{"id":1183,"date":"2016-01-29T21:15:52","date_gmt":"2016-01-30T03:15:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/afriendoftheking.com\/?p=1183"},"modified":"2022-01-10T21:36:27","modified_gmt":"2022-01-11T03:36:27","slug":"honduras-2016","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/afriendoftheking.com\/?p=1183","title":{"rendered":"Honduras 2016"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"IMG_5105\"<\/a>During mid-January I went with a six-man team from Louisiana on a short-term mission trip to the mountains around Olanchito, Honduras. Some on our team have a long-term relationship with a local pastor there, as does our mission-facilitating organization XMA<\/a> (Extreme Missionary Adventures).<\/p>\n

\"IMG_4530\"<\/a>Let me stop and give a shout out to XMA for their service and value to the Kingdom of God, especially the world of short-term missions! In their short history they have developed relationships with indigenous church leaders, pastors, and missionaries around the globe. I\u2019ve seen this wonderful association myself and benefited from it twice now. They serve church groups and individuals like you and me by organizing and leading us on spiritual adventures to serve proven people they know. You can and should read about their organization and opportunities to help you or your group go on an adventure! One of their mottos is \u201cAdventure with a Purpose!\u201d They perform a wonderful service and do a wonderful job! Give them a look!<\/p>\n

\"IMG_2631\"<\/a>Honduras is in Central America about a three hour flight from Houston or Miami. It\u2019 s the second largest country in CA, beautiful, mostly mountainous, with both an Caribbean and Pacific coast line. According to Operation World<\/a>, considered by many the authority\u00a0 on world missions, Honduras is \u201cone of the Western hemisphere\u2019s poorest countries,\u201d with \u201cwidespread unemployment, low wages, and long lasting devastation from\u00a0 Hurricane Mitch (1998)\u201d… making it a country of great need. \u201cThirty-seven percent of the population is under fifteen years old.\u201d So there are lots of needs and opportunities to sow into and help children in Honduras.<\/p>\n

\"IMG_4645\"<\/a>What you may not know (I didn\u2019t!)\u00a0 is that Honduras has experienced \u201cfive decades of evangelical growth. In 1960, evangelicals numbered 32,000 and were 1.7% of the population. They are now 1,750,000 and 23%, and growth shows little sign of stopping. Some polls show that up to 36% of the population identify with evangelical beliefs.\u201d These statistics and what I\u2019ve seen on three trips to Honduras in the last fourteen months make me believe God\u2019s heart and ear is turned to the people there.<\/p>\n

\"IMG_4629\"<\/a> \"IMG_4792\"<\/a>What did we do there? Two of our number had prepared for and subsequently taught a pastors conference. About 20-30 pastors and some of their family members walked as many as twelve hours through the mountains to the mission compound and camped in the crude dorms. They attended the teaching sessions about six hours each day for three days, in addition to worship and prayer times. During this time the rest of us did construction work, putting a metal roof on a partially completed church building in a nearby village about five miles upstream of the mission complex in the mountains.<\/p>\n

\"IMG_4560\"<\/a><\/p>\n

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We also ministered one afternoon in the Olanchito state prison, sharing the gospel and our testimonies. There we saw five men come to faith in Christ for the first time. Others came forward so we moved among the prisoners, laying our hands on them, praying for them and their families as the Spirit gave us impressions. We didn\u2019t have translators, nor were they needed. It was a special time.<\/p>\n

One of our team had shared with the group at devotional time the day before, \u201cLast year this time I was in prison myself, and I haven\u2019t been a Christian very long. This is my first mission trip and I don\u2019t know the Scriptures like the rest of you guys so I\u2019m a little nervous.\u201d We said in response, \u201cAre you kidding? You are the sharpest tool in the Lord\u2019s pouch! His saving grace is very fresh to you, and they will be able to relate to you fully.\u201d He did a great job sharing his testimony, with the prisoners hanging on his every word! \ud83d\ude42 All the while the Spirit bore witness to his words. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

\"IMG_3301\"<\/a> \"IMG_4400\"<\/a>To keep it brief I\u2019ll stop for now and write again about a couple more special Honduran experiences in separate blogs. In summary, pray for Honduras! And consider going! The people and country will be blessed eternally, and you more so!<\/p>\n

Photos \ud83d\ude42<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

During mid-January I went with a six-man team from Louisiana on a short-term mission trip to the mountains around Olanchito, Honduras. Some on our team have a long-term relationship with a local pastor there, as does our mission-facilitating organization XMA (Extreme Missionary Adventures). Let me stop and give a shout out to XMA for their […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,10,9,7,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1183","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-friendoftheking","category-be-a-leader","category-be-a-man","category-kingdom-events","category-understanding-our-times"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/afriendoftheking.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1183","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/afriendoftheking.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/afriendoftheking.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/afriendoftheking.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/afriendoftheking.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1183"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/afriendoftheking.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1183\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3358,"href":"https:\/\/afriendoftheking.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1183\/revisions\/3358"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/afriendoftheking.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1183"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/afriendoftheking.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1183"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/afriendoftheking.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1183"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}