Ups & Downs – but sun & celebrations

Campus ministry is always tricky – even in the US. Here it seems as if it is even more so. Thursday there was a meeting of professors to talk about some ministry with them. About twenty came and it was a very productive meeting. They will be meeting again – partly for their own enrichment, partly to discuss ways to bring faith into their classes. A couple of good ideas came from the meeting which I hope will bear fruit.

Friday the director, Dr. Francisco Castro, and I had agreed to pull together a meeting of students and faculty to discuss planning for next year. I invited a good number of students and asked the student coordinator of campus ministry and a faculty member involved in it to invite others. The director was going to invite faculty but he had forgotten and only made the invitations yesterday afternoon. Guess what? Only one student came and he came late. But Francisco and I had a very good extended conversation. People here don’t plan as much as we do in the states, but I had hoped that there would be some planning for next year. So it goes.

Saturday and Sunday I spent in the parish of Dulce Nombre de María. I met three leaders in the town of Dolores and we went, through much mud, to El Ocote, about 90 minutes away. They had been thoughtful enough to get a horse for me to ride. This was my first extended ride on a horse – ever. The others helped me but I was finally getting the hang of it by the time I dismounted a very gentle horse in El Ocote.

The meeting there was a meeting of the leaders of the fourth sector of the parish, five communities in the municipality of Vera Cruz. They struggle with some of the same problems as the church does everywhere – needing more leaders, the struggle to have people donate to the church – as well as the particular problems of a poor church in widely scattered villages. Some of the leaders came to this meeting from villages three hours away.

I left with a group from two villages and we walked down a stony and muddy mountainside. A ten-year kid had come with them and was having fun trying to find paths for me to go on that had the most rocks and mud. Kids are the same everywhere. (However, this kid has never gone to school.)

We arrived at Vera Cruz and they asked Teodoso, who is the only church leader there, to arrange for me to stay there and be part of the celebration the next day, the feast of Christ the King. Despite being surprised by this, he arranged for me to stay the night in his house. The hospitality of the poor is humbling.

There I met several of his children. Two have graduated from high school and I spoke with them at length. The oldest, Bessy, would really like to study and to work in nutrition since she sees this as a great need in Honduras; but she doesn’t know of any program in Honduras to do this. Alex would like to become a priest; he was in the minor seminary for two years but will probably work one year to get some work experience.

Talking with young people and with college students has been an eye-opening experience. There are some with great dreams but the possibilities make it very difficult to pursue them. Some would like to study in a particular area, but since there is no local program they will sometimes settle for something less. And then there are those who may have the talent and the desire but the financial means are just not there.

Sunday morning we had a three hour celebration of the feast of Christ the King – complete with a procession around the town square. They asked me to preach, but I confined myself to about twenty minutes. (Here most sermons are from 30 to 45 minutes!)

The weekend was a time of great consolation, despite the poverty. Not only were the people so warm and welcoming, both days were bright and sunny. And, on the ride back to Santa Rosa, I suddenly realized that I’d been talking a lot in Spanish, without too much effort.

¡Gracias a Dios!