Filadelfo Pavón was bitter and suspicious. He was bitter
that Hurricane Mitch ripped through Honduras and washed much of the countryside
where he lived toward the Caribbean Sea.
His suspicion arose from weekly waves of Southern Baptist volunteers
who arrived to build his house and more than 100 other houses for others in
the area.
“What could they possibly want?” the Honduran native
wondered. “Weve lost everything.”
Filadelfo Pavón was bitter and suspicious. He was bitter
that Hurricane Mitch ripped through Honduras and washed much of the countryside
where he lived toward the Caribbean Sea.
His suspicion arose from weekly waves of Southern Baptist volunteers
who arrived to build his house and more than 100 other houses for others in
the area.
“What could they possibly want?” the Honduran native
wondered. “Weve lost everything.”
Pavón escaped death in late 1998, when Hurricane Mitch
leveled communities, crops and lives as it ripped across Central America. Honduras
took the greatest blow – and thousands lost their lives in the hurricanes
wake.
Now, thousands like Pavón are finding life as well –
eternal life – as Baptists have ministered in the region.
For Pavon, suspicion turned to realizing his need for Christ
as he watched volunteers care for and play with his children. When construction
was complete, he insisted the community gather to dedicate his new house.
“Before we begin, I want to ask the people of this community
for forgiveness,” he started. “And I want everyone to know I have
asked Jesus into my heart.”
Within weeks, Pavóns wife, 20-year-old daughter
and two other women had done the same.
“There has been an openness for the gospel never before
seen here in Honduras,” explains Max Furr, a Southern Baptist missionary
working in Honduras. “Doors are open and people are asking us to come and
preach in their communities and villages.”
Seventy-eight Baptist churches have been organized across Honduras
through the relief efforts. And in one of the hardest-hit areas alone, more
than 800 decisions for Christ have been recorded.
The harvest of souls has not happened through happenstance.
God provided resources, and Southern Baptist missionaries and Honduran Baptists
provided a strategy, missions leaders explain.
“We decided from the very beginning that we were going
to work through local churches to identify pockets of people who were not receiving
help from any other organization,” Southern Baptist missionary Ken Cummins
says. “Once we distributed food, we relocated people whose communities
were lost. Money for the land and materials, and the labor, were provided by
Southern Baptists.”
Southern Baptists provided more than 2 million pounds of food,
blankets, and clothing for relief efforts in Honduras. Baptist state conventions
– including Louisiana – are sending a seemingly endless stream of
volunteer teams to assist in the recovery.
Among other things, the volunteers have built more than 600
cinder block houses across Honduras. And although evangelism was not the purpose
for constructing houses, sharing the gospel was intentional.
“We started Bible studies in areas where we built homes,
in areas associated with flood relief and took the gospel directly into areas
in an evangelism effort where we did not work,” Cummins says. “We
wanted to saturate the gospel.”
Furr agrees. “In dealing with the physical needs of the
people, we also were able to deal with their spiritual needs. Many came to know
Christ and have affiliated with new church starts or organized churches.”
Evangelization efforts continue, but the greatest need now
is leadership development and doctrinal training. To meet the need, Honduras
National Baptist Convention leaders are planning to establish lay training schools
throughout the country to prepare leaders. They also recently launched a five-year
plan for missions outreach across the nation. In addition, Honduran leaders
say they hope to send out their first international missionaries.
Many Baptist leaders in Honduras see the decisions for Christ
and the new churches as the possible beginning of a rapidly-reproducing church-planting
movement. More than two years after Hurricane Mitch, they insist they still
have a chance to capitalize spiritually on what the storm began.
“There is still a climate of humility and a high sense
of awareness of God,” Cummins says. “People still are struggling to
make ends meet, to find work.
But people still are very open to the things of God.”
(BP)