What Ministry for us looks like these days...
Bringing healing to the nations through Jesus Christ using Celebrate Recovery ✝️❤️🇭🇳
COVID 19 has put us on lockdown here. We have been on "stay at home" orders by the government here for 107 days and counting. It is not looking like it is going away anytime soon.
"Stay at home" orders means that we are only allowed to go outside of our house 1 time every 2 weeks depending on the last digit of our ID. No one can travel on Saturdays and Sundays (without special government permission), which means no church gatherings in person right now...only online.
Here is a visual chart that explains the ID number system a little better....It’s in Spanish and kind of fuzzy, but you can see 1 number represented each day M-F for 2 weeks With no one circulating on Saturday and Sunday.
Some people are able to leave their house on a day other than the one that is specified based on the last number of their ID with special government permission, but it is hard to get. Right now the town we live close to (Comayagua, Honduras) is slowly re-opening. What that means is that a small percentage of workers can go back to work with the special paperwork by the government and then each week the percentage of workers increases while the government closely monitors numbers to make sure things are moving safely in the right direction. But we are still only allowed to go out 1 every 2 weeks.
Now this is different for our major cities near the major airports, as they are not slowly re-opening anymore due to an increase in the number of cases when they attempted opening up a little. So they can only leave 1 every 2 weeks, but ONLY to go to the grocery store, pharmacy or to get gasoline.
Here are some COVID numbers here in the country. It may not seem like a lot compared to the US, but this country‘s medical system can’t handle a lot. Some are saying hospitals are full right now with patients all over the place and are turning people away because there is no more room.
Some missionaries have felt the Lord calling them to return to the states, but we feel God is calling us to stay here.
Our FIRST YEAR of MINISTRY GOALS included:
(started ministry here in Honduras August 1, 2019)
1. LANGUGE SCHOOL: SPANISH
*Be conversationally fluent
2. HONDURAN CHURCH PARTNERSHIP
*Locate and partner with a Honduran Church
3. BUILD GODY RELATIONSHIPS WITH LOCALS
*Frequently hang out with locals in and out of our home
We are still able to continue with the ministry that God called us to for our first year here, but it just looks a little different.
1. LANGUAGE SCHOOL: SPANISH
*We are still taking Spanish classes through the Spanish Institute here in Honduras, but because of COVID classes are only online right now and less hours than usual. So it may take us a little longer to complete the program than the year we set aside, but we are dedicated to learning the language here in order to have a solid foundation in Spanish to use for the ministry.
2. HONDURAN CHURCH PARTNERSHIP
*We have a local church here in Honduras that is interested in starting Celebrate Recovery and they are ready to start the leadership training once the government allows us to meet as a group again (they were ready to start right after my broken ankle healed, but that's the time the country shut down due to COVID). Can you believe that God already prepared their hearts for Celebrate Recovery, an amazing tool that leads people to find freedom from their hurts, hang-ups and habits through Jesus Christ!?! Someone, before we even came down here to bring Celebrate Recovery, came on a mission trip and gave the Pastor and his wife at our Honduran church the leadership kit and said that this program would be great at their church. Then we came along and we were sharing what God called us to do here in Honduras and the pastor's wife got so excited, ran to grab the Celebrate Recovery leadership box she had been given prior to us coming here, showed it to us, and asked if that was what we were brining here. We said yes and they said they wanted to get trained in the program. Now we are just waiting patiently for the country to open back up so we can get started. We are super pumped!!
3. BUILD GODLY RELATIONSHIPS WITH LOCALS
*We have made so many great friends here and love the people of Honduras. We are blessed beyond measure to have met so many amazing people in such a short amount of time. We know that each connection will be used to bring God glory! Relationships are huge here and we plan to continue to deepen and strengthen the relationships formed thus far and continue to meet new friends along the way.
Here are the 5 year goals we prayed about and set into place before coming to Honduras...(of course we are flexible to changes by the Lord leading and government regulations due to COVID...for example, now we are working in various locations in Honduras as opposed to just in the south, we are waiting patiently for the government to allow groups to meet so we can start the leadership/step study training, and we are taking a little more than a year to study at the language school due to COVID shut downs)
For those unfamiliar with Celebrate Recovery here’s just a few things it can help with...
This list really goes on and on....that’s just a short list. Finding complete freedom from hurts habits and hang-ups through Jesus Christ, that’s the key to this program!
If you'd like more information about Celebrate Recovery here's the link...
https://www.celebraterecovery.com/is-cr-for-me
If you’d like to find one near you, here’s the link...
https://locator.crgroups.info/
Please continue to pray for our family and the Celebrate Recovery Ministry God has led us to bring here to Honduras. This Ministry is a team effort....which is why I can't say enough how important you are to this team: prayer warriors and financial supporters...we couldn't do this without you, THANK YOU!!!!