Plans gone awry, but grace abounds

Yesterday was my day to go out in my pick up; this happens once every two weeks. I had a lot planned. So I started out early and went to Dulce Nombre and talked with the pastor.

The main church in Dulce Nombre is slowly opening up. There are real efforts being made in the church for biosecurity. See the front door.

I also went to the Dulce Nombre city hall to see about getting a letter allowing me to go out and do parish work on the days when I’d not normally be able. They told me to come back in the afternoon. 

As we slowly reopen, I’ll be doing the final pre-marriage interviews in the communities, since it will be easier for me to get there. I even had one planned for yesterday.

I then went to Dolores where I had already arranged to get a letter from the mayor. An assistant mayor was a Delegate of the Word and he had the letter. It took me five stops to find him, but I left with the letter.

I headed to Santa Rosa to go to the bank and the supermarket. But on the way, down a curved road, I saw my front tire fly off and roll downhill. Of course, the car had to stop.

I got out and saw the damage and then went after the tire, which had rolled about 200 meters downhill.

As I brought the tire out of the grass, someone came and helped me get the tire to the car. He pulled out two of his emergency triangles and put them up. After talking, he went to find Raul who has a tire repair shop at the entrance to Dulce Nombre. He did all this and we didn’t know each other.

I had to wait at least half an hour because Raúl was very busy. As I waited cars passed and at least ten of the folks asked how they could help. Some knew me – though I didn’t remember their names.

Raúl came, assessed the damage and then went to get one of the large jacks he has in his business. He also was going to try to find some lugnuts to replace those that had fallen off.

I had to wait another 45 minutes or more, since Raúl had a lot of business. As I waited, in the hot sun, more folks passed and many stopped and asked how they could help. I assured them that help was on the way.

Raúl finally came and remounted the tire on the pickup. He told me to get new lugnuts on the tire since he had to use lugnuts from the other tires.

It was now almost noon and so I called to cancel the pre-marriage interview I had scheduled for 2:30 pm.

In Santa Rosa, I went to my mechanic. They put new lugnuts on the front tire. One of the posts had been broken but he told me that that is a long repair process and that for the meantime it is safe to proceed with just five. He also fixed a front light that had been broken with the impact.

It was noon when that was finished. I went to the bank and to two supermarkets and then headed back home. I stopped in Dulce Nombre and went to see if I could get the letter from City Hall. They were closed. When I stopped this morning, they told me they were composing a generic letter to use for some of the evangelical pastors as well as me. Who knows when it will be available? They told me, thouhg, that they'll take the letter to the church secretary (right next door to city hall.

While in Dulce Nombre yesterday afternoon, I spoke a bit with the pastor and we tried to arrange a way for me to get medicine out to a distant village. The family is very poor; the single mother has three grown children (16 to 22) and has taken in the three children of a sister who was killed by her husband in Guatemala. The Concepción city hall is helping with the cost of the medicine but it would cost her about fifteen dollars to get a motorcycle ride into Dulce Nombre. I am happy to be able to do this – a real diaconal duty.

I got home and put groceries away. I downloaded the session from the course I’m taking and watched it.

I then went to bed, grateful.

Yes, I was not hurt at all. The car suffered minor damages (which cost about $25). But most of all I had experienced the concern and care of so many persons – some whom I knew and others whom I had never met.

It is humbling to have so many people offer to help. It is a true sign of the grace of God present among the people here. In their poverty, in the midst of the pandemic, they are willing to help a gringo.

God is good – and has blessed us with so many good people.

Today, I went to take the medicine to the family. I went to Concepción for the note to the pharmacy that the municipality would pay for the medicine. Then I went to the pharmacy and then to the community, I talked a bit with the aunt and with the little kid who was one of those receiving the medicine. N the way back I saw someone by his house who had been planning to get married in the church. I stopped and talked with him and his wife and told them that I can come out and do the interviews whenever they have the documents they need. It will be great to help the seven couples from their village.

Now I’m home resting.

Tomorrow is the last day for the diplomade (certificate program) as well as for the Spanish classes I’m taking. Both have been good experiences.

One last point. It's been raining hard the last few nights, although it's generally been sunny and hot during the day. Some of the sunrises and sunsets have been amazing. Here's last Sunday night.

Rain, car repairs, ministry, and the beauty of nature

It’s raining – and has It been raining. The rains have been intense, mostly at night, but some come during the late afternoon.

Yesterday I returned home from a car repair adventure and found that the wind that came with the rain had knocked over two planters and even found a way to sneak into my bedroom. We need the rain, but sometimes I wish it were a little less fierce.

Yesterday I was going to help with the work on the parish coffee fields. I was transporting 15 sacks of fertilizer when I heard this awful noise and then couldn’t move. The differential. I called my mechanic who arrived about 3 hours later and got the job done in two hours (in the midst of a downpour.) Not cheap, but a friend told me it was a very good price. Today I’m in Santa Rosa to get the car checked out better, to get money from the bank and to do some work.

A few days ago I was talking with a few young guys and mentioned that I needed someone to chop the weeds by the house. All they needed was a machete and they worked until night fell. They came back the next day and finished the job. The first day I offered them twenty lempiras each and they refused it. I am taken aback from this type of generosity – time and time again.

Monday was a day of funerals. After getting some car repair work in Santa Rosa in the morning, I accompanied Padre German to a funeral in San Agustín. Sunday, during the early hours of the morning, while we were in Mass for the vigil, a young man, whose sister was a catechist, was brutally killed. I don’t know the details – but it appears that alcohol contributed to the killing (on the part of the killers). So sad.

Later I went to a funeral in the nearby village of Candelaria. A young woman with a very ill child had died, perhaps of heart problems. Her husband is in the US. Padre asked me to preach. So hard.

Tomorrow I am off to La Lima, Cortez, near San Pedro Sula, for a workshop on Social Analysis, sponsored by Caritas Honduras. Several others from here are going and I’ll be giving two of them a ride. An earlier workshop was good – but was just a start. We’ll see how this one was.

I will miss the National Catholic Youth Encounter here in Santa Rosa this Friday and Saturday. I won’t be sad to miss the all-night vigil – I’m getting a little old for all that. But I would have liked to be with the youth of our parish who go. But I hope to hear more about this later. I also think that what is really needed is more work in the villages and cities.

Next Monday and Tuesday I’ll accompany Padre German for the Saint Anthony feast day celebrations – in about 10 to 15 places. He’ll probably ask me to preach in a few places. This will be a great way to celebrate the tenth anniversary of my arrival in Honduras on July 13, 2007.

God is good.

And, if that’s not enough, here are some photos of flowers from around the house.

a very large grasshopper, on my rain water barrel

and this morning's view from the terrace.

God is great.

Lent and the last month

Lent has begun here in Honduras – to overcast skies and some rain today.

In the parish, Ash Wednesday was different this year. Padre German had a Mass at 9:30 am (or so) in Dulce Nombre and had asked all the villages to send the person who would lead the Celebration of the Word in their village. After Mass they took ashes back to their villages.

I was supposed to take ashes and communion to two of the most remote villages. On the way out, in Candelaria, I heard a strange noise in the car and the dashboard lights came on. The one that most alarmed me was the light indicating that the battery was not re-charging. I did not want to get stuck in Debajiados or San Marcos Pavas with a dead battery.

I went to a mechanic in Dulce Nombre  who diagnosed it as the alternator – not the T-belt, as I had feared. But he couldn’t repair it and suggested I take the alternator to Santa Rosa – 30 minutes away. I went and had the alternator reconditioned. It cost a pretty penny.

Interestingly Rueben, the Dulce Nombre mechanic, was wearing a Nebraska beat Iowa t-shirt! (I hope it was the University of Iowa!)

However, I could not get to the villages and returned to Plan Grande at about 5:45 pm. I had a light dinner in the darkness since the lights were out (due to a truck taking down a light pole in Santa Rosa at 8 am).

Gloria had invited me to their celebration and when I got there asked me to preside at the celebration and give the reflection. The congregation was small due, I think, to the lack of light. People sometimes fear to leave their homes at night.

The lights finally came on this morning at 10:50 am.

The few weeks before Ash Wednesday have been rather full.

I accompanied Padre German to a number of communities where there were, in total, about 100 baptisms.

I helped facilitate two workshops for leaders of base communities from two zones of the parish and two workshops on liturgy from two other zones.

I accompanied the Eucharistic ministers in their monthly meeting.

But I’ve been spending a lot of time working on materials.

We have materials for baptism of infants, of kids between 7 and 13, and of catechumens (14 and older) as well as materials for confirmation. Now I’m working on materials for first communion – a year long program. I have about half of the themes finished and will distribute to the catechists at their training sessions in the coming two weeks.

But what has been really fun working on is the material for base communities. An idea of the diocesan social ministry was to have one saint of charity for each month, as a way to celebrate the Year of Charity in the diocese.

The materials they had prepared were very poorly prepared – mostly copy/paste. Padre German asked me to prepare stuff for our parish (and its 150 or so base communities).

I mostly used the Spanish translation of his incredible book All Saints.  The translation is really poor but it still helped me having to write all the material in Spanish – and making thousands of errors.

As usual, my approach is distinctive – with scriptural readings and questions for discussions in order to help the base communities relate the scripture and the saints to their daily lives.

Here are the saints for the rest of the months of this year:

March – Blessed Archbishop Oscar Romero (of El Salvador)
April – Saint Brother Pedro of Guatemala

May – Saint Isidore the Farmer and his wife, Santa Maria

June – Saint Anthony of Padua

July – Saint Isabel of Portugal

August – Saint Rose of Lima (Peru)

September – Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta

October – Saint Francis of Assisi

November – Saint Martin de Porres (Peru)

December – Our Lady of Guadalupe and Saint Juan Diego

Other works are still in process. It’s so good to be here, living in the midst of the parish.

Next Sunday we'll have about 100 catechumens participating in the rite of election in the parish. Another example of the good work of our catechists.

More signs of life

I have my car back finally. The brakes were fixed in Esperanza, Intibuca – disks, pads, and boosters – to the tune of a little over $300.  But there was a problem with the right candado – the thing (lock) on the wheel that you turn to activate four-wheel drive. So I went to my local mechanic who replaced it – and didn’t charge me. Oh, the mercy these people show me!

He had mercy on me since he knew how much I’d put out in the last six weeks to get the car repaired.

He also knew that I am planning to find a newer pickup and sell this one. He’ll tell someone interested.

But even though I have been without a car, I did manage last Sunday to get out to Dulce Nombre on the bus.

I wrote in an earlier post about the celebration of Padre German’s birthday. But I forgot to mention that as I left I ran across a group of young people learning how to play musical instruments.  It’s a program that is getting outside funding and is being organized by the municipality. They are using the church grounds for the classes and instructors are coming in from Santa Rosa.

Here are some photos.

Yesterday I went out to Dulce Nombre for the Parish Council meeting. I couldn’t stay the whole time since I was taking part in a workshop in Caritas. But it was good.

The parish is being re-organized in several ways. Padre German hopes to have the parish organized, form the Base Communities to the parish council, to reflect the varied ministries of the church. It’s been hard for some parishioners to understand this but it is slowly being implemented.

Each base community and the church councils of the villages, sectors, zones, and parish will have seven representatives from the lower levels. So the parish council will have seven representatives from each of the four zones – who have the same roles even in their base communities. There will be a general coordinator, a secretary, a treasurer, a catechist, a coordinator of the liturgical ministry, a coordinator of the prophetic ministry, and a coordinator of the social ministry. The idea is to have people on the parish council who are rooted in their role from the base.

In addition, the parish will now have four zones instead of three. The fourth zone will include the villages furthest from the town of Dulce Nombre.  Hopefully this will enable better communication and better coordination of ministries.

At the parish council, Padre German brought a box of goodies for them: a box sent by St. Thomas. He showed them the two holy cards – of Our Lady and of St. Thomas Aquinas. 

 

Then he passed around the letters that had been written by St. Thomas parishioners. There weren’t enough for every village, but they will be distributed to villages throughout the parish.

Today, Saturday, I’m resting – getting wash done, cleaning the house (for two visitors on Monday), preparing material for the workshop I have to do in the parish next Thursday, and doing the last edit of materials for the catechumenate in the parish (and printing them off.)

There are lots of other little details to do – but I’ll try to take it easier. I do need to rest a bit.

In the countryside - problems and hopes

These past ten days, I’ve been out in the parish of Dulce Nombre four times.

Responding to violence

I’ve already written in a post a week ago about my experience on Saturday, July 13, taking the woman assaulted by her husband to the hospital.  The woman had one of her lower arms amputated and was taken to a hospital in San Pedro Sula. The police have detained the man.

That event has deeply affected me. I know that domestic violence happens here all too often, but to see it first-hand in one of its more violent forms is hard. But it has stirred me to think about what we can do.

On Friday, we had the parish council meeting. Before the meeting I mentioned to Padre German that I’d like to spend some time talking about this and violence in general. He gave me the go ahead. I talked and shared some statistics and then asked those assembled for their thoughts.

The responses were varied – though people talked about the fears they have and possible causes.

One person shared about some young people from the cities who had come to his village. One of these young people talked about how his father never really cared for him and instead would all too often reprimand him; and the churches didn’t really do much for him. In many ways I think this sense of abandonment might be a factor in some young people seeking the companionship that a gang might offer.

Another shared how one person fled to his town to escape gangs in the city. The young person had relatives there and feared for his life if he would go to one of the big cities.

I’m hoping we can continue these discussions and begin to find ways to respond to violence and threats of violence. We probably especially need to do something about domestic abuse.

Providing hope with the young

One Wednesday, I had a different experience. I went out with Padre German to the village to Pasquingual which was celebrating, a day late, its feast day, Our Lady of Carmen. (Padre had gone on Tuesday to two other villages which had Our Lady of Mount Carmel as their patron.)

I know a good number of people there in this small village of between 16 and 20 families. One person I especially appreciate is Don Salatiel, the 89 year old father of Ovidio. When he saw me he hugged me excitedly. I later took this picture which captures his youthful spirit.

As Padre heard confessions, I walked around outside the small church and ran across five young guys, between 15 and 22. I was happy to see them coming to Mass and found out that they all had been confirmed. We talked a bit about a number of things. One had finished ninth grade; tow had gone to sixth grade, but one had only finished fifth grade and the other, the youngest of them, I think, had only finished third grade. I asked them what they thought they needed. A soccer field, of course. But one mentioned a possible youth group. I mentioned this is a friend and hope they’ll find some way to help the young people do this.

Educating the youth

Saturday I went out to Vega Redonda to visit the Maestro en Casa program, a program of distance learning with classes every Saturday. I spent a little time with the teachers and with the students. Those in Ciclo Segundo – the equivalent of the second year of junior high or eighth grade – were studying English. I proceeded to ask them simple questions in English which they found hard to answer. But I did spend about ten minutes with them trying to get them to understand some basic sentences and questions. 

I would love to find a way to get some people here who have studied linguistics and teaching English as a second language.  They could work with the teachers who really don’t know English and perhaps with the students.

I left Vega Redonda, but not before taking a picture of the First Communicants waiting under a tree for a Mass later that morning. 

I left Vega Redonda , for reasons explained below, but not before I saw Padre German arriving on motorcycle! (He is the only priest I know here who goes around on motorcycle.)

That afternoon I visited with a Honduran friend, Erlin, who is trying to do something like that. I met with him and a woman from Canada who are teaching English to kids in two schools here in Santa Rosa. They charge a little but it’s trying to give poor kids a chance to learn English, something which is only really available to kids in bilingual schools, which mostly cater to middle class families. I am proud to know a young Honduran - with an engineering university degree - who is trying to do something for the poor of his people

Car problems and more

Saturday, I had planned to visit two or three of the Maestro en Casa sites.

But when I got to Vega Redonda on Saturday morning I realize that my brakes weren’t working again. A young friend gave me some brake fluid since it had all drained out.

I started back to Dulce Nombre, where I planned to have someone look at the brakes. A few kilometers outside Vega Redonda I realized the brakes were out again. So I put the car in four-wheel drive and proceeded to drive in first gear in low four wheel drive.

I got to Dulce Nombre safely – my guardian angel is working overtime – and someone fixed it. There was a broken seal in the back right brake. It cost me all of $9.00, including buying an extra container of brake fluid.

Then I proceeded back to Santa Rosa but was having problems changing gears. I got the truck to my mechanic who will work on it. I hope it’s fixed by Monday morning since I have to go pick up a visitor in Copán Ruinas. (UPDATE: the car has to stay in the shop until Tuesday; so my friend has to use the bus to get here.)

I took a taxi back to my house. The driver was a young talkative guy who impressed me. He does have a high school degree from the best high school here in Santa Rosa, but he’s driving a taxi.

We talked a bit about migrating to the US. He told me about a relative who recently left. Though warned about the dangers, the relative basically told him that he doesn’t care if he dies on the way. Such desperation.

But the driver told me that he doesn’t want to go. He cannot see leaving his parents and family. For him those ties are so strong that he has put the idea of migration out of his mind. It does help that he has a job and that my mechanic had even offered him a job! But, despite the economic situation and the presence of violence, he is not tempted to leave. His family is so important for him.

My experiences this week have reinforced my ongoing concern that we work together, especially in the parish, to find ways for the young people to have a dignified life that helps them work to fulfill their potential. That way we may help prevent violence, help them develop their villages into communities where the young see feel at home, and begin to build up small signs of the presence of the Reign of God in the midst of poverty, injustice, and violence.

Surprisingly, I find hope.