli recently was getting water one day in eight. Think how much water we waste every day, and these people get water once a week if that.

Vila San Francisco was a dusty town of maybe 20,000 people.

Quiet in mid day. The church, Navidad de nuestro Senor Jesuscristo, was closed, we spent a few minutes looking at the kids running around, got back on the bus and headed for Ojo de Agua.
Nice smile.

It was a long dusty road up to Ojo de Agua. The name of course means water of the eye. We were joined there by Javier Chacon, the young fellow who makes the crosses and bracelets we are selling in Lakeland to raise money for the Mission. They are building a new church right abutting the old church building which is literally being eaten by termites.

Javier delivered 100 crosses we had ordered and showed some samples of different styles of crosses and bracelets. There was a buying frenzy by the folks who had not seen his work. He had a cap which said “Business is Good.”

Back down the long dusty road to the intersection where we had lunch at the Pase Adelante Restaurant. I had pollo, chicken which was grilled with refried beans and rice and a salsa. Really quite good. The chairs in the restaurant were colorful. The restaurant was next door to an Esso station where we loaded up with water and other necessities. We saw some of Javier’s work for sale in the restaurant. Crosses were $1.50, whereas we pay $2.00. Interesting.

An interesting funeral home.

On to Moroceli. we met Fr. Carlos Alvarado and his wife Mayra at their home. I took a photo of Padre Carlos for Fr. Al.

There was a vocational class in progress when we arrived, taching young men of the community electrical wiring.

We checked out the cigar factory next door which is for sale. Padre Carlos wants to buy it for their church in Moroceli. The guide I bought for Honduras has about twenty words on Moroceli, mainly about the cigar factory owned by a Cuban expatriate who enjoyed giving tours. For reasons unknown to me, it is going out of business. Fortunate for Padre Carlos, it is available, would be suitable and is next door to his house.

From Moroceli, we went a few miles to the tiny town of Cacao where services were held in a home. The homeowner welcomed us to her humble casa. With the Holy Spirit moving as it did, her home was anything but humble.

Back to Zamorano, dinner and compline.

One of those good days when every thing goes according to schedule. We arrived in Tegucigalpa on time and were met by Kathy Pennybacker and Skyler, Kathy’s white standard poodle. Both Kathy and Skyler were a source of entertaiment for the entire trip. Kathy is a fine Christian and devoted to her ministry in Honduras, and an inspiration. Along on this trip were Bob Springthorpe and Kate Yotter from Christ the King in North Lakeland, Mike and Laurel Cain and Ed and Kathy Headington. Bob Norris came in on a separate flight about an hour later, and his bag didn’t show up, so that took some extra time.

Flying in to the airport was a treat. The country is very mountainous and pretty brown in this the dry season. The approach to the city was low and right over the center of the town. The runway is short and there is only one. Apparently they cannot take off if there ism much of a tailwind, as the plane takes off right over a major highway, and they would not be able to get enough lift.

Eventually we left the airport, a fellow by the name of Hector driving the bus. Hector is employed by the Deanery as driver and I don’t know what else. Driving out of the city of Tegucigalpa, the traffic was pretty fierce, and the shacks on the hills around the city reminded me of Mexican border towns. It was a beautiful day, about 80 degrees and breezy.

Our first stop for the day was San Isidro Church in El Cruce. Patricia…….. was the Deacon there and it is the church that Kate and Bob S. were hoping to work with. The church building was a disaster. Apparently as a result of poor engineering, the bottom floor was not strong enough to support the floor they built for the second floor. And the second floor concrete was not sealed, so water seepage was a problem. An outside wall on the second floor has collapsed, and looking at the concrete block used, it was evident the the construction was very poor. Bob and Kate met met with Bishop Allen and an engineer to start the process of evaluating the structure and coming up with a plan of action.

However, on the positive side, some ladies in the parish had started a micro business making beautiful pillow shams. They are now selling through an outlet in Dallas. They have set up a credit union, and give money back to the church. There were 5-6 ladies there, looked like they maybe had one sewing machine. This is the type of activity we hope to get started in other parishes.

First impression, the people are very friendly, gracious, and really like having us here. There is a distinct Mayan influence on the facial structure. They are indians, with apparently very little black influence in the genes. The children loved KP and her dog.
An example of art work on the church walls.
Kids are the same the world over.

A mixture of modern and old transportation. Posted in Photography, Travel | Leave a comment

This a shot from Doe Run Inn property taken in November, 2007. Doe Run is in Meade County Kentucky.