A letter from Tim Wheeler in Honduras
May 2012
Dear Friends,
Gloria and I want to share a summary of several activities and focuses that we have been involved in this year. As indicated in previous letters, we have had a busy year. We knew it would be this way with the planning that took place and also the great interest and enthusiasm of mission teams to come to Honduras, wanting to be in solidarity with the people that are facing a lot of challenges and problems.
Maria Elena and Gloria work together in mission
Somewhere during the end of January and the beginning of March I had thoughts racing through my head that kept nagging me and wouldn’t go away. The ringing in my ear was a little bit eerie, almost like a voice within me. The first thought was, a Marathon of Mission. Then it changed to A Marathon of Hope. Lastly, it became A Marathon of Love. In a way they were different takes on the same or related activities. Let me explain.
Marathon of Mission
We have hosted 14 mission teams in 3.5 months, worked on various projects, built a school in Tepemechin, hosted a medical brigade, worked on finishing work in the Cerro Azul housing project, worked on the library in Brisas de Valle, and worked on the medical clinic being built in Trinidad, Copan.
Marathon of Hope
A new project was started in Barrio San Antonio Trinidad, Copan, to build 45 houses, and in San Francisco, Copan Ruins, to build 25 houses and improve 20 more. A Farm School was started in the community of Copantle with community leader, Angelina. A new Living Waters for the World project will be installed in the community of La Cumbre, Trinidad, Copan. A house addition is being built on two houses with members of the church in Tegucigalpa.
Marathon of Love
There are people working together. Sixty-five students have scholarships this year. The people from Cerro Azul shared their time and knowledge working on the school in Tepemechin and are teaching the people in the San Antonio project how to make cement blocks and the first steps of building a house and laying blocks. Those who were the most timid, invisible and with low self-esteem are teaching town people in the larger municipal area. This is a wonderful occurrence and message for all.
I have been busy conducting values-based self-review workshops with the border ministries and with a Presbyterian-sponsored clinic in Honduras. Conducting these workshops has been a wonderful experience and a new opportunity to serve others. While at the last border stop in Ciudad Juarez, a Mexican pastor explained the type of leadership that needs to be developed in churches as someone who says, “I know the love, I have the will, I will share.” This is the see, listen and act methodology that is used and accepted so broadly in Latin America in community processes. It is encouraging to think that it could be relevant too in church development just as the values-based self-review process has proven to be useful in a variety of settings.
I am sharing some thoughts from Maria Elena, pictured with Gloria in the photo. Maria Elena is a Sunday school teacher and elder in the church that we attend in Tegucigalpa. In April a mission team from Carlisle, Pa., worked with her family and some other church members on an addition at her house. One day we asked Maria Elena how she saw the presence of God in her life. She said: “Sometimes I am afraid but something warm inside of me invades me and I know it is God….I don’t hear a voice but I receive security and I know that just as I am working hard for my family, others are working for me, and I see the presence of God when someone serves me and helps me. Someone greets me and blesses me and in the smile I see the love of others for me and then I see God when the Spirit urges me to do something good for someone else. I just need to have to look for (God) within myself and see the actions in other people.”
Then we asked her, “Why do you have faith?”
She cited Hebrews 11:1. “Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.”
She went on to say: “If someone superior to me, creator of the heavens and the earth and of all that exists, someone who does not lie, does not fault or commit mistakes says to me to believe in something that I cannot see, why not believe in what I can see—I just need to wait for it to be demonstrated to me. I have faith because it is a way to have hope, it goes beyond my own being, it is a gift for the future, a blank check, a jump to the void and the prize is to unwrap this gift, to cash in and enjoy the check, to find firm land after the jump. I have faith because this is my compass in this world full of complications and I know that I can trust and dream in God.”
Maria Elena works in a factory sewing shirt collars all day long. Her concept of the presence of God and her faith explains the belief of many people in Honduras who are in search of concrete answers to life’s circumstances. These reflections help us to understand that the mission presence often seen as a program to build houses is really a program of building community, reaffirming the faith of the participants both from the U.S. and Honduras, and deepening their appreciation of the presence of God in their lives. God is seen in the people surrounding them and by a greater sense of self-worth. We thought you would like to receive these reflections from her as she goes about living her faith.
Yours 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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