Inspirational Links

Regardless of how many times one makes the journey, a trip to Honduras is a study in contrasts--internal contrasts as a gracious, traditional people meet a rapidly changing world, contrasts as third world poverty meets a world of abundance. Everywhere one looks are contrasts.

Few contrasts are as striking as in the field of education. While many U.S. youth complain, "Do I have to go to school?", Honduran youth are anxious for schooling. Getting up early to go to school is an accepted way of life. With public school beginning at colegio (our junior high), elementary schooling is generally privatized. Good students are often denied additional education because colegio is filled and overflowing.

Seeing the new facility which Escuela Buen Samaritano (School of the Good Samaritan) will soon begin using was a special blessing on my trip to Catacamas, Honduras in March, 1997. The students traveling with me asked if we could get the same architect for our new constructions on campus at Ohio Valley College! The additional classroom space and the opportunity to serve yet more children will present special occasions for showing Jesus' love and sharing Jesus' message.

I believe few sponsors realize the immeasurably good they are doing unless they have personally visited Catacamas. The education at School of the Good Samaritan gives the students in Honduras an opportunity and also gives us an opportunity to be Jesus' presence in the lives of people desperately in need of his spirit and Spirit.

I especially appreciated the observation of one of the students who traveled with me. "People in Honduras are different than Americans. In America we are always looking up at those above us on the economic ladder wishing we had more and wondering why we are not so blessed. In Honduras people look around at the countless neighbors who have so little, and are happy to have what they have as a blessing from God."

Despite Catholicism's apparent hold in Latin America, the fields in Honduras are ripe upon harvest. EBS is one of several good works Christians are facilitating in Catacamas--works which are bearing precious fruit for the Savior and for eternity.