A letter from Tim Wheeler in Honduras
March 2012
Dear Friends,
This year has been a busy one for us as hinted in our first letter this year when we talked about new starts and ongoing processes. We have hosted 13 mission teams starting in January. I think of Gloria as being on a marathon of back-to-back mission teams. The enthusiasm of churches involved in our mission focus has been uplifting. A school has been built and the children in the neighborhood are receiving classes there; two housing projects winded down and two new ones began. One of the villages where we work is on the border with Guatemala and presents special logistical challenges, but the people there are very interested in being organized in smaller groups in which they work together on each other's house while learning the skills to do so. The passing on of knowledge in this process is an important part of the focus.
Chepe with Tim in Cerro Azul
As it turns out it is a good thing that we jumped ahead, so to speak, about our mission activities this year. We will be starting home assignment in August to visit churches and do some personal visiting and also have some medical checkups in the United States for five months. We are nearing the end of our four-year assignment and we need to see about an extension for one to two years. Also Gloria was asked to take part in the Peacemaking Program for a month at the end of September. Overall, it will be a very busy year, first in Honduras and then in the United States. I have been asked to participate in the U.S.-Mexican border program for a 12-day visit conducting participatory reviews at different mission sites. Also I will have a trip to Haiti in June to look at some new possibilities in the program there.
In all of this we are reminded of our reason to serve and to remain true to our mission when we have new challenges and new opportunities. The community of Cerro Azul provided us with this opportunity, starting a few years ago and up to the present time. When we started the Cerro Azul community project we knew it would be one of the biggest challenges. The people of Cerro Azul had never participated in a community program of working together and learning new skills. When they did, it would drastically change their course and develop a different type of future for themselves and for their children. Chepe, shown in front of his new house, has had a particularly difficult journey but embodies the very reason that we felt called so clearly to accompany these people. At the start of the process of buying the new land for the families and beginning to make the cement-block and house foundations, Chepe stayed behind, where they had always lived, up the mountain in the forest about 1 km above the new land. He simply didn’t think he could learn the skills and participate in a group project. After all, it would be easier to stay put and live where he always had. Gradually he had a change of opinion, perhaps because all of his friends and neighbors had moved down the mountain to their new houses. One day Chepe came to talk with Gloria months after the project was well along and said to her that he knew he had lost his opportunity to build a new home since he had not started with the others on the project. Gloria’s response was simple. She took him by the hand and said, “Chepe, we have been waiting for you; your house lot is yours and no one else’s.” His face lit up. It was a response of compassion, relief and warmth all in one from someone who had fallen behind in an imperfect world. Our mission is to come alongside and give an opportunity to others in all circumstances, and not to pick and choose who and when someone will benefit. Today Chepe has moved into his three-room block house just like everyone else. We all learn from these experiences and reflect on them.
Isaiah 42:6 and 7 says: “I, the Lord, have called you in righteousness; I will take hold of your hand. I will keep you and will make you to be a covenant for the people and a light for the Gentiles, to open eyes that are blind, to free captives from prison and to release from the dungeon those who sit in darkness.”
We are glad that Chepe was able to open his eyes and be freed from the darkness of self-doubt and unpreparedness that had held him back.
Faithfully,
Tim and Gloria Wheeler
Apartado 15027
Colonia Kennedy
Tegucigalpa, Honduras
The 2012 Presbyterian Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 10
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