Dear Faith Partners,
Muchisimas gracias! Thanks to you, our group of twelve Cincinnatians and one Bostonian have arrived in Honduras and to El Hogar de Amor y Esperanza to love on, learn from, and serve the children who live here.
Today was a day of transitions. Even though it isn’t that far as the crow flies, we transitioned out of our comfortable lives into a different world as we flew south across the Gulf of Mexico. The world in Honduras is defined for most people by fear and insecurity, by barely getting by and not getting by. Well, maybe it’s not as different from our day-to-day world as we might want to think, but that’s a different story for another day.
We spent relatively little time in this ‘outside’ Honduran world. A few children tried to hock us candy in the airport, and porters demanded top dollar for carrying our bags. We navigated the streets and highways of Tegucigalpa with our luggage strapped on top of our van and fourteen people sharing twelve seats. But after that, we transitioned almost directly into the world of El Hogar. I’m sure we will experience more of the ‘outside’ Honduran world, but the atmosphere at El Hogar is all the more remarkable knowing some context about Honduras. In 2014, Honduras had a per capita national income of just $2,190, the second lowest in the western hemisphere after Haiti. In contrast, the same measure in the United States was $55,200. More than 64% of Hondurans live at or below what the government here defines as the poverty line. About a quarter of girls ages 15-19 here have children or are pregnant (All stats from the World Bank). This world has a lot to be fearful of.
But once we entered the walls of El Hogar, we transitioned into a world that, despite everything going on outside, is defined by love and hope. This is a place where children build relationships with complete strangers across language barriers through soccer, ukulele, and sidewalk chalk. This is a place where teachers give completely of themselves to be educators throughout the school day, into the night, and on the weekends. This is a place where children stick up for each other, enforcing their own high standards of behavior even when a teacher isn’t around. This is a place where thirteen strangers are welcomed with open arms for a week and kept in children’s hearts forever.
I experienced the profound love that the children here give when I saw Rene Gabriel, the scholarship student that Slocomb and I are privileged to sponsor, for the first time this trip. Two years ago, he and I bonded over some woefully under-prepared piano lessons. Warren Stoker and I taught Rene Gabriel and four other students Ode to Joy and Happy Birthday, which Rene Gabriel proudly performed in front of the whole school. Fast forward two years, and he has grown about two feet and started to change from a boy into a young man. He took a break from his afternoon work in the bakery (they’re making a six-tiered birthday cake, btw) to greet Slocomb and myself. The hug that he gave me today after having not seen me for two years was so warm, so deep, and so loving. This place has, I believe, instilled in him gratitude, hard work, and a sense of responsibility in addition to profound love and hope. I am honored to be a small part of that, and I am so glad he was here to welcome me with his open arms today.
We passed through several worlds today, but I’m beginning to think they’re not very far apart at all. We all look for love and hope even when the world tells us to be fearful and insecure. We all come across barriers between people each day that we can choose to live with or choose to chisel away at. And we all need a place to be welcomed with open arms.
Thank you for helping us get to this place. I hope that you know that the arms of the children at El Hogar are open to you as well, even if a Gulf separates us.
-Leslie Jenkins Reed
No comments:
Post a Comment