What Sacrifice Yields

In the two and a half years Laura and I have lived in Honduras, I’ve become accustomed to being led around. That’s understandable. It’s not my country, and at least initially, everything is unfamiliar. The positives to being led around are that you build relationships of trust with your guides and you begin to discover things hidden under the surface. It’s an ongoing process of exciting discoveries, like the wonder of Christmas morning for a five-year-old. The negative to being led around is to be placed in that position of dependence and vulnerability. To trust being led takes moving beyond one’s comfort zone. It really implies sacrifice – doing something beyond the necessary with the hope that it will provide something better. Sacrifice and surrender.
Having so often been led around, it’s a good feeling to finally achieve the position of leading someone else. Such was our experience with AHOP (not to be confused with IHOP), A House of Prayer, a church community from Xenia, Ohio who recently came to Camasca to share and serve. While the team was here they sponsored a sports camp. They also spent some quality time at our bilingual school with our children. The church sponsors three of our children so they are very much committed to our mission of education. They hoped to meet a few of the families of our children while they were here. Laura and I knew just which families to bring them to, and how to get there. Just follow us.

Lunch At AHOP's Sports Camp — Lunch At AHOP’s Sports Camp

“But there’s no road here,” one of the AHOP members bemoaned. We were standing on the cobblestoned street just outside the town center. I ducked down under a branch and gestured for the others to follow. The path is not at all obvious from the road and the thickness of the foliage would not offer any assurance that this was the way to any domicile. The group reluctantly fell in behind my lead. Along the path we’re inching our way down a sharp precipice. The view is incredible, looking down over about 2,000 feet, you can spot the Black River five or six miles distant winding through the mountain passes. But, could anyone really live down here? Down a rock-warn channel, passing bulls, cows, and calves along the way, over, under, and through barbed-wired fences, zig-zagging in and out of a pineapple grove, we descended. The earlier cobblestoned road now long forgotten, and yet in reality it was only a few hundred yards away. If I listened closely with my ears attuned to my heart, I could hear the incredulous thoughts, “But where in the world is he taking us?” Where indeed, fording a rill across a makeshift brick, up a muddy hill, and down along the other side, we arrived on the porch of Maria Dolores. She, her daughter Keilyn in second grade, and her son Bryan in kindergarten, were there to greet us.

The Walk to the Childrens' Homes — The Walk to the Childrens’ Homes

Everyone sat, resting after the tiring, somewhat anxiety producing, hike, on the plastic chairs already placed in anticipation of our arrival. We were welcomed with generous hospitality, Maria Dolores managing to provide us all with glasses of pineapple juice, no doubt freshly squeezed from the grove we walked through. Through translators she told us a bit of her story. Her brothers and sisters, with the exception of her brother German and his family, have all attended college and moved on to begin professional careers. She has stayed behind in this unlikely abode where she grew up to take care of her aging parents. Her mother, who was asleep while we visited, has coronary disease. Dolores has to take her to the doctor, obtain her medication, and take care of her father, her children, and her home. She tells us this matter-of-factly, with no sense of resentment or pride. She shares her hope for her children. She is grateful for the opportunity of the bilingual school, certain that her children will find the way beyond the confines of the situation they were born into. As she tells her story, as she reveals her sacrifice generously offered in hope, her visitors begin to bond with her. Josh, a pastor at AHOP, and Jillian share the story of their toddler son. He, like Dolores’ mother, also struggles with heart difficulties. From Xenia, Ohio, to Camasca, Intibucá, to this home hidden beyond the trees, the distance has lessened to nothing more than a knowing glance. Before we leave to visit her brother German and his family, we join hands in the warmth of prayer and thanksgiving.

Her brother’s home is a two-minute walk away, though it too is hidden under the trees. Juan Carlos, a first-grader, sees us coming and gathers the chairs for us to sit inside his home. German is there with his eldest child, an adult daughter who has been physically challenged since birth. Iris stands at about the height of her six-year-old brother, Juan Carlos, and walks with severe difficulty. She can no longer make the trip into town on her own, but relies on other family members to carry her. Her smile is infectious as she pleasingly relates to us how she assists her mother, a teacher, with computer work, English classes, and documentation. Her mother cannot get home frequently, as her teaching job is in La Esperanza. German stays home, tending his personal farm and taking care of the family. He has two other sons, both of whom are attending college. When we hear this, there is a collective, albeit silent, gasp. How is it possible that this family supports two children in college? And yet again, like his sister Dolores, German relates his story without the expectation of pity or honor. It is simply what he has done because it is necessary. He himself may never, will never, leave this home where the journey to and from it is exceptionally onerous. But he and his wife will take care of their daughter and forge a wider path for their sons on their journeys from home.

German, Daughter Iris, and Son Juan Carlos

Our journey down began with a sense of uncertainty that produced insecurity. We could not see the way, what could lie beyond the trees or below the mountain. But we found a place of rest and comfort. We met with welcome. Leaving, climbing out, was hard. We would, in a sense, be going very far away. Yet having been here, the way back would be something forever in our memory. We had become, somehow, very close to these families hidden under the trees and below the mountain.

Thank you, AHOP, for your willingness to be led. We hope you discovered something valuable along the way, “a pearl of great price.” You will always have welcome.

December 18, 2015June 22, 2023

Celebrations of Success

It’s a time of celebrating around the world. The celebrations are different according to where you are. Thanksgivings are a bit difficult here as it is just another Thursday. Still, we celebrated it on the following Sunday with some friends from Colorado State University. They had the onerous task of picking out the live bird and carrying it to its sacrificial end. No presidential pardon in Honduras. Our celebrations have picked up since then. December 8 is the Roman Catholic feast of the Immaculate Conception, and as this is the feast day of the town we live in, we experienced a whole week of “fiestas patronales.” We began with a parade where our Shoulder to Shoulder car was one of six “carrozas,” or floats. We came in fourth for the competition (next year we’ll dedicate more energy to decorating), but the young woman who we sponsored as the candidate for town queen actually won the competition, the Shoulder to Shoulder Queen of Concepción. We had a “Rueda Chicago,” Ferris Wheel, in town that we rode upon. It was stacked up on tree stumps, and as it turned, it rocked a bit. The policeman standing next to it, however, told us it was perfectly safe, and why would anyone not believe a Honduran policeman. The Christmas season has officially started as of today, December 17, with the “aguinaldo,” the nine days before and including December 25. We weren’t aware of this until 4:00 AM this morning when we were joyously awakened by the sounds of sonic boom firecrackers, followed by a tone-deaf band. But there are celebrations here at this time of year that are truly joyous that simply don’t happen in the US.

Here, as the school year here runs from February through November, we celebrate graduations. The schools pull out all the stops to enliven their graduation events with extreme fest. Our kindergarten class held its graduation on November 28. Believe me, I have never seen anything cuter than a five-year old dressed in cap and gown proudly clutching a diploma. Our celebration with excessive pomp and circumstance looked about the same as hundreds of other kindergarten graduations throughout the Frontier of Intibucá. But, the difference between our public school and all the others is the superb education and the mastery of English amongst our students. This would not be possible without the commitment and fidelity of our donors. It is with enthusiasm and gratitude that our students, and their parents, realize the dream of securing an excellent education and an opportunity for success.

Graduations were not only celebrated at our bilingual school, but at many middle schools and high schools throughout the Frontera. Thirteen young men and women, having been supported by our scholarship program, graduated from High School this year. Education and a high school diploma are taken for granted in the United States. Here, that is not the case. Public education is said to be free, but when you add up the costs of materials, uniforms, transportation, and other incidental costs, education beyond the sixth grade is simply too great of a financial burden for most families. With the generosity of our donors, many families are given a priceless gift. Children are given an education, an opportunity to journey along a road that takes them from the despair of poverty to the hope of a successful career. The students who receive scholarships through Shoulder to Shoulder’s donor program are committed and intelligent. They have all the tools for success, but lack the resources to achieve it. But you and we have shouldered with these students and their families, and this year thirteen of them have realized a milestone that would otherwise have been impossible.

Congratulations High School Graduates – Class of 2015

José Milton Mejía Nolasco – Magdalena

Denis Antonio Ramos – Camasca

María Claudia Mejía Ramos – Camasca

Deylyn Yanory Amaya – Camasca

María Estela Vásquez – Camasca

Neiby Merari – Concepción

Dania Concepción Ramos – Concepción

María Fátima Orellana Castro – Concepción

Lesbia Suyapa Márquez – Concepción

Elmer Danilo López – Concepción

Jhonal Alejandro Torres Mejía – Concepción

Estenia Vásquez Pineda – Concepción

Enrique Mauricio Arévalo – Concepción

If you would like to read more about these graduates and the accomplishments of other students receiving scholarship support, please follow the links below.

Scholarship Graduation Update 2015

Scholarship Program Update 2015

November 21, 2015June 16, 2023

A Road to Travel

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A Road to Travel

One of the things I often find quite humorous living on the Frontera, where there are no paved roads, is asking for driving directions. One typical answer might go something like this: “Once you cross the river (literally crossing through the river), you should look off to your right and take that road. Look carefully, because it may be difficult to recognize it as a road. After that, you’re home free, providing of course your truck does not go careening down the 500 foot cliff.” Even odder than the answer for directions, is the answer for how long any particular trip will take. The answer is always the same: a short, somewhat insecure, pause followed by the answer of “twenty minutes.” Nothing here is only twenty minutes away. It usually takes about an hour to get from one town to the adjacent one, and that’s on the main road (‘main’ being an adjective used very liberally). The answer of twenty minutes is either denial, pure and simple, or perhaps a wish. It may also be an acknowledgement that if roads were paved, it really wouldn’t take more than twenty minutes to get from any place on the Frontera to any other place.

Round table Discussion — Round table discussion

But they aren’t paved, and traveling here is something of a metaphor for how difficult, bordering on impossible, it is to get anywhere. But on Saturday, November 7, Damaris Quintero and Kate Clitheroe, who run the Yo Puedo girls’ empowerment program, along with the assistance of Damaris’ husband, managed to transport ten sixth grade girls from all over the Frontera to the southernmost town of Santa Lucia for a twenty-four hour retreat. Getting them there was quite a challenge. But that challenge dims in comparison to the miracle of where the program Yo Puedo is getting them. The roads of opportunities for young girls living on the Frontera are even more impassable than the roads between the small villages. The huge potholes along these roads, the rivers that need to be crossed, the dangers of ditches and cliffs that present themselves at every corner, are so negating of any journey that most girls end up simply stuck. They often become mothers much too young, a generational, cyclical poverty spins them into a limiting destiny. The road is lost.

The ten girls who made the journey to the Santa Lucia Clinic and the Yo Puedo retreat represent nine Yo Puedo schools. In the Yo Puedo program the girls are learning that they can make their own decisions about who they are and who they will become. They do not need to be stuck along the side of the road. The retreat presented the same theme, but in a way to honor these young girls who have been so very committed to the program. The theme for the event was how to be a young person who goes against the current, the current being society’s pressures that often stifle someone’s own decision making. In the retreat they named and took ownership of their talents, learned the processes for making informed decisions, and decided what they would do to go against the current. At the closure, they shared their life goals, and perhaps it was not a surprise that among them were doctors, dentists, lawyers, and teachers.
To be honest, it is not clear whether these young women will realize their dreams. They may in fact be overcome by the harshness of the journeys they have already begun. However, one thing is clear. If these young women do not believe in themselves, the greatness they possess within themselves, then nothing will ever change for them. The Yo Puedo program and this Yo Puedo retreat has started them along an incredible journey.

The road is not what impairs the journey, but rather the unwillingness to take it.