Annual Short Term Mission Trip
Helene, Honduras
Scroll down for a report on our new 2009 team member and
our 2008 short-term mission trip to
Helene.
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. Click here to see a video from the 2007 trip. And is year's trip was a great success as well.
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 in 2008 the enthusiasm level was so high that even before announcing the trip to the congregation, we had 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.
FPC member participates in longer term 2009 mission team
“I’ve had quite a learning curve; in fact, “learning curve” became my nickname the other night. The personal growth here is off the charts. That Bible verse about praying unceasingly is becoming second nature. I just could not do this without God being with me,” says David C.
When Dave was called to Helene to be part of the mission team, he was prepared for new experiences, frustrations, rewards and personal growth. In a recent letter, he shared that he has experienced all that and more, with God’s love and support.
“So here I am, from gray Newport winter to August weather. The breeze is light, the sun is strong, and the foliage makes you feel that you are in a little house in the midst of a huge dish garden,” writes Dave.
All five team members arrived at the Roatan airport on Saturday, March 14, from different parts of the country. They were Larry, the pastor-director; his wife Sheila who will guide the Helene Christian school; Dominic the schoolteacher; Dierdra the nurse; and Dave.
The team discussed group dynamics, their ministry focus, and plans for the clinic and school in Roatan before leaving for Helene, to avoid any cultural misunderstandings and expectations. Other priorities were water, electric, food, wash systems, etc. They enjoyed a little free time to go snorkeling. As Dave observes, “The underwater world of blues and shimmering light, wild ultra-violet fishes, and lobsters, was fascinating. The sun will bake you if you’ve been locked in winter clothes, so I planned accordingly.”
Manuel, their driver, packed the taxi-van and they headed for the boat trip to the smaller island of Helene. The journey to Helene began with two-lane highways, stops at grocery stores and fruit stands for last-minute provisions, and finally a rough dirt road to Port Royal, where they boarded the “clinic” boat. The “clinic” is the general name for the housing, shop, medical clinic, and school.
Arriving at Helene, the team was met by children who ran to the dock and the men who soon followed. “Alejandro, Myers and the rest grabbed our stuff and started hauling it up to the clinic porch. Everyone was psyched and there were plenty of hugs. We threw our stuff inside and spend a couple hours visitin’. We’re on our own for breakfast and lunch. To trim the budget we do our own cooking. We have supper together and rotate the preparation and menu. Weekdays, Team Helene has devotions at eight. I’ve never led one of these so not sure what I’ll talk about when it’s my turn—maybe the tongue, there’s plenty in the Word about that,” writes Dave.
“Ministry approach and strategy is evolving and maturing here, so we called a meeting with residents of the six small towns (more like neighborhoods): Mango bite, Seco, the Point, Bently Bay, Northside, another and the Pond,” Dave explains. “We are trying to work ourselves out of a job. We announced that we want to have school this year, but as Larry and Sheila explained, ‘It is your school. We discussed this with the crowd of mostly women and children, since such decisions really are up to the women in this somewhat matriarchal society. We told them we would assist, but they would need to create a school board with two members from each community looking at finances and hiring local teachers. This is a huge step and required follow-up explanations of what a school board does. We were pleased that the Northside actually voted for their representatives quickly.”
This transition of the Helene Christian School will give the locals ownership and investment perspective. It will teach Bible and they know that it is far superior to the government’s Spanish school. “The other night about 8 p.m. in the dark, I heard a voice through the slatted front room window. ‘Miss Sheila, is there gonna be school?’ said the small child in her island voice. Not all the kids here go any school, but the families of those who do, pay (or intend to) tuition, because they realize how important it is,” observes Dave.
Another change was the need to charge 20 lempira (about a dollar) for a clinic visit. Since a trip “down island” to Roatan costs much more, so it should not be a problem. Once again, their paying for the clinic visits is an exercise in ownership.
“The team dynamics are intense, the physical work tiring, chores just like at home, the construction, plumbing, electrical, generator responsibilities are overwhelming, and the reading and study fills the spare time. We did go to Northside Church of God Universal to hear Pastor Teddy preach last Sunday. Wow, what a great message on Psalm 34. At night I went to the Church of God, Pentecostal. Basically, this adventure is like trade school, Bible school, corporate conference, and survival school all at once.
Dave finds himself hunting bees for honey, referring frequently to the FPC Lenten guide, listening to FPC sermons on line He also takes part in a men’s Bible study with Larry and Dominick, and two islanders, Bye-Bye and Jerry.
“Thanks for the prayers,” he writes. You may discover new prayer requests in the text of his observations.
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.”
Our 2008 mission team in Honduras
The fourth annual short-term mission trip to Honduras has come and gone, and the members of the 2008 team are now seeking opportunities to share their memories and photos from the trip in ways that will build support for future trips and for missions in general.
Tentative arrangements have been made to make follow-up presentations at the two other churches who were involved in this year’s trip through the participation of one of their members: New Beginnings Praise and Worship Center (now Crosspoint Church) in Newport (Elizabeth Powers) and First Baptist Church of East Providence (Ruth Prophete).
Members and friends from FPC who did not see the STM Honduras 2008 presentation at the pizza luncheon in the dining room can schedule a private showing(!) by calling Roland Chase at 846-4007 or Alan Neff at 847-1934.
Finally, here’s a report on our trip from one of the Alternative Missions interns on Helene, from Tulsa, Oklahoma, whose blog was entitled “Those Yankees Are Gone!!!” Henry wrote the following:
"I'm referring to the Short Term Mission Team from Newport, Rhode Island, who just departed after spending the past five days with us. It was a week of hard manual labor mixed with several spiritual highlights while visiting homes, helping in the school and health clinic, and singing for one of the local churches.
Their #1 priority was to complete the building of a new storage facility for our de-salination drinking water plant. This plant allows us to provide drinking water to islanders at 40% less cost than they pay anywhere else. Currently the plant sits over the ocean—which leads to much rust and short life span of pumps and motors. ...
The team arrived and immediately got busy at work! Thankfully they brought a couple of experienced carpenters with them, which quickly made up for lost time. While this portion of the team worked on the building project; other team members went on medical rounds with Terry and Deirdre, while still others helped unpack tubs of books and school supplies they brought for our school.
I wish you could have seen the ecstatic faces of our children when they saw their first large sheet of art paper. Until now, all drawing & painting was limited to letter-size paper. The island teachers were more excited about the new pencil sharpeners, three-hole punches, notebooks and fresh markers. The visiting teachers also helped us complete the annual reading tests that are given to each student on an individual basis....
God really used this group of seven educators, three construction professionals, and one doctor during their short-term mission ministry with us. They not only completed all of their intended projects, but also touched many lives (ours included) in the process. A huge thank you to the First Presbyterian Church of Newport, Rhode Island!
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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