Honduras Trip--Days 4-5

Honduras Trip—Day 4-5, Sunday: We all got up later than usual, and met for breakfast in the cafeteria, as we had done throughout the weekend. The assembly continued for 90 minutes more as they considered the Minutes that had been completed the night before. The tradition is that the assembly approves the minutes of the assembly before closing. Not a bad idea, actually.

We ate lunch early this day so that we could be in the chapel for the closing service and the installation of the new national church council at 1:00 pm sharp. The service was led by the pastor from Colombia (who had come to serve the church while the theological students were finishing their studies this year) and the Brazilian pastor who was called to serve as a specialist in adult Christian education. The Bishop of Costa Rica presided at the installation service and was quite moving. Several of the visitors were asked to help with the distribution of communion, which was done in a circle around the table. The pastor from Columbia is a very gifted woman, and very prepared liturgically. Though trained in the seminary in Brazil, she managed to learn how to be an effective liturgical leader. Unfortunately, though this is an area in which she could offer pastoral leadership in the ICLH, she is returning to Colombia at the end of the month. As always, the service ended with the passing of the peace that lasted for some time, as each participant made sure that they greeted all the others.

All kinds of good byes followed the service, as we all prepared to depart the place of our meeting for several days and return to our homes. Mary and I rode with Josefina and the ELCA representative for Latin America, to Tegucigalpa, to our hotel room. There we met several other folks returning from the assembly, and we all got in a large van that took us to Los Angeles, a small town just north of Tegucigalpa, so that Mary and I had an opportunity to buy some regional gifts for family and friends. We had a great time together in the ride and shopping, as we laughed and learn from each other. We ended the day at a Honduran version of KFC. The meal gave us a great opportunity to talk with these former’ church leaders in a less formal setting. We wanted them to know what we witnessed and what we saw as the challenges ahead, and we wanted to discover their reaction to the leadership changes in the assembly. I raised the idea that the church, as policy, needed to require the pastors to have a given number of continuing education hours in several areas, every two years. This would make them accountable to the church and might make them more a part of the church’s emphasis that ALL members need to be trained for their ministry in the church. I also expressed my impression that the ICLH is on the cutting edge of ministry by Lutherans in Latin America, and that I hope that was not in danger of changing with the presence of two newly ordained clergy.

Monday: Mary and I had the most beautiful view of Tegucigalpa from our hotel room, at night and in the morning. We enjoyed a filling and wonderful breakfast, but our time had come to an end. Josefina met us with a taxi to take us to the airport where we met Rolando and the Colombian pastor (Mary and I think that they have something going on between them). We said our last good-byes and then headed toward our plane. The return flight was good, a lot shorter than the many flights we took to Argentina. We were back in Houston in 2 ½ hours, and into Grand Rapids in about the same time. Our trip back to Suttons Bay took the longest of the legs of our trip—3 hours. We were exhausted, and we both took Tuesday off from work.

Observations: The church seems a bit fragile to me, but I stand on my impression that the ICLH is setting a model on how to do Lutheran mission and ministry in Latin America. The force for this comes from the base and membership of the church, not from the clergy. Maybe the “greenness” of the clergy will actually help that process to continue. Nonetheless, there is a real need for pastoral, liturgical, confessional, and educational assistance. They are really open to new ideas from the outside, but they also want a church that is Honduran. They need to set the tone of what assistance they get from outside, and set the parameters of that assistance. At the same time, those of us who wish to help, we need to always be attentive to the needs they have, try not to solve all those needs with money and cash, insist that they continue in their mission of being a self-supporting church (no matter how long that might take, and how unrealistic it might seem to us), and to be conscious of what it means to be an Honduran Christian Lutheran Church. This assembly was centered so on structure that I heard very little about mission and ministry. I know that they are doing some very important things, such as the work of Josefina, but we heard nothing about it. I know that what the Minnesota synod is doing is very important, but we heard very little about it. I need to know more of what they do in mission, ministry, and worship before I agree to too many more commitments to the church in Honduras. More on this tomorrow and December 7^th.