My wife Sharleen and I led a mission trip of 12 people to Honduras from June 7th -14th to Tegucigalpa, Honduras, to work with Forgotten Children Ministries. Eighty percent of the
Honduran population lives below the extreme poverty level on dirt floor hovels – sometimes nothing more than structures of sticks, cardboard, plastic tarps and pieces of tin. They are born into poverty and the majority of them will die that way. Children are often abandoned and severely abused, and they end up on the streets of the cities looking for any scraps that will sustain them. They live under bridges, in garbage dumps and under buildings like animals and are routinely murdered by gangs, and corrupt policemen. For pennies underground venders sell them baby food jars of cobblers glue, which the hide under their shirts and inhale the fumes, to abate their hunger pains. Tragically, the glue fumes also kill their brain cells, and thousands of children are starving and stoned with no hope of any kind for their lives.
The mission of Forgotten Children Ministries is to rescue the abandoned, homeless and forgotten children of Honduras. At present we have 14 young boys in our shelter in Tegucigalpa and 40 older boys at Grace Farm in the village of Monte Redondo. Our four-point mandate is to share with them the reality of the love of God through Jesus Christ, to care for them with food, shelter, clothing, etc., to provide them an education and to teach them English, so that when they are grown and enter back into society they will be men of character, equipped for life and able to find gainful employment to stop the cycle of poverty into which they were born.
FCM is now involved in taking food to the destitute mothers of the boys in the ministry, as well as distributing food to the needy families in the community. It’s a humbling experience to find a mother feeding her baby dirt because she has no food. One impoverished man we found living under a tarp showed us the make shift bed upon which he and his wife slept. Lying on the rotting mattress were four chicken eggs – all the food they possessed, with which to feed them and their children. The man told us that his wife woke up the day before and found a coral snake in the mattress! No words can describe the joy of delivering bags of beans, rice, powdered milk, cereal and many other essential food items – enough to feed the family for a month or more.
While we were delivering food to another destitute family, an elderly woman elbowed her way into the tiny shack and asked if we could come to her house and pray. I assumed it was a ploy to get us to bring her food, which we would gladly do, but to my amazement what she wanted was to introduce me to an elderly man who wanted to know how to be saved. On the spot, with no argument or convincing, he joyously accepted Jesus as his savior!
The needs are great and it is an honor to serve, but as ever, God did as much in the hearts of the team members as he did for those we served. I will be taking an all-mens group to Honduras from Jan. -- . Our purpose will be to mentor the boys in what it means to be a man of God. In their matriarchal society where men typically abandon their wives and children, it is a concept that they desperately need. So I’m looking for a few good men to go with me. I hope you will consider being one.
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