2008 Short Term Mission Trip

Helene, Honduras

We began a relationship with the people of Helene, a tiny island north of mainland Honduras, during a mission trip in 2005. The English-speaking people, living in a country dominated by Spanish-speaking Hondurans, are decendants of African slaves who largely populate the village of Helene, and have had little hope of being lifted out of their misery.

About a dozen years ago, Alternative Missions, a Christian mission organization headquartered in Arizona, began a ministry on Helene: first a medical clinic, then a part-time dental clinic, a desalinization plant to provide fresh water, a bilingual preschool and primary school, a tutoring program for older students, and many evangelistic outreach efforts.  Since then, the mission on Helene has been growing, with a small full-time staff assisted by a stream of short-term mission teams from churches all over the United States.

In 2005 FPC Newport became the only church in the Northeast to join the work on Helene, which we continued with week-long mission trips in 2006 and 2007.  And we’re going back again!  This year’s dates are from Saturday to Saturday, October 4-11, 2008.

Whether you have special skills in medicine, dentistry, teaching or construction, or just a heart for people and a willingness to help, you are invited to join FPC’s fourth annual short-term mission trip to the island of Helene. We are making a difference—in their lives and in our own lives.  We’ve come back excited about God’s work on Helene and how He can use us there. 

So far 18 people from our church have participated, and this year the enthusiasm level is so high that even before announcing the trip to the congregation, we have five “Honduras alumni” signed up to go again!

In past years wonderfully generous support from the congregation has reduced the cost by several hundred dollars per person. Photos, flyers, and other information will be available on Sunday, April 6, in the fellowship hall, along with application forms.  For questions before then, contact the church.

Why I Chose To Go To Honduras
by Ruth Ann C.

The word I would choose to explain why I went to Honduras in 2005 is JUSTICE.  The Bible speaks about Jesus coming to bring justice in Isaiah 42:1 “Here is my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen one in whom I delight; I will put my Spirit on him and he will bring JUSTICE to the nations.”

I heard about the plight of these human beings, former slaves, who had worn out their usefulness for some English-speaking owners who decided to dump them on this small island of Helene, surrounded by Spanish-speaking people in neighboring islands, to eke out a living if they could.  I thought I would like to partner with the Christians from Alternative Missions who were called to bring Good News and hope to these oppressed people.

Of course, all the usual questions and doubts came up in my mind. Why Helene?  Don’t we have enough problems of our own in our own country?  Isn’t what we can do just a small drop in the bucket? The answer that came to me is: This is the opportunity that the Lord has presented to me, and even though it may seem small, it is very much like the Lord’s example in dealing individually with oppressed people.

Why go to Helene?  Isn’t it enough just to hear about it? I will never forget seeing the goodness that Christians have been able to bring to people who formerly had no pure drinking water or access to medical help.  Bringing hope to women who spent their entire adult years involved in pregnancy and childbirth, and not daring to name their infants until they were two years old because of the very real possibility of them not surviving.  Seeing children being able to learn to read and write, giving them the opportunity to read the Bible, or leave the island and get a job if they so choose.

When I came back from Helene, I was thankful that I had been privileged to live in this country where there are things like reliable electricity, roads and infrastructure, and police departments.  I was also thankful that I could do a little bit to help in Helene, because it is the same for us as it was for Abraham.  We are “blessed to be a blessing.”


 

 



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Reflections
 from Nicaragua

I have returned from the mountains of Nicaragua with our four person team we were teaching on ministry in the power of the Holy Spirit at two different locations with two different groups.  I praise God that we all returned healthy, stayed safe, and had minimal travel delays, although Delta must have an in with Santa as I did not get my luggage on my return on the night of the 23rd but it was on my front porch Christmas morning.

At both locations, our team presented on worldview, who is the Holy Spirit, the four works of the Holy Spirit, how to be filled with the Holy Spirit, and then how to listen to the voice of God.  This material is the basis of Presbyterian Reformed Ministries International's Ignite Project.  We had the teaching slides translated into Spanish, and had more material than we could cover in our limited time.

This material has been translated into several other languages and used around the world, but this is really the first major initiative to enter Latin America.  This time, we are developing a strategy to share this material further and with more frequency as we see the need is so great.

Nehemiah Center - Managua Dec 13-14
The Nehemiah Center is a center of several different ministries working together for the transformation of Nicaragua.  It is based in Managua. Several international ministries have pooled together to coordinate their work and save overhead by sharing office space and support staff.  You can read about all their ministries at the Nehemiah Centers "About Us" page.

The Nehemiah Center takes its name from the example of Nehemiah in the Old Testament, who was called to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem after they had been broken down. In a similar way, the "walls" of Nicaragua have been broken down by a series of natural disasters, wars, and other events. The Nehemiah Center exists to rebuild those walls by equipping the country's leaders in a variety of sectors with a biblical worldview, the foundation necessary to nurture the future growth of this country and its people.

Vida Joven-- Jinotega Dec 17-21
http://www.vidajoven.org/
We had the privilege of being with nearly 200 Young Life leaders from Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Guatemala and Mexico.  We had a daily class with about 40 senior leaders in particular, and they served as the ministry team for the nights that we had the larger group.  We taught on the work of the Holy Spirit and the gifts, and then how to minister as a team to people asking for prayer. 

We saw physical healing (for example, one pastor received a healing in his right hip from a car accident nearly 40 years ago – the Lord revealed the pain as a word of knowledge).  We saw a lot of emotional healing and several demons were dealt with.  Many rested in the Spirit. 

The highlight of the trip for me was watching the local staff grab a vision for team based prayer ministry and the confidence they had in being equipped.  It’s not that the “American team” led ministry, as much as we delegated it away to the local leaders.

The center raises coffee to send youth to its camp-like setting through out the year. December and January are the off months of school in Nicaragua as that is coffee harvest time. In Managua in the valley it was low 90’s in the day and 70’s at night. In the mountains (5,000 feet) it was in the mid-sixties in the day and low fifties at night. Each pound of coffee sold from Vida Joven sends one kid to camp for a week. The camp also does a lot of work teaching farmers crop rotation etc, to increase their standard of living. 

Esperanza Coffee
On the way back , we visited and toured the coffee processing facility of Esperanza Coffee.  By God's grace, the president of Esperanza, Javier, happened to be there.   Esperanza gives so much back to social missions in Nicaragua from building schools, water projects, job training, and rehab centers.  It is a Christian business with a missions heart. Javier took us to his coffee shop in Managua and we talked about lots of ideas to develop this teaching ministry in the future.  I helped with some editing he was doing on a documentary about the work being done with children who live in the city’s dump.

Future developments:

Biblical Worldview
What became clear to us during our time that much of our material answers questions that are being asked in North America.  To develop the material better, we'll need to spend time listening to what questions are being asked in Latin America and using that to reshape our material. 

For example, North Americans tend to have a secular world view (world view images from Discipling the Nations: The Power of Truth to Transform Cultures by Darrow Miller).  God does not "do work" in the world.  Events have a natural cause and effect.  Some have a biblical world view where God "does work" in the world, prayer is effective. 

Latin America tends to have an animistic worldview, which sees human life trapped in a cycle of being controlled by spirits.  For example, people refuse to live in the old section of Managua that was flattened by a pre-Christmas earthquake in 1972 because that part of town is inhabited by evil spirits.  Some infants wear charm bracelets on their wrists to "ward off evil spirits."

This teaching material is greatly needed in Nicaragua, and from my observations, in Latin America in general.  It’s solid, bible based, and very well anchored in Scripture and the Reformed tradition. (Tongues is one evidence of the spirit, not the only evidence as in traditional Pentecostal theology). 

Ministry Style
It also has a ministry style that is team based, and respectful of the person being prayed for.  This is and can be a contrast to many of the potentially abusive ministry styles that are present in Latin America.

Our style of prayer is
  • Permission based - we ask permission first before laying on of hands or anointing with oil.
  • Quiet -- we pray in a normal voice without the need to shout or dramatic emphasis on keywords.
  • If we feel a leading of God in prayer, we share it by saying "I think the Lord may be showing me" or couching it in more tentative language than "The Lord Says" because we realize we might be wrong.

The feedback we received was that our prayer times seemed orderly, less wracked with emotionalism, and very gentle.  Even our ministry leaders were grateful at the gentleness of the times of ministry.  It was a new style they had not encountered.

Potential Plans:
We've been invited to return to Vida Joven in Jan of 09, to share more on inner healing and prayer.  It's one thing to have a 60 minute ministry session to deal with matters of forgiveness and have great encounters with God, but another thing to take the time to actually work through inner healing and freedom into discipleship.  The need is great, and we've been asked to revisit next year specifically to train leaders in healing ministry.

There are other possibilities that may open up, but they are still dreams and possibilities.  Nothing is firm, so I can't yet share them.

Thanks for praying for us.
Bill