July 14, 2014
Ministry Inspiration
Going on the Honduras Mission Trip with the Prince Avenue Senior Class was amazing. We really got a feel for the sights, smells, and tastes of Latin America. It was a very touching and eye opening trip.
As a student, I went to Honduras expecting everything I’ve heard about from teachers and former students, but it is different when you are there in person. It’s an experience that one has to be present for to feel the whole effect. When our class was in Hondorus, we did several different things to minister to the people. We did VBS with the Honduran kids, and we passed out water to the people in the slums. We also went to different schools each day and did puppet shows for the kids, and afterwards we would play with the children.
It was amazing to see the kids so welcoming and happy. It was so touching that these kids would want to play with a bunch of strangers from 2,000 miles away. And something I noticed in all my time there is that the Honduran children were grateful for what they had. To see the poverty and the conditions that they lived in and then to see how grateful they were for everything they had was truly thought provoking.
Here in America, we live in a materialistic society. We have so much and want more. In Honduras, I noticed the people have nothing compared to Americans, and they are still willing to give. It was heartbreaking to see the people living in those conditions. On the last day we visited Good Shepherds Children’s Home. This was a home for orphan children. It was an amazing experience for me! I loved how I could relate to the kids because of the perspective that I have, which not many people can relate to. As a Hispanic foster child, I felt I had been given a higher platform in which I could relate to the kids. God used my difficulties in life to help me minister more effectively.
Prince Avenue Christian School has given me a solid Christian education, and I now feel equipped to do the Lord’s work. I realized after I left Honduras with my classmates, I wanted to go back to Central America. I came home seeking and praying for an opportunity to return. I wanted to help in the same way I had been helped in life.
God opened the doors for me and quickly answered my prayers. Nathan Hardeman with Engadi Ministries came to speak in Prince Avenue Chapel one day. He spoke about the work he was doing in Guatemala. I was so fascinated and touched. I went to him afterwards and asked how I could help.
I applied, got accepted, and now have a summer internship in Guatemala City. The boys I will be working with come from the worst part of Guatemala City, a city of 8 million people. These kids grow up fatherless, with no education, no money and they get involved with gangs, drugs and violence. Children grow up without a father, no role model teaching them values and without a family. Society treats them like trash and disassociates from them. With no helping hand, the children repeat the cycle their absent fathers did: abuse, violence, alcoholism and drug use. The children look for a way out and can only find acceptance and family within the gangs. The gang children lose their lives to the violence, drug overdoses, or terminal illnesses before their 24th birthday. And those that do survive past 24 are the ones rotting in a prison cell. These kids struggle through life and die without having ever lived at all.
Engadi Ministries brings the hope of Jesus Christ to the street children of Guatemala City and gives them the opportunities that society won’t. This organization helps the boys become mighty men of God. I am honored to have the opportunity to minister to these children, and I am thankful for the way that God used the Prince Avenue Honduran Mission trip to guide my steps in this direction.
—George Alviter