A letter from Osmundo and Ana Ligia Ponce in Honduras
Tegucigalpa, Honduras
August 27, 2001
To our brothers and sister in the PC(USA) and other friends of our ministry:
We hope that you feel the blessing of the God of Life, and that God gives you strength each day to work in favor of abundant life for all.
Since January of 1999 when we arrived in Honduras, after 10 years working as missionaries with the Presbyterian Church of Colombia in Barranquilla, Colombia. The whole family remembers this time fondly, but especially our children, who were raised in the middle of the music and high spirits that characterize the Caribbean coast of Colombia.
We arrived in Honduras just three months after the disaster caused by Hurricane Mitch. We remember that the conversations in the street, the sermons, our family dialogue, our classes in the "Comunidad Teológica" (Theological Community), and even our time spent socializing with the students—all revolved around Mitch, the social disaster that unmasked the true problems of Honduras.
Only four of our family came to Honduras. Our eldest son, Samuel, who is now 22 years old, had already left for Costa Rica in 1998 to begin studying for a career in medicine. Our youngest son, Pablo René, who will be 18 years old next September 14, will be going to Costa Rica at the end of the year to take up studies in the same field.
At present we are working with the Theological Community of Honduras, which was established just as we arrived in Honduras with the support of the Reformed Christian Church of Honduras, the Christian Community for Development (CCD), and the Latin American Biblical University (UBL). Ana Ligia is the coordinator of the library and a professor of research. Osmundo is dean and teaches pastoral studies.
The Theological Community has about 280 students in four educational programs:
- In coordination with the UBL, our university- level theological program offers a bachelor’s degree and a licenciatura in theology. We have 30 students from different churches. Classes are given in three different cities in Honduras, including La Ceiba, which is a seven-hour drive from our home in Tegucigalpa.
- In our intermediate-level pastoral program, we offer a diploma in Biblical studies. This program is for lay leaders and has 110 students enrolled in 15 sites around the country, some of which are a 10-hour drive from Tegucigalpa.
- Our grassroots Christian education program is for churches that request our help in giving workshops for their congregations. We offer a certificate in Christian education/popular education.
- Our Basic Secondary Education (like a GED program) was started when we realized the great deficit in formal education that exists in Honduras.This is a first step for those who would like to study on a university level. We have 140 enrolled now, the majority of whom are women who work in factories.
The Theological Community has established covenants with nine different denominations to educate their leaders and pastors. Representatives of these churches (plus the Catholic Church) meet each month for a theological dialogue in which we analyze the situation of the church in Honduras.
In one of our pastoral workshops we asked the famous question that the German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer asked, "How to live with God in a world without God?" The situation in Honduras is so difficult and depressing that it appears that the political leaders of this nation don’t believe in God, even though they go to church on Sundays and meet socially with members of church hierarchies.
For example, how is it possible that 83 percent of the six million inhabitants of Honduras live in conditions of extreme poverty? How is it possible that 36 percent of the national budget goes to servicing the country’s external debt, presently $5.5 billion.
Seventy-five percent of the workers have little schooling, which makes the labor market very cheap. Thirty-two percent of the population can’t read or write. More than half (55%) of the workers are in the "informal" sector, that is, they work off the books, receive no social security, wage protection, unemployment, etc.
Sixty percent of the hospitals are in deterioration, with obsolete or broken equipment. The 28 hospitals in Honduras have a total of 4, 093 beds, that is, one bed for each 1,540 people. It’s not rare to find cases where newborns in hospitals have been wrapped in manila paper because there are no clothes, where people wait up to six months for an appointment with a specialist, where patients have to go find their own medicines because "there’s not a pill left in the hospital."
At present, Honduras has one of the highest homocide rates in Latin America, with an index of 46.31 homocides for each 100,000 inhabitants.
There’s a deficit of 600,000 houses, which affects 50 percent of the population.
Honduras is cutting down its forests at an annual rate of 100,000 hectares (1 hectare equals 2.4 acres). If this rate continues, the forests will disappear within 20 years.
Before such a host of problems, you may ask yourself, "What is the political alternative that could overcome this situation?" But there is popular discouragement in electoral participation, where 39.5 percent of the electorate abstains. Here there are two parties that take turns every for years exercising power. For many, perhaps due to their lack of education, this is democracy. On November 25 there will be general elections, but everyone already knows who will be the next president.
How, then, does the Church of Our Lord bring hope to this context?
Well, each week in our education meetings at the Theological Community we ask the Lord to guide us in work with local churches. Many pastors have small social projects that help to ease the pain, hunger, and suffering of the members of the congregations. Other pastors belong to organizations in civil society, with the idea to propose new forms of building a new vision for the country. And something very important we’ve seen in most churches: people share the love and kindness of the Lord, as well as the bread, rice, and beans with people who have nothing to eat.
Many groups from North America come to Honduras, mostly to collaborate in the construction of houses or to provide medical attention. Some churches have missionaries who preach the message of God. Although this is helpful, the situation is so grave that we must think beyond what our eyes can see. Only in this way can we make real the signs of the Reign of God amidst the "least of these" in Honduras.
Honduran brothers and sisters are grateful for your prayers and for the accompaniment that sister churches offer, but they are especially grateful when visitors share the hope of the Honduran people that history isn’t over and that, together, we can construct the dream of a new country on a new earth under a new sky, with new men and women who enjoy abundant life and who worship the God of History and Giver of Life.
With a hug in solidarity from our family, we wish you the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the Hope of God’s Reign be always with each of you.
With much love and tenderness
Osmundo, Ana Ligia, Samuel and Pablo
The 2001 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 243
