Honduras Mission Trips :: Belize Mission Trips
Repeatedly listed by local residents as the most pressing needs in their community, water and food will be the focus of new EM mission trips to Honduras in 2009, while church construction and ministry expansion for the Family of God Church will be the focus of new trips to Belize.

EM staff members Josh Gray and Steven Barry traveled to Honduras on July 4 to assess the possibility of setting up trips there, and while they were prepared to see poverty - Honduras consistently ranks among the poorest countries in the Western Hemisphere - seeing it first-hand was still overwhelming.

“There are a lot of places where you see the poor and they stand out and it tugs at your heart, but then most other people seem to be doing OK,” Barry said. “That’s not really the case in Honduras. You see signs of really extreme poverty pretty much everywhere you go.”

Gray and Barry stayed on a small ranch in Junquillo, a village of about 1,000 people that sits in the pine-covered mountains between the capital city of Tegucigalpa and the city of Danlí. Junquillo is known for its remarkably low crime levels compared to the rest of the country, but nonetheless remains just as poor.

Most short-term mission trips deal with basic construction projects–typically things like improving churches or building homes or restroom facilities. While those are all definite needs in Honduras, during a community meeting to help prioritize work projects for next year’s teams, residents of Junquillo and nearby Ocotal said they spend most of their days simply figuring out how to get adequate water and food.

“It’s amazing when you ask somebody, ‘What are the greatest needs you have in your community?’ and they say, ‘Water and food,’” EM Executive Director Chris Clum said. “Our response has to be, ‘Yes, we will come. We will help you with the water, and we will figure out how to help you with food.’”

There are reservoirs in both Junquillo and Santa Clara that contain clean drinking water. However, only Junquillo has a distribution system, and it uses cheap plastic tubing and releases water only twice a week. Ocotal residents, along with Junquillo residents without an effective storage system, must hike up steep hills to the reservoirs. Some spend several hours each day just gathering water.

For those who bear that responsibility—frequently children—it marks yet another obstacle in a day already wrought with challenges families must work together to overcome. Keeping food on the table is a constant battle. Most full-time workers earn less than 100 Lempiras a day, or about $5, and it costs $3.50 to buy beans alone for a few meals.

“The bottom line is just that the cost of living is too great for the amount of wages that are available,” Gray said. “I was surprised by that and just struck by the needs, but also the resilience of the community.”

Some don’t have the wherewithal to provide for themselves at all. One 92-year-man in Junquillo has no regular source of income and only his now elderly daughter to support him however he can. He relies on friends of his gracious enough to bring by food and lives, as one nearby rancher put it, “by the hand of God.”

Belize
In nearby Belize, there is a drastic improvement in the overall quality of life, but the country is still poor.

There, EM hopes to work with the nationwide Family of God Church, which is facilitating successful community outreach programs but needs assistance with infrastructure in order to accommodate growing congregations.

“I was impressed by the Christians that we met in Belize - their warmth and excitement toward us - but I was quite surprised by some of the barriers they have in their ministry, specifically relating to resources,” Gray said. “The churches we visited didn’t have walls, and I’m not even convinced they’re staying dry.”

The term “nationwide” can be deceiving. With only 300,000 people, Belize is one of the most sparsely populated countries in the world, and the capital, Belmopan, is the smallest national capital on the planet. One example of the country’s lack of infrastructure: The Belizean labor department has a Yahoo e-mail address.

Experience Mission is facilitating mission trips to Honduras and Belize for Summer 2009. To learn more, visit ExperienceMission.org or call the EM office at   360-732-0986  . Join one of EM’s Central America Mission Trips.