Honduras Mission Trip 2018 is in the books. We returned late Saturday evening safe and sound, and our flights were surprisingly on time, and with a little race through the airport we were able to make both connections to and from Houston with all 7 carry ons, 7 backpacks, 2 car seats, 2 strollers, 4 kids, 3 adults, and a partridge in a pear tree. To say that we felt like the Mcallister Family in the classic movie Home Alone, would be a pretty accurate statement. We were so thankful to have my cousin Whitney with us to help throw a few kids over her shoulder while we ran, or we may have had a "KEVIN!!!" moment. Anyway...back to the mission... We had a very successful trip with lots of wonderful things accomplished. Just to give you a snapshot of our week, here are some numbers to throw at you... Bible Studies: 105 People in those Studies: 212 Visitors to the church: 17 Restorations: 7 Cerro Grande: 40 children Monday attendance: 80 Monday VBS: 19 Tuesday Attendance: 89 Tuesday VBS: 25 Wednesday Attendance: 102 Wednesday VBS: 32 Benevolence: 175 backpacks filled with School supplies 300 pairs of flip-flops 50 bags of food for 50 families to last them 2 weeks ($600 worth) 150 Bibles God is so good. There were so many families blessed by this mission work, and the church in La Canada has grown in more ways than one. The construction on the children's classroom above the first floor was officially completed while we were there. It turned out beautiful. It now has a roof, doors, and windows, and the metal steps have been ordered and should be arriving soon. The construction team worked so hard, even with the set-back of the rain that we had, they completed the project with flying colors. Sunday we were able to complete our Seminar in two different congregations. The Iglesia de Cristo en San Miguel and in La Canada. The seminar consisted of three different sessions of about "Caring for the People of God" which was chosen in order to break the cycle of living in sin that seems to so easily consume the churches in Honduras. 1. Caring for my Salvation in Christ 2. Caring for the new generation of Christ 3. Caring for my relationship with others in Christ Our children's VBS and Gospel Meetings became known around the community and people came from miles around...literally. Our teams planned their lessons, crafts, snacks, and meals and their hard work and dedication paid off. The children learned about what it meant to love the Lord with all their heart, soul, mind, and strength. They learned it in a song, in sign language, and memory verse. A mission trip is never complete without a few setbacks and unexpected road blocks...and this year that road block was literal. We are thankful that God was able to help us work around those unexpected schedule changes and still complete all the projects we came to complete in Honduras. Set back #1: The rain. It rained, and rained, and rained. For the first 3 days of the campaign it rain, relentlessly. I have never witnessed a rain that never let up even for a minute for about 60 hours. Because of this rain several things had to be rearranged in our schedule. The road was washed away to Villa Claudia (one place of government housing that we were going to pass out the backpacks) and we could not do our Saturday VBS there, we even tried to just go pick up the kids and bring them back to camp, but this resulted with a bus stuck in the mud and a dent in the rental van. So we moved our benevolence to Wednesday afternoon...and it all worked out. We spent the day, Saturday, instead organizing the rice, beans, powdered milk, coffee, chicken bullion cubes, Maseca, shortening, oatmeal, salt, ketchup, pasta, and spaghetti sauce that we were able to purchase for 50 families. For only $12 a bag, we were able to feed these 50 families for 2 whole weeks. Thank you to everyone who donated to this cause. Speaking of donations, it was so exciting to see the look on the children's faces when they received their backpacks and school supplies, plus a surprise pair of flip-flops. I was able to witness personally the outrageous prices of the backpacks and school supplies there. The backpacks alone were around 700 L for nothing super fancy which comes out to around $30. That is crazy! There were so many flip-flops that we were able to let the moms, dads, grandmas, aunts and uncles, and their baby dolls, jk, pick out a pair to use. They were so excited to have shoes that people in the streets were coming out of their houses to see what the commotion was all about. Set back #2: because of the rain, the electricity was out for around 15 hours total. Luckily we had our flashlights, and we were able to go to worship semi-decent looking, even if we had to take cold showers, and go with frizzy hair. Set back #3 the road was closed due to construction at the bottom of the small mountain where the church sits. Which means everything that we did or brought to the church building had to go from the top down, which isn't so bad going down...but going up is a whole different story. Our knees and muscles are sore in places we never knew we had muscles. Personally it was my first time to carry a toddler up that mountain, and ouch! I am sure the Latinos were thinking we were nothing short of out of shape gringos...which may be slightly true for some of us. There were some more individual set backs that some of our team members had, but they were able to overcome them with grace, and thankfully the entire team is now home safe and sound and back to the old grindstone. After a tiring but encouraging week, we have come to several conclusions. They are: 1. Although it was extra tiring taking all four of our boys to Honduras, it was so beneficial for them and us. They were able to keep the Honduran children entertained while we were preparing lesson crafts etc. They were also able to be examples to them in the class, most days they were good examples :), pray and lead songs in Spanish, help get our foot in the door for Bible studies (who's going to look dangerous when they have four crazy boys running around them), and they were able to help clean up trash and carry things down the mountain for us. It was truly a growing experience for them. We pray that one day they will be leading these mission teams to Honduras. 2. Be Flexible! We may have had the groups prepared, schedule planned, and our ducks in a row months before we embarked on our trip, but we quickly learned that all our organization can fall apart with one swift rain storm. Being flexible, and not stressing out about the little things can make all the difference amongst what could turn into a sea of chaos. 3. Each congregation and area of location has their own unique obstacles. Not all churches have the same schedules, communities, problems, members, or financial circumstances. We need to remember this when we plan a mission trip. When you are planning your trip, make sure you ask the local preachers what schedule the community has as far as time in their homes, work schedules, meal schedules, daily activities, and try to plan evangelism around them. YOU CANNOT expect for the locals to conform to your rigorous, americanized way of life, it will just cause unwanted stress. We want to thank each and every person who contributed to our mission efforts, and made this trip possible. We could not have made it happen without you and your generosity. May God bless you ten fold. We love you and thank you again. The Roque Family.
2 Comments
Aaron Baker
10/16/2018 07:18:13 am
Thank you for sharing the Gospel in Honduras. Many flights, much travelling, lots of work...but your efforts are not in vain! Great work!
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Kenny W Harris
10/17/2018 08:53:10 am
Love and miss you guys. So glad you had a GREAT trip.
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AuthorElias and Kristi Roque have been married for 9 years and during this time have planted/grown 4 congregations. They have 4 boys 7 and under working alongside them. Archives
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