Sunday, January 22, 2012

The risks and rewards of helping Honduras


From Miami-

Pink. Yellow. Green. Blue.

Virtually the entire American Airlines flight going to San Pedro Sula in Honduras was clad in color-coordinated t-shirts, each representing a group doing good in the Central American country. Medical missionaries from South Carolina. College students from the Northeast. Church groups of kids, parents and pastors from across the country, including ours from St. Philip’s Episcopal Church in Coral Gables.

In the six summers I’ve traveled with my family to San Pedro Sula to volunteer at Nuestras Pequeñas Rosas (Our Little Roses), a home and school for abused, orphaned and abandoned Honduran girls, there has never been an empty seat on the planes. A handful of the passengers are Hondurans, the rest are Americans who are building homes and schools, running clinics, distributing food and bonding with the Honduran people.

Yet with Honduras’ per-capita murder rate topping the worldwide charts in 2010 — coupled with the Peace Corps’ decision to leave the country in December after one of its volunteers was shot in the leg in an armed robbery in San Pedro Sula — many are worried about the impact the violence will have on their work.

More here-

http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/01/22/2600849/the-risks-and-rewards-of-helping.html

1 comment:

Leonard said...

Religious groups ought import more than ¨Good Works¨ to Honduras, TEC Church in Honduras needs to promote Human Rights (and offer, LOUD moral accetanced/safe harbor to the rampantly abused LGBT people that is clearly a National spiritual disease and Christian shame)! Enough with the gladhanding while this deeply seeded fear and hate-mongering exists, and sometimes is promoted, at Church! It starts with the Bishops understanding of TEC welcomes everyone!

http://www.leonardoricardosanto.blogspot.com/2012/01/violations-are-ugly-in-honduras-gay.html