PartnerHonduras...

Follow Up on Sunday School by Skype

Fri, 26 Feb 2010 11:54:17 -0600

Technology brings the mission field to church
The Second Presbyterian Church in Carlisle recently Skyped with a missionary in Honduras.
By Erica Dolson, Sentinel Reporter, February 25, 2010
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For the Presbyterian Church of the United States, the goal has been to make mission work both faithful and effective.
While that goal will always be met through outreach to countries and people who are less fortunate, in today’s virtual world, it can also be reached through blogs, Skype and podcasts.  “Technology has really taken over all parts of our lives, and the church is not immune,” said Eric Hinderliter, a missionary co-worker staying in Carlisle as guests of the Second Presbyterian Church.
Last month, the Second Presbyterian Church in Carlisle became the first church in the Carlisle Presbytery to use Skype as a way to communicate with a missionary in Honduras.  Between 15 and 20 congregation members attended the hour-long session to hear about missionary Mark Wright’s experiences in Honduras and the work of establishing a Presbyterian church in the country.  The Second Presbyterian Church recently made a five-year mission commitment to Honduras.
“First and foremost, (it) just put it out there in front of our congregation,” said Vicki Lantz, director of Christian education at Second Presbyterian Church. “It’s even more than just being able to see it on TV... I think it just makes it more real.”  Although he doesn’t have exact numbers, the use of Skype, a free Internet-based phone tool, and blogging among missionaries to share their experiences has grown in recent years, said Ben Albers, associate for missionary personnel relations with the Presbyterian Church USA.  “I think it is both the educational aspect of it and the personal connection of it,” Albers said.  Although technology is not a required part of mission work, and can be accompanied by challenges such as spotty Internet connection and security concerns in other countries, the use of Skype and blogs is often included as part of communication discussions during missionary training and retreats, Albers added.  “It always comes up because it is an opportunity to share,” he said.  The Presbyterian Church USA has also recently launched monthly podcasts and follow-up webinars to connect churches to mission work, said Ellen Sherby, facilitator for education and resources for missions with Presbyterian World Mission.  “People want to get involved in missions ... and we want to offer ourselves as a resource,” Sherby said. “We want people to have tools that will engage in missions that are more faithful and effective.”  Each podcast (available at www.pcusa.org) is centered around a theme and includes commentary from long-term and short-term mission workers, as well as a reflection on Scripture, Sherby said.  The Second Presbyterian Church would like to continue Skyping in the future, Lantz said. They hope to connect with four of their own missionaries traveling to Honduras soon and form relationships with pastors and lay leaders currently in the country, she added.  “(Technology) has revolutionized missions in many senses,” Hinderliter said.  Traditionally, Christian mission work lasted for long periods of time, with the missionaries kept mostly out of contact, Hinderliter said. Now, instant communication has allowed missionaries to stay connected and allowed congregations to feel part of a broader world, but it can still leave some people and countries behind, he added.  “We can’t mistake this for real physical presence, for touch and compassion. Technology has its limits, and there’s still something greater,” Hinderliter said. “There’s nothing like being there in terms of perspective and seeing real need and offering tangible service.”  “What we hope they can do is bring the voices of people in missions and our global partners to the ears of (the congregation),” Sherby said.

The Presbytery Sermon

Sat, 30 Jan 2010 11:19:48 -0600

This is the sermon that I preached last week in Spanish for the Presbytery of Honduras annual meeting. I’ll have to admit the translation is the product of google translate with corrections form our teacher.
Cuando me piden predicar, aun cuando es mi rutina semanal, el primer pensamiento en mi mente siempre es pánico. He predicado cientos de sermones, y todavía, cada vez, siento pánico. He aprendido a lo largo de los años ocultarlo bien, pero nunca desaparece. Cuando recibí la noticia de que iba a predicar hoy día, sucedió lo mismo: el pánico. ¿Qué debo decir? ¿Por dónde empiezo? Ésa es la pregunta más difícil: ¿Por dónde empiezo? Porque no se puede ir a ningún lado si no tienen un lugar donde empezar.

He oído suficientes sermones en mi vida que no van a ninguna parte, y he conocido bastante gente que no va a ninguna parte en la vida, y he estado en las iglesias que no van a ninguna parte. Si no nos importa a dónde vamos, entonces no importa dónde empezamos, porque nunca vamos a llegar a ninguna parte de todos modos. Pero yo creo que Dios tiene un propósito para nuestras vidas, y un propósito para sus iglesias, y un propósito para nuestras palabras. Dios tiene un destino en mente, y ahí es donde quiero ir en mi vida, y ahí es donde quiero animar a que otros a vayan al destino de Dios. Pero para llegar ahí hay que empezar por alguna parte, y aveces esa es la parte más difícil.

Así que cuando me piden predicar me pregunto, y le pregunto a Dios, "¿Por dónde empiezo?" Aunque yo todavía no sé dónde es que Dios quiere que vaya, tengo que responder a esta primera pregunta, "¿Por dónde empezar", porque una cosa que sé es que Dios tiene planes para llevar a cabo, y Él me permitirá ser parte de esos planes si los busco y me someto a ellos.
Apenas hace unos días, Noel y yo fuimos con un grupo de los EE.UU. que estaba trabajando en un par de nuestras iglesias en el sur. El miércoles por la tarde nos reunimos con algunos hospitales y líderes de la comunidad para discutir la posibilidad de tener una clínica oftalmológica el próximo año para quitar las cataratas de algunas personas necesitadas. Es un largo camino, pero como uno de los líderes diseñó una propuesta de fases para el proyecto, dijo: "Yo creo que no vamos a llegar a ninguna parte con esto, tenemos que empezar por alguna parte", y así lo hicimos, y ya que el proyecto está tomando forma para el futuro.

Cuando me senté a pensar y pedir a Dios por donde debía comenzar hoy con ustedes sabía que tenía a que acudir a la Escritura, pero de nuevo vino la pregunta, "que Escritura? ¿Por dónde empezar?" Así que acudí a algo que es posible que no conozcan. Se llama el "Leccionario Común Revisado," y es utilizado por los cristianos de todo el mundo para sugerir lecturas bíblicas para cada semana del año. Y allí me encontré esta semana la lectura del Evangelio de Lucas 4:16-21.
Aquí está lo que dice ...

Así que si empezamos con Jesús, con la que Jesús comenzó, según Lucas, lo encontramos en la iglesia, leyendo para la gente y predicando un sermón de nueve palabras. "Hoy se cumplé esta Escritura en presencia de ustedes." Ese fue el sermón que puso el ministerio de Jesus en marcha según San Lucas. Lo siento, no soy tan bueno. Me toma mucho más palabras.

Por donde comienza Jesús? Empieza con la escritura, por supuesto, del profeta Isaías, que habla de la promesa de Dios, a través del poder de Espíritu Santo de Dios, para cambiar la vida de las personas necesitadas, a proclamar la realidad de un nuevo orden mundial fundado en la gracia y el poder de Dios. Que sigue siendo un buen lugar para comenzar hoy, con la promesa de Dios de reordenar nuestro mundo y la reparación de las injusticias y los sufrimientos de la gente.

Entonces Jesús se mueve de inmediato a algún lugar donde a menudo tienen miedo de ir a la iglesia. Jesús reclama el cumplimiento de la promesa de Dios para el día de hoy, ahora mismo. Hoy día, dice, que Dios está haciendo lo que prometió. Y como lo hizo Jesús, tenemos que creer que es verdad, que lo que Dios prometió que haría lo que él ya está haciendo. Al igual que lo hizo Jesús, tenemos que reclamar el cumplimiento de la promesa y empezar a actuar y vivir como Dios está poniendo las cosas en orden en este momento.

"Hoy se cumple esta Escritura en presencia de ustedes."

Como pastores y líderes de la iglesia, creo que es importante para nosotros ser más audaces en nuestra fe y en nuestras acciones, comenzando, como lo hizo Jesús, no en la pasividad, diciendo a la gente que algún día Dios va a actuar y cumplir sus promesas, pero actuando en la fe de que Dios esta cumpliendo las promesas de hoy, y fomentando a la iglesia a actuar con confianza y valentía e imaginando en el nuevo orden de Dios en lugar de la desesperación y la impotencia del pasado.

¿Dónde debemos empezar? Debemos empezar por donde lo hizo Jesús, creyendo que el cumplimiento esta aquí. Debemos orar dando gracias a Dios que con su poderosa mano derecha ha actuado y continúa actuando en estos momentos. Debemos trabajar en la confianza de saber que Dios ya ha preparado a su pueblo. Debemos planear el futuro con confianza, sabiendo que la victoria ya está ganada, y tenemos los dones y el poder y los recursos para hacer grandes cosas.

Entonces, con todo esto en mente, quiero que nos preguntemos, "¿de dónde tienes que empezar hoy?" ¿De dónde tengo yo que empezar hoy? ¿Dónde, como la Iglesia Presbiteriana de Honduras, necesita empezar hoy? ¿Cómo hemos permitido que Satanás nos retenga porque todavia no hemos creído que Dios nos ha cumplido sus promesas?

Jesús dijo que la promesa de hoy se ha cumplido en presencia de ustedes.

¿Cómo tú, y yo, y la Iglesia Presbiteriana vamos a ser diferentes hoy? ¿A dónde vamos a empezar?

Teaching With Technology

Tue, 26 Jan 2010 17:21:25 -0600

Following is a Jan 22nd article from the Presbyterian News Service about the Sunday School by Skype class that I led from Honduras for a church in Pennsylvania.
10062 January 22, 2010
Skyping out the mission field
PC(USA) missionary to teach PA Sunday school class from Honduras
BY JERRY L. VAN MARTER PRESBYTERIAN NEWS SERVICE

The Wright family (left to right): Ethan, Ashley, Elliott, Mark, Gabriel.
LOUISVILLE — This Sunday (Jan. 24), Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) missionary to Honduras Mark Wright will teach a Sunday school class at Second Presbyterian Church of Carlisle, Pa.
Without leaving his home in Tegucigalpa, the capital city of Honduras.
According to Vicki Lantz, director of Christian education at Second Church. Wright will be at his home computer in Tegucigalpa, connected via audio and video to his “class” in Carlisle by Skype, the free Internet-based communication tool.
He has titled his presentation “Where Do We Start?” because, he says, “that’s the first thing I asked myself about this class.”
Wright and his wife, Ashley, and their three children, have been in Honduras since July 2009. They are the first Presbyterian mission workers to serve with the Presbyterian Church of Honduras. Mark Wright will tell his Carlisle students about the family’s new life in Honduras and the situation of the very poor Presbyterian churches in that country.
The Wrights’ work is primarily leadership training and theological formation — promoting congregational self-sufficiency in the Honduran context. They also nurture and resource the PC(USA)’s network of churches involved in mission in Honduras.
The Presbytery of Carlisle has been working on a partnership with the Presbyterian Church of Honduras. Carlisle Presbytery has a number of congregations in direct relationship with the Wrights and with Tim and Gloria Wheeler, also in Honduras.
The Wrights’ position was created as a result of conversations between the presbytery, led by the Rev. Mark England-Kreiger, the Honduran church and Presbyterian World Mission officials in Louisville.
“Skype is cutting edge technology for a Sunday School class, and Second Pres is very excited to be one of the first churches in the Carlisle Presbytery to bring our missionaries into the classroom in real time,” Lantz told the Presbyterian News Service.

Educational Crisis in Honduras

Tue, 19 Jan 2010 07:04:38 -0600

Today, I’m sharing a column that helps elucidate the complex challenge of education in Honduras:
The Education Crisis in Honduras
- by Jorge Gallardo Rius

Education and Development

One of the indexes used to measure the educational level of a population is the average amount of years of formal schooling. In Honduras, that index is 6.5, that is, the average Honduran has 6.5 years of formal schooling. It grows one school year every 10 years.

In the early 1960s, this index was similar for Honduras as for Thailand, South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore and other nations known as the Asian Tigers for their rapid economic growth. Since, these countries have advanced the education of their people and their index is now above 12 years.

If you make a graph of the average years of formal schooling and compare it to a graph of the people’s income in that country, you will find that both follow a similar pattern. The close relationship between education and economic development is unquestioned today.

Public education is a form of wealth. In Honduras, many people still don’t see it that way. Yet many parents pay private schools that do nothing better than complete the public study plan, because usually the public schools don’t complete it. In developed nations, the quality of public schools has even been linked to the value of real estate: properties are worth more in districts where the quality of public schools is higher.

The quality of public education is not only a matter for the parents who have their children in public schools, but a matter that should concern all Hondurans interested in living in a better country.

Education and the Political Crisis

In Honduras, we have a saying that “It’s not the same thing to see her coming, as talking to her.” When Zelaya boosted the minimum salary by 62%, teachers’ salaries, which are a multiple of the minimum salary, skyrocketed. But not only did their salaries jump, also the side benefits, like the contribution that the government makes to the teachers’ pension fund, also skyrocketed. So it didn’t come as a surprise that, when Zelaya’s government went to the bank, there weren’t enough funds to pay the new salaries.

Before Zelaya’s ouster on June 28th, it had already been a conflictive year between the government and the teacher unions. Not only was the government behind on payment of their salaries, as usual, the government was also withholding both the government portion and the amounts deducted from teachers’ salaries as contribution to the Teachers’ pension fund, something which had never happened before. The Pension fund (IMPREMA) faced a lack of liquidity with which to pay the pensions of retired teachers.

Teachers had been on and off strikes for months and naturally, the children’s education suffered. Suddenly, 5-6 days before the illegal referendum of June 28th, the government made a partial payment of teachers’ salaries and the major union leaders came on national TV announcing their support of Zelaya’s illegal Constituent Assembly. No one doubted they had been bought off.

After June 28th, the teacher unions called another national strike, as always with suspension of classes, but this time for indefinite time, until Zelaya was reinstated as President, they said.

And that was the straw that broke the camel’s back.

Parents rose in anger, tired of teachers making their children the victims of politics. They demanded that politics not be mixed with education and that their children’s human right to a quality education be respected. The Interim Government and the Human Rights Commission assigned inspectors to witness teacher’s absences and threatened to deduct missed school days from teachers’ salaries. In the end, most teachers, conscious of their rightful duty, returned to the classrooms and the government backed away from their threat.

ASOPAFA – Asociación de Padres de Familia

The rebellion of the parents was spontaneous. They were disorganized and lacked the resources to sustain greater actions. Recently, they have become a legal NGO and are struggling to implement coherent actions to protect and advance their children’s education under very tough circumstances.

Once again, the teachers are rebelling against the start of the new academic year, refusing to follow the calendar established by the Ministry of Education. Currently, they have postponed the start of school activities from January 18th to February 1st under the pretext that they don’t recognize the Interim government (although they accept the government’s paychecks). But they threaten to not start classes even then, if the government is not fully up-to-date with their payments, which has never happened before because it’s a new year under new contracts. In other words, they’re making unreal demands.

ASOPAFA is facing enormous challenges for the present and the future of education of Honduras. They must find a way to break the interference of politics in the national school system. For years, the administration of public schools has been left in the hands of inefficient government and union appointees, who use the public school system as a means to hire their political activists, with no clear-cut rules of accountability for their misdeeds and mismanagement of national resources.

In many schools, they face serious social problems with drug-trafficking, prostitution and gang violence. They face serious health issues, such as the lack of drinking water, food and epidemics. Some schools are in such dire physical conditions that they pose a threat to safety of the attendants. There is a lack of materials, such as textbooks, desks, blackboards, and computers, even chalk, pencils and paper are in short supply and hard to acquire by poor parents.

The parents need instruction on how to plan and manage a school budget and how to assist their children’s school in better ways. The Parents Association has 15,000 registered members of about 2.5 million possible, but their contact data is stashed in cardboard boxes. They receive calls from towns outside the capital with hundreds of parents who need help and want to join up, but don’t have the means to visit and assist them. They lack the organizational know-how and resources, yet they recently sponsored a televised forum of the presidential candidates speaking on their public education programs, with no other resources than a concentrated effort and a strong will to do everything in their power to better their children’s education.

Personally, I have always believed that a good public education system is a key to achieve progress and development in a country, and that the key to advance the public education system is that parents become involved in their schools. We now have the opportunity to promote progress and development in Honduras by strengthening ASOPAFA. I encourage all of you to search for ways to support this group of concerned parents with your time, efforts, ideas and resources, whichever way you can, to advance their cause for a good quality education in the Honduran public school system.

We are currently working to get their website up and running, and will continue to keep you posted on the progress they make. In the meantime, please contact me at jgallardo515 at yahoo.com .

KHISH In Honduras

Sun, 17 Jan 2010 08:49:38 -0600

This past week I was able to be a part of a visit by “KHISH,” a group from PA, VA, and several other places, that has had an ongoing relationship with two Presbyterian Churches in the southern part of Honduras. They provided medical clinics, dental clinics, some construction, and english for children in the villages. One of the many great things they do is to provide ongoing support for a Honduran physician to conduct quarterly medical clinics in these two villages enabling those with chronic conditions like hypertension and diabetes to be monitored and have an ample supply of meds to manage their conditions. I’ve posted a number of photos in the “Photo Album” section of this site.