Day 3 – June 11th - Nuevo Sacremento

Today we spent the whole day in a small village/town outside of Tegucigalpa called Nuevo Sacremento. We left the hotel around 8:30 a.m. and got on our private bus. We worked all day doing a carnival as well as other things at the mission that Communion has planted in that community. For the first half of the day we did face-painting and nail painting, balloon animals, and played games/soccer/football outside. We had one group of people who hadn’t been designated a specific task for the day, so they went out into the community to hand out New Testaments and pray for people. Tom, our leader, was able to meet a man whose six-year-old son was sick with polio. They also met a boy whose mother had died just five days before.

For the second half of the day, we had planned for a group to stay and do crafts with the kids and another group to go out and pray and hand out New Testaments, but the weather disagreed with us. It rained and rained and rained so we all ended up staying and doing crafts, then concluded the day with one of our infamous acted-out Bible stories. We did the story of the Good Samaritan and guess who got to be beaten and left on the side of the road? Si! Me!

On our way to the mission, we had no idea where we were going. On our way out of the capital, we stopped by the church that the other group from Brookhills is working with, Luz y Verdad, to get some of the games. We also picked up two 12-year-old girls who were members at Communion. Ariana and Elisa were their names and they would be serving as our translators for the day. 12-year olds serving as our translators. How awesome is that?!?! We also had two women from Communion join us who helped us out.

One of them, Roxalina (Roxie, for short), was definitely helpful while we were painting faces because I came to rely on her very much to tell me what these kids were asking me to paint. The drive to the mission was almost an hour and the roads along the way were great until we got about 15 minutes away from the mission. Our bus became a rollercoaster car and began to weave from left to right, trying to dodge potholes. Soon we passed a prison. It was just a bunch of tin buildings surrounded by a fence with barbed wire on top.

Anyway, Emily and I painted faces for the first half of the day. We though we had the best job because it started out pretty slow plus we were inside and not out in the sun. But, oh, did that change quickly. Soon enough, we were swarmed. Emily kept making fun of me because the boys all come to be to get their faces painted. I swore it was probably because I was wearing a hat but who knows.



Time flew by. I learned very many new Spanish words, seeing as I was will to paint anything the kids asked me. Emily’s customers were just asking for butterflies and flowers. The boys were more creative. Here is were my friend Roxi came in handy. Every other customer I had to have her translate. Here are a few of the words I learned:
- mariposa (butterfly)
- flor (flower)
- bandera (flag, Honduras and the U.S. were most popular)
- águila (eagle)
- león (lion)
- corazón (heart)
- pluma (feather)
- flecha (arrow)
- espada (sword)
- reloj (watch)

Meanwhile, I made a new friend. His name is Julio (which as he told me translates to English as July and I told him that was the month I was born). Julio is 10 and he’s a Christian. He loves people and absolutely loves to help. I think he became a little attached to our group and our group definitely wanted to take him home. The girls and I were plotting how we could fit him into a suitcase. Ha! He even colored a page out of the coloring books that we gave them and signed it “Love (except with a heart) Julio”. He was the most amazing little boy. He definitely cared about others before himself. His friend Luiz split his toe and he came to find someone who could fix it. Thankfully, Melody is a doctor so she cleaned the cut up and bandaged it. And Julio was right there next to his friend the whole time.





We also latched onto a little girl who had a severe case of epilepsy. She was definitely out of it because of the medicine that she was on but we also think that she may have had some brain damage as well. At the end of the day, after everyone had left, the sweet little girl was still standing around with us. Someone in the group came up with the idea to take the Mardi Gras beads that we had brought with us to pass out, and everyone would take a strand and put it around her neck. Jason mentioned later that he sort of saw it as God pouring out his grace on her. God was saying, “This is my child too. She deserves it as much as everyone else does. Keep it coming. Never let it stop.” A few of us prayed over her, for healing and just a presence of knowing God is there and Roxie translated so that she could understand what we were saying.



Before leaving the church, we met the pastor and his family and prayed for him and the mission. We also presented them with some supplies that we brought specifically for the mission.

Around 4 p.m., we hopped on the bus, reluctantly, and started on the 45 minute drive back to Communion.

Here is our devotion for Day 3.

The Spoon – Proverbs 29:18 – This scripture is written so differently in many of the different translations/versions of the Bible.

In the NIV it says: “Where there is no revelation, the people cast off restraint; but blessed is he who keeps the law.”

The Message puts it like this: “If people can't see what God is doing, they stumble all over themselves; but when they attend to what he reveals, they are most blessed.”

The New Living says it differently: “When people do not accept divine guidance, they run wild. But whoever obeys the law is joyful.”

Whichever way you chose to read it, what it basically comes down to is changing our perspective on our place in God’s work. If we constantly look inward, thinking about ourselves, and what God’s plan for our life is, we totally miss what God is doing in the first place. It’s not about what God’s plan for our life is; it’s about where we fit into that plan and if we choose to be a part of it.

We used a spoon as our illustration and it made perfect sense.

Okay…walk into the kitchen, open the silverware drawer, and get spoon out. Seriously, do it. Okay, hold the spoon up to your face with the top of the spoon toward you. What do you see? You see yourself, upside down and all distorted-looking, right?

Okay, now turn it over to where the bottom of the spoon is facing towards you. You see yourself again, right? But how does it look? Better? Still a little distorted but you are seeing the image right side up. Correct?

This is how we should view our life. If we turn the perspective to what is going on around us, if we look for where God is working and what he is doing instead of worrying about what we constantly worry about, we are going to see God working and he’s going to show us where we fit in.

The funny thing about going on mission trips is that we end up seeing God working more on the trip that we do in our everyday lives. But the thing is, we are looking for Him. We are completely removed from everything that we are distracted by every day (TV, radio, work, etc.), so we aren’t preoccupied and are able to see more clearly what God is doing.

Our challenge as disciples of Christ is to seek him out daily. Ask him to make you aware of where you fit into his plan and then obey.