Washington Cathedral Mission Team forms deep relationships

The second week of August brought important visitors to AFE. Some of these visitors had been eagerly awaited by the AFE kids; others would form lasting relationships with their new friends.

The Washington Cathedral Youth Mission Trip was an incredible success. We had some new participants – Lily Haynoski and Tiffanee Hunter, who experienced God in a deeper way than ever before. We had some participants with past mission trip experience, but had yet to visit the Tegucigalpa Dump. Their lives will never be the same. The team spent the morning connecting with the AFE students and the afternoons working construction. They made a special trip to the garbage dump to feed about 250 people. The team worked on AFE’s kithchen and some special skills installed electrical outlets, lights, and fans.

Despite this good work, the highlight of the trip was our day at the beach. It has become a tradition with WAC’s youth teams to take the students out on a day of fun. Most of the children at AFE have missed important parts of childhood as they have been forced to work in the garbage dump as an early age. We do these trips to give them all a chance to be ‘kids’ for a day with no responsibility. This time we planned a whole day trip to the beach. A trip to the beach seems simple enough, but it was actually a daunting task to take 130 kids ranging from kindergarten to 8th grade…most of whom had no experience with the water and did not know how to swim. How would we keep 130 kids from being swept away from the strong ocean currents? Fortunately, everyone stayed in the shallow areas and we came back with the same number of kids we left with! JK

There is a Spanish song that says, “Yo se que el vive! Pues lo veo en la risa de un niño cuando voy pasando, y al oír el bramido del mar que me dice cantando, que hay un Dios verdadero que hizo toda la creación.” Translated to English – I know He lives because I see him in the smiles of the passing children and I hear the ocean sing that there is a true God who made all of creation. Now I know what the author was talking about.

Now that we are receiving teams to AFE, rather than bringing them, we have noticed something new. We would never have guessed the depth and sincerity of the relationships formed between the children and teams. Yet for the past couple of months the kids have asked for some team members by name waiting anxiously for their return. Another thing I noticed from this side of the experience is the sacrifice and work the Hondurans put into receiving teams. It is flat out exhausting mentally, physically, and emotionally to host teams from the states. Without minimizing what our teams bring to AFE, I have no doubt that the Hondurans give as much if not more back to the teams. I feel we have formed a beautiful relationship where both sides mutually benefit.

God is Already Moving

In less than a week, Project Transformation has made two incredible contacts that will help with the transformation of the garbage dump. First, we were able to go to a local university in Tegucigalpa and present the conditions of the dump to two classes. In response, these classes took a trip to the garbage dump to see for themselves the conditions in which these people live and work. This visit opened the ideas of the leaders of the university and now AFE is in the process of working out a partnership that will allow children from the dump to attend that university with scholarships!

We believe education is one of the key areas of impoverishment in the dump community. The lack of education means a lack of options in their lives. Most of the children at AFE could not imagine a life outside of the garbage dump until just recently. Now with the Metro University as a possibility, the options are radically different.

The next major contact is a non-profit called StreetKidsDirect, run by Duncan Dyason. Dyason travels to Guatemala and Honduras looking for projects making a difference in the lives of street kids or kids in extremely poor conditions. Then he returns to the UK to raise funds for these projects. He works hard so that 100% of the funds donated reach the specific project for which they were intended. Over dinner, we were able to explain some of our future dreams for the dump community and to hear his dream.

One of the projects Dyason works with is a potato farm in Guatemala where 10% of the profits go directly to support the operational cost of local projects. This is a way to make projects in poor areas self-sustainable. We will be working out the details with him so that AFE can apply to be one of the projects receiving the funds for operation. The possibility of this connection is awesome. Using a similar model, we could invest in some local farms that could eventually help fund this project.

Please keep both of these connections is prayer as we still have a long way to go.

So let’s not get tired of doing what is good. At just the right time we will reap a harvest of blessing if we don’t give up – Gal 6:9