Honduras: Day Three

We ate breakfast at the hotel this morning, and then we headed out to El Carmen, a youth detention center for boys who have been accused of many different types of crimes ranging from robbery (the most common) to homicide, gun violations, rape, drug trafficking, kidnapping, and gang activity. My goal was to learn more about these inmates and how the center is operated. When we arrived, some of the boys were roaming around the campus while others had to remain locked in their rooms because their behavior was not good enough to be let out. The head school administrator gave us a walking tour of the entire facility, a tour that she had the time to do because these kids do not have any school classes even though this school year was supposed to begin in early February. The government has not released the funding that they need to have instructors, so things have just been held up. Without any school classes, the boys are left to just pass the time in whatever ways that they can think of. A workshop with tools sits empty because there is nobody to teach the kids. A classroom that has been set up to teach the boys how to bake is locked up because there is nobody to instruct them, and also because the complex has significant water problems (Orphan Helpers has been partnering with them in trying to fix it). Along our tour I stopped and randomly interviewed several of the boys. I asked them lots of questions about life, what it's like living there, if they thought they would like to have an adult come and spend time with once a week (a mentor), and what their hopes and dreams are for the future. Those boys were at various stages of transformation... some were still hardened (especially those who had recently arrived), while others had received Christ and made moderate progress in terms of their behavior and positive outcomes. I interviewed the pastor from Orphan Helpers who works in that facility, and he suggested that I interview two of the boys who the pastor had really gotten through to and who were pretty far down the path of getting their lives turned around while wanting to serve Christ even in the midst of what have to be some of the roughest conditions that any human being might have to endure in life. I am really looking forward to writing about these kids and the adults who work with them in this detention center. Both the kids and the adults would benefit tremendously if local churches and Christians in general would invest in them, but instead the youth detention center is considered to be a place where bad things happen or else people are just indifferent to how broken the system is. Even short term mission teams that come from the US are often afraid to go to this facility. My friend, Pastor Bill James, told me that North Way was kind of like that when they first went to Honduras a few years ago. Now, when they are in Honduras many of the people on the team actually look forward to going to El Carmen because they have come to learn that these boys are just boys and they need love and attention just as much as the orphans in other facilities. I believe that I will be able to build a powerful case for mentoring in this facility through my dissertation research. The Holy Spirit's presence was felt in the detention center even in the midst of such brokenness.

I could go on and on about the amount of research that I was able to do in El Carmen, but there was much more to our day. In the afternoon we visited with a pastor named Victor who leads a community transformation center and school called Las Brisas. When our small van arrived at this center, tons of kids ran up to us and just started hugging us and screaming and jumping around. It was crazy! The children were literally overjoyed at the sight of Pastor Bill James, and I could tell that he was right in the midst of his calling when he was with them. Although the kids were somewhat attentive to Julie and me, I could tell they were kind of looking past me to see if anyone else was in the van. They started chanting in unison at the top of their lungs, "Randy! Randy! Randy! Randy! Randy!" I finally had to ask Bill what they were doing, and he said that because Bill was here they were also expecting North Way member Randy Blincow to get out of the van as well. Apparently, my friend Randy, who has been to Honduras on mission teams, has rock star status here at Las Brisas, and the kids were disappointed that he wasn't on this trip. Another mission team from Texas arrived shortly after we did, however. They had been there all week so they were able to engage the kids in a bunch of activities right away. Our North Way team slipped into Pastor Victor's office to talk to him about the center, and I interviewed him for a while. He then gave us a walking tour of the community that this center serves, which has 65 children on scholarship from the slums along the river a few hundred yards away. Honduras has some of the poorest people in the world living here, and we met a few of those people today. We also prayed together. I was inspired to see Christians serving among the poorest of the poor. When I asked Victor if he thought all pastors and Christians should serve the poor, he said that of course they should. It's not just something nice to do for others. It's clearly required of us based on the Scriptures. He then read us Isaiah 58, which was so encouraging to me and Julie because we have gone back to that passage of the Bible over and over and over again since we started working, and escpecially living, in Homewood.

This day definitely wiped me out! I was so tired tonight that I didn't want to write this journal, but I'm glad I stayed disciplined. There is a great story to tell here. One of my favorite questions to ask the people I'm interviewing is, "Other people from universities and organizations from cities all over the world might potentially be learning about you from the project I'm working on. Is there one important thing that you would like to say to the world?" The answers have been wide ranging because the people I'm interviewing are at many different points in life. However, no matter how hardened people's hearts become, or how desensitized they become to the grind of crushing poverty, they still give me some incredible answers to that question. I have heard some amazing truths that come straight from the heart of suffering and brokenness, and sometimes redemption. It's hard to think that kids have to go through such struggles at such a young age, but it is happening here just as it often happens in my neighborhood in Homewood. I'm learning many similarities between the children that I work with in Pittsburgh and the kids that I'm spending time with here in Honduras. The levels of material poverty are different, but the spiritual and heart-level deficiencies are similar. Jesus is the way to treat broken hearts, but unfortunately many of these kids don't hear about Jesus because Christians refuse to obey God and go spend time with these kids. Whether it's fear, or indifference, or just plain disobedience to a clear call from the Lord, Christians are failing to join God's mission to reach high risk youth in cities. There are a few brave Christians who are doing it, but not nearly enough. Unfortunately, that's true both in Honduras and in Homewood. Why else would these boys in the Honduras youth detention center be sitting around all day with no education, no water, and few people to visit them to pay attention to them in their time of need? Why else would I have boys in Homewood waiting for well over two years now for a mentor from my church in Pittsburgh? Maybe if the kids are similar in Honduras and Homewood, the Christians are also similar between San Pedro Sula and Pittsburgh. Indifference to the poor and private, individualized religion are rampant throughout Christendom. My words may sound harsh, but those are the only words I have to describe what I have seen this week and what I often experience in Homewood. There is hope, though. There are Christians who are standing in the gap for the poor and doing heroic things all over the world by joining in God's mission to redeem people no matter the circumstances. I have met a few of those heroes here, and I know some of those heroes back in Pittsburgh. It's time for more Christians to join the work, and I hope that God will use me for the rest of my life to lead them there.