Boston to Honduras

We’ve had a number of opportunities to work in local communities, provide fellowship and encouragement, and share the Gospel. Some were established, a lot are new, so we continue to discover places where we’re needed and gifted.  Ok, let’s start with…

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San Jose, Costa Rica

The Spanish Institute – A missionary Spanish language school in San Jose, Costa Rica where we stayed with host families for the month of October while taking an intensive Spanish course.  We got to know some other missionaries, study/experience Latin American culture, and participate in a few local outreach ministries including…

La Carpio — An extremely poor community of mostly Nicaraguan refugees and immigrant in Costa Rica. Our Spanish classes conflicted with weekly trips from the language school, but we went out a couple times to help a local missionary with childrens’ ministry.  Mike Pettengill of our team made a video of La Carpio and some of the ministry.  Check it out!

Image of La Carpio from mylifeonamission.blogspot.com

Roblealto — A Christian school and day center for highly at-risk youth in San Jose.  Every Friday morning we translated teacher/social worker reports about each student (in Spanish) and wrote updates (in English) for their American sponsors.

Casa AMCA – Once a week we helped Sean and Lindsey McCann lead a beginners ESL class of about 20 students at AMCA house, a ministry center near the language school.  After a short lesson, we split into small groups to practice pronunciation and conversation, and in the middle of the class there was a break for cafecito (coffee and cookies) with a song (in English to practice) and a Bible message in Spanish.  It was a great integration of a valuable service and the preaching of the Gospel.

Los Guido – We also helped with an ESL class run by the Casa AMCA directors in Los Guido, a poor community on the outskirks of San Jose.  We grew close to several students there, and it was great preparation for our ESL classes in Armenia Bonito, Honduras (see below).

After language school, we’ve been living and working in…

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La Ceiba, Honduras

Medical Clinics — Erin Pettengill is a registered nurse with experience in pediatrics and prisons. With her expertise (and our unskilled labor), we’ve been holding weekly and occasional specialized medical clinics in Armenia Bonito, a poor neighborhood of about 3,000 just outside of La Ceiba. These provide opportunities to share the Gospel by showing love in a tangible way — meeting medical needs. The team hopes to establish permanent medical clinics in the future.

Erin Pettengill at the first medical clinic for young children in Armenia Bonito.

ESL — La Ceiba is a port city, and there’s a great demand for English education. Hey, we know English! The three of us are leading a free two-month course in Armenia Bonito for kids, beginners, and intermediate English students.  It’s been both a fun and valuable way to meet people and build relationships in the community.     

Kids Club — “The Intern” (as we’re collectively known) has started a weekly kids program — sort of like an extended VBS program.  We take any kids who come (anywhere from 20 to 90) to play games, sing praise songs, hear a Bible story (complete with skit or puppet show), learn Bible verses, and make a fun craft to bring home!  We’re finally getting a bunch of the names down and hope to use the program to reach out to kids’ parents as well.

Flame — We’ve been hanging out with some more affluent, English-speaking Hondurans at a city youth group called Flame run by some missionary friends.  Many are not professing Christians, so it’s been a joy to get to know them and hopefully share the gospel as we share our lives. 

Ninos de la Luz Orphanage — We’ve been giving bi-weekly English classes to the 20 boys at an orphanage in Armenia Bonito during their school vacation, and we look forward to continue building relationships with them during their school year.  

Other/future opportunities might include…

Hosting Short-Term Missions Teams – We’ve constructed 11 bunkbeds for the Pettengills and will continue to help them prepare for a slew of short-term teams this summer.  Josh will be staying through the summer to help facilitate and guide teams.

Church Planting – The team has the paperwork set to plant an evangelical church in La Ceiba through local outreach and Bible studies (in Spanish of course). The goal in ALL ministries is to make them sustainable by training and equipping Hondurans. To that end, the Pettengill and McCann families are continuing to explore the city for areas in need of a church plant with the goal of raising up nationals as church leaders and eventually starting a local seminary program. While our role is mostly in mercy ministry and outreach in Armenia Bonito, we’re excited to help with community Bible studies or any other work if it comes while we’re here!

It’s tempting to value missions in terms of the number of ministries or the number of people involved, but it’s all about building relationships and sharing God’s love, individual by individual. Please pray that we would always remember that!!