The property that the central church in Tegucigalpa owned (in conjunction with the Bible school) was located in an area that had gotten to be unsafe. So they sold it and are currently in the process of acquiring new property. In the meantime, they rent a building for a few hours for the Sunday service. The mid-week service is done in small groups in peoples houses. I got to go to one of the “grupos pocos” last night. It was a really great experience.
Although, there are church members at the small groups, the focus is on outreach and there are a lot of people there who were just invited and don’t belong to the church. The group is led by a member of the church. It’s an interesting concept. For the midweek service at least It puts the focus on working and not simply attendance.
The man who another brother (Hmo. Josue) and I were going to ride with had a last minute emergency and couldn’t drive. We had to take a taxi. This is a big deal. There are two kinds of taxis: “collectivo” (English = very unsafe) and “directo” (engish = might be safe). The taxis collectivos take you where you are going, but they can stop along the way and pick up other people as much as they want to as long as everyone is generally going in the same direction. There have been instances of the taxi driver being in cahoots with someone else that he picks up along the way after picking up three of four other passengers. Then they take them all out somewhere and rob them. This had happened before to Hmo. Josue. So we weren’t taking a taxi collectivo. The taxis directos take you alone to where you are going without stopping for anyone else. There’s still some danger but not as much. I was instructed to basically not take anything along for the ride. No cell phone, camera, wallet, driver’s license, anything. I took my Bible and 470 lempiras ($23). Had I known we were taking at taxi I would have worn worse clothes. I was wearing slacks and a long sleeve business shirt. They told me “Don’t talk in the cab. They’ll know you are American. Just pray in the cab . . . Silently.” (I’ve been told I could pass for Honduran. There’s a pretty wide range of skin color here.) Hmo. Josue would do all the talking to the cab driver so I wouldn’t have to say anything.
The taxi ride both to and from the house was uneventful. I guess we got safe drivers. A funny thing happened though that I didn’t find out about until the ride was over. When we got out and were standing on the curb, Hmo. Josue was trying to tell me something about shutting the door so hard. I couldn’t understand everything he said, but I did get the gist that I had shut the door too hard. Turns out, when I first got in the back seat and shut my door the driver said “Don’t shut the door so hard.” Of course I didn’t know this because I didn’t understand what he said (or even know that he was talking to me). And Hmo. Josue couldn’t tell me because then it would be obvious that I was American. And I hadn’t shut it any harder than normal. Just the way I usually close a door. Then when we arrived at our destination, I got out and without knowing it shut it even harder apparently. The driver thought I was being spiteful because he had said something before. He said something else and drove off. I guess I was he rude American without even knowing it.
Once we got back to the Shcreck’s house I learned that it’s a culture thing to not shut the car door very hard here. They hold it about 5 inches open and press it closed. Sis. Lycia told me she’s had to get out and re-shut the door a number of times because the car would beep when they didn’t shut it hard enough. I thought I was just making sure it was closed. Anyway, one of those funny cultural things that you could never have predicted.
We got to the house for the “grupo poco”. It was a great experience that I’m glad I didn’t miss. First, to go inside these people houses is quite a privilege (they think it’s a privilege to have you there too). This was the house of the owner of a little store, so it was pretty nice by Honduran standards. If I had to guess I would say it was still not bigger than 500 sq ft. Cement floors, plaster walls, all bare, all mismatched furniture, couch, table and chairs. If you’ve ever been to your grandmother’s house that was built in 1920 or something, this wouldn’t be quite that nice.
We had the Bible lesson which was given by Hmo. Josue. The Honduran church is a pretty mature church and the local preachers here are quite good. I thoroughly enjoyed listening to the lesson and could follow most of it (Tal Como Esta). When it was over the lady of the house fed us a traditional Honduran meal (beans, rice, tortillas, fried yuca). It was great.
The kitchen area was interesting. It was raining and there was a pipe coming from the roof with water just pouring into a big tub. The tub wasn’t large enough to hold it so from this overflow and from other places water just runs all over the floor. The whole house is made of cement etc (no sheetrock) so things getting wet doesn’t matter. In this tub she had 7 turtles as pets (one she had had for 12 years – they ate dog food). She had a green parrot, 3 love birds, a dove and a cat. All this in the kitchen.
I wish I could have taken pictures. Might would have been rude anyway, but it was great to see how other people live. Seems like the best experiences we haven’t been able to capture on camera because it hasn’t been safe to take one.
She had 15 kids, only the youngest still living there. I guess they all lived in that little place at some point.
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