Council of Latin American Churches

September 30th 2009 8:30am

Freddy was late picking me up yesterday morning, which worked out well because I was late leaving my apartment. We took a different route to work in the morning, because due to some construction, it took us 45 minutes or so to get half way to the office.

When we finally did get to the office, it was bustling with people. In one door and out another, around this hallway, through that entrance...there must have been roughly a dozen new faces. Just as soon as I saw all of them, they disappeared into the meeting room.

It was the Council of Latin American Churches here to tour Honduras and discuss the recent events that have occured in the country. They had spent Monday going around to various areas around Tegucigalpa to better get a handle on the situation, and yesterday was a day for conferences, meetings, discussions, and reflections.

Most everyone in the office was in the meetings as well, except for Heidy, Cristian, Patty and myself. I asked Patty what exactly was going on, and she was able to help explain the situation to me. I was curious as to why she was not in the meeting as well, and she let me know that she didn´t really want to get involved. Apparently, the CCD was attempting to pursuade the Council of Latin American Churches to empathize with la resistencia. Certainly there have been scores of human rights violations, and mistreated and abused Honduran citizens on the side of la resistencia, but Mel didn´t exactly stick to the law himself, and put a lot of people in danger by his actions. Patty told me that she (like me) believes that both sides have committed very terrible mistakes.

Gloria, the woman who helps run the seminary was also there and she handed me some photographs to scan. Without a functioning scanner in the office, my work was cut out for me. I had to hunt down some drivers online and try to scan the photos by the end of the day.

Just as I got to the correct website for the drivers, Noemy invited me to sit in on the discussions. I was happy to sit in, though I felt that my presence was more to serve as leverage than as a learning opportunity for me. The table in the center of the room was the host to our guests, while the employees of the CCD circled around them in chairs.

I decided to simply focus on the presentations and discussions, and declined to give my opinions. Besides not being able to give them properly, I didn´t feel that it was my place.

I was happy to hear from a Lutheran in El Salvador who discussed the necessity of unity, not only in the Honduran people, but in the churches. Not only in the Honduran churches, but in the Latin American world. Not only in the Latin American world, but ideally in the whole world. He said that a better understanding of one another would help to allow for such unity. Although his words held lofty goals, I appreciated tht he held them as sincere in his heart.

After the morning meeting, we had lunch in the kitchen down by the Seminary. It was delicious, and Edgardo and I spent our time trading off mind games. They were pretty fun, and he was pretty good, but I definitely won. For those of you from Tyersville Road, I´m hoping to teach them One Up One Down soon. Nancy came down to lunch a little late, and I hadn´t seen her since Friday. When we greeted each other, she gave me a hug.

It was the first hug I had recieved since leaving the airport. I may or may not have held on to that hug slighly longer than would normally be acceptable.

When lunch was over, I tried to continue my work with the scanner, but Noemy caught me again, and I was soon occupying a chair in the meeting room. The afternoon should have been spent listening to the presenter, but I found the meeting for more entertaining if I watched the representative from Nicaragua nod off to sleep before startling herself awake when her head dropped. I also read Betzabe´s lesson plan over her shoulder as she prepared to teach a class on biblical interpretation.

I was able to finish up my scanning job right before the end of the day, and saw that I had an email from Global Ministries, asking me to help write a prayer for Honduras by the end of the week. I took a look at some of the past prayers, and was happy to read prayers from Elaina and Erin, some of my friends serving in Chile and the Dominican Republic.

On the drive back to my apartment, Freddy picked up Yasmine and we discussed popular movies. Apparently, in Honduras, the Matrix Trilogy is better than the Lord of the Rings Trilogy. Also, all six Star Wars are viewed equally, and Indiana Jones movies (even the first three) are frowned upon.

Freddy invited me over to his apartment around 7:30 to play guitar hero with some of his friends. Everyone would get very into the rocking part of the game, many times at the expense of playing the guitar. It was pretty fun, but because of the curfew, we couldn´t play for very long.

I was back in my apartment by 10:00, and I took some time to read some of the Old Man and the Sea before heading to bed.