Geovany Granera was walking outside the hospital where he is a doctor, when he saw a man who was very upset standing under a tree. Geovany went over and asked him what was wrong. The man said the emergency room had turned him away because he was infected with HIV. Doctors did not want to treat him or even touch him. The man had bad sores all over his arms, and no one would help him.

As a doctor, Geovany began to see more and more the discrimination that HIV/AIDS patients received in Honduras. There was a lot of fear and ignorance surrounding the disease. People with HIV were shunned by family and friends and even doctors. People were afraid they could easily contract the disease and wanted nothing to do with anyone who had it. Geovany, also a pastor of Iglesia Gran Comision in Choluteca, Honduras,  decided he and his church needed to help do something about the discrimination.

Geovany saw that almost all of the patients he saw with HIV had one thing in common: hopelessness. Although people are able to receive free medication from The Global Fund and the Honduran government, many of them do not follow through because they are poor, they are ostracized from their friends and family, and they see little reason to continue to live.

Geovany believed his church, through the gospel of Jesus Christ, could help provide hope for HIV patients. A relationship with Jesus would bring forgiveness for their past sins and hope for the future. They would experience the love of Christ through a community of Christians who genuinely loved them.

One way the church has tried to accomplish this is through support groups. Two women from the church go to the homes of people with HIV once or twice a month to provide support and encouragement. The church has organized support groups for people affected and infected by HIV. They have shown people that they are not alone and that people do care for them.

A second way the church has helped to provide hope is Casa Hogar Vida (House, Home, Life). Casa Hogar Vida is a big project with several aspects to it. There is an orphanage that currently has six children, whose mothers died of HIV. Another aspect is the neighborhood that is being created. Right now, there are 39 simple houses that have been built in this neighborhood, with plans for many more. Some of these houses have been given to people for free and some are sold for a very affordable price. Living in these houses are people who have HIV and people who do not have HIV. The goal is to create a community where people live together in community, regardless of whether they have HIV. This neighborhood gives hope to people who do have HIV that they can be a regular part of a community.     

Geovany has many stories of people the church came into contact with who were desperate and without hope, and as a result of the gospel, they have found new life. Geovany says he can see a difference between HIV patients who have Jesus in their life and those who do not.

One of these people who has changed is Ramon. Geovany began a relationship with Ramon when they met in the hospital and Ramon had found out he had HIV. Ramon didn’t want to take medicine for his illness because he had no reason to continue to live. He would be an outcast and have no one in his life. He planned to kill himself and his children.

But people from the church shared the gospel with Ramon. He decided to put his faith in Christ. He started to see hope for himself and his children. He began to change.

Ramon now lives and works at Casa Hogar Vida. I see him frequently, and it is easy to see that he has hope in his life, a hope that could only come through what Jesus did on the cross.

Part of our work in Honduras LT has been to assist the church in their journey to bring hope to those living with HIV. Four girls who are part of the LT program have been joining the support groups and making home visits. Three other LT participants work every day at Casa Hogar Vida – doing different projects, spending time with the orphans and other children in the neighborhood and trying to build a sense of community among the adults living there.

Being here for the summer, I often think of the ministry of Jesus and how he reached out to those on the fringes of society, how he spent a lot of time with the sick and hopeless. It’s exciting to see the church here in Choluteca doing their best to follow in Jesus’ footsteps.

In Christ,

Ed

The Great Commission Latin America church here in Choluteca is trying to do its part in tackling some of its country’s biggest issues. One of those issues is unemployment. Statistics are hard to come by, but church leaders say that it is obvious that at least 25% of the population is unemployed but that the actual number most likely surpasses 50%.

Four years ago, the church began a microloan program. Because there are few jobs available to people, one good way for them to earn money is to start their own business. Many people, however, do not have any money to help get a business going. This is where the microloan program comes in.

People fill out a loan application, and if they are accepted, they receive a small loan, anywhere from about $150-$275. The loan has a small interest rate (3 percent) and is paid back in four months. When the loan is paid back, the applicant can apply for another loan to further improve their business. Eventually, the size of a loan can reach $1,000 if they’ve shown a history of paying off their loans.

Right now, the program has given 298 loans to 126 people. Some people are on their ninth cycle of receiving a loan, improving the businesses, paying the loan back and getting a new loan to improve the business further. The program is seeing about 88-90% of its loans being paid back, which the leaders consider to be a very good rate.

The other day, I joined Leonardo Romero Carcamo, the administrator of the microloan program, as he checked in on people who had received microloans. We went to meet a couple who sells cosmetics, a couple who sells big sacks and paintings, a woman who sells spices, a man who sells firewood, a woman who sells snacks and cooks food for people and a woman who has her own little corner store (a pulperia). She was very proud to show the refrigerator and freezer she had bought with a microloan.

One of the people we spent time with was Glenda. Someone from the church met Glenda in September 2009. Her husband had abandoned her and her two young children. She did not have a job and was unable to provide food for the family. At one point, she and her children went without food for three days. She was on the verge of taking her own life and the life of her children because she didn’t see any hope for her situation.

People from the church told Glenda about the churches microloan program, and she applied. But as she was talking with Leo, Leo realized she wanted to use the loan to buy food. He explained to her that if she used the loan for food, her family would be hungry again and now she would have a loan to pay back as well.

Glenda had learned to sew with her mother and started buying old sacks that contained  rice, beans, etc. She cleaned the sacks and sewed handles on them. She then sold the sacks to people to use when they shop at the market. She was able to make enough money to pay the loan back and to have food for her family.

Glenda enjoyed working and providing for her family. When we visited her, I could see she took pride in making the sacks and figuring out ways to improve her business. I could see her excitement as she got out her sewing machine and showed me how she puts handles on the sacks.

Leo says it wasn’t an amount of money that brought Glenda joy. It was her ability to work at a craft and provide for her family. And beyond that, she had discovered the hope that comes from the gospel of Jesus Christ.

In the church’s microloan program, Leo sits down with every applicant and shares with them about how God loves them and sent his Son to die for their sins. Glenda realized she had a life without hope, a life of desperation, a life where she believed the only way out was to take her own life. She decided to put her trust in Jesus Christ and accept his forgiveness for her sins. She got involved in the church and has been growing spiritually.

As I visited several people with Leo, I could see the hope that the church had brought to these people’s lives, not just in small loans but through their love and the gospel of Jesus Christ.

For now, the program in Choluteca has about as many people getting loans as the program can handle. But they are looking into starting branches in other cities in Honduras and Latin America, to give more people an opportunity to work and provide for their families.

In Christ,

Ed

Last weekend, we took a trip to Danli, Honduras – sort of a mission trip within a mission trip. We went to get a chance to visit another Great Commission Latin America church and to help serve them.

On Friday, we made the 4 – 4½ drive to Danli, stopping in Tegucigalpa to hang out at the mall and eat at the food court. Our hotel Friday night proved to be a bit of an adventure. Our apartment complex in Choluteca is just outside the city, so the nights are really quiet. Our hotel Friday was in the middle of the city, which meant we had to try to sleep amidst the sound of traffic, a barking dog, crowing roosters and some really bad karaoke singing. We also saw enough cockroaches to keep some people on high alert.

On Saturday, we split up into two teams. One team worked on a construction project. A grandmother who attends the church lives in a small shack with 10 other people. She sleeps in a little room with a leaky roof. The past two months in Honduras have been the rainy season, which means it rains almost every day, and her sleeping conditions were not healthy. Miguel, a carpenter who goes to the church, helped us rip off the old tin roof and put on a new one.

While one team worked on construction, another team went out into the neighborhood to meet people living there, distribute some rice and talk with them about Jesus Christ. They got to talk to several people, and we went back later that night to pick up a few of them for church.

On Saturday night, we attended church and a church picnic Sunday afternoon before heading back to Choluteca. It was great meeting people in a sister church in Honduras, but we were glad to get back to home, sweet, home Choluteca .

In Christ,
Ed

The church in Choluteca just completed a short newsletter talking about many of their projects. Check it out to see more of what Honduras LT participants are doing this summer.

We just wrapped up our first week at the first-ever Honduras Leadership Training. We’ve settled in more quickly than I thought we might, and LT participants have been able to do a lot of ministry already. For this first blog post, I’ll give you the basics.

There are 11 college-age LT participants (eight gals, three guys), representing five Great Commission Ministries Churches, and one Great Commission Ministries staff couple, me and my wife, Beth. We’ve also been joined by Francisco Castillo, a native Honduran (or catracho in Spanish) who is living with us and helping us get around, translating for us, etc.

We’re in Choluteca for eight weeks, serving one of our sister churches that is part of Great Commission Latin America (sorry for all the organization titles; no more, I promise). The church has a variety of projects it has started to help its community, including an AIDS orphanage, AIDS support groups, a neighborhood of affordable housing, a malnutrition clinic, a preschool for children living in poverty, English and computer classes for teenagers, a microloan program, a tortilla factory, a coffee factory and other things I’ve probably missed. These projects are all done with a heart to serve and care for people and also to share with them the gospel of Jesus Christ. The church is taking on big issues in Choluteca and Honduras: malnutrition, unemployment, illiteracy, HIV, poverty and most of all, the need for a Savior. The church is well-known in Choluteca for its work in the community. (In fact, I met the mayor of Choluteca today at the opening of the English and computer classrooms.) Our hope this summer is to play a role in assisting the church in the challenges they are tackling.

Our living arrangements are nice. We are renting apartments, with four students per two-bedroom unit. We have air conditioning, a mini-kitchen and, most importantly, wireless Internet. We also have a pool but haven’t had much time to use it yet. The complex has a housekeeper who cleans our apartments each day, and the staff is very friendly. (I’m already Facebook friends with the main desk attendant.)

Well, there’s a brief introduction to what we’re doing this summer. We would love for you to pray for us this summer. I’m hoping to update this blog at least once a week to give you a glimpse of what we’re up to.

In Christ,
Ed

Ed Courtney is a pastor with Great Commission Ministries Churches and serves at The Rock at the University of Missouri-Columbia.