We are partially protected from the rain underneath a shockingly orange tarp, above which only our heads can be seen like five bobbing buoys on a sea of rolling orange waves.
Why are our heads exposed and not tucked under the protection of our tarp you ask? Because we have been traveling for the past five days without showers or baths, on a steady diet of rice and beans… and the smell that had collected under our orange barrier was, well, let’s just say that it was alive, malevolent and quite possibly deadly to small animals!
But of course, I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else. This was, after all, a perfect place for Book of Hope’s Extreme Teams!
Our vision is simple: to affect destiny by providing God’s Eternal Word to every youth and child in the world… including those who live far out at the extreme ends of the earth. And the Rio Patuca in La Mosquitia goes right by the Extreme End and back again!
Honduras literally means "depths" in Spanish. Columbus once wrote "Gracias a Dios que hemos salido de esas honduras" (Thanks to God we have come out from those depths) while along the northeastern “Mosquito Coast” of Honduras.
So to what depths did we travel? Let me paint a picture:
Upon arrival in the capital city of Telgucigalpa, we hopped into Walter’s car (our BOH Director in Honduras) for the two hour trip to the town of Danli. Accompanying us were Walter’s father Pastor Julio and our translator William.
At Danli we met Pastors Silver and Luceano, who work in the rainforests of northeastern Honduras. They had been working on the Rio Coco, but were now ready and willing to take on the Rio Patuca with Extreme Teams. They will be in charge of discipleship and follow up after our outreach to the Tawahka and Miskito peoples. So we jumped in the back of Silver’s Ford pick-up for the three hour, fifteen minute trip to the village of Neuvo Palestina.
Only the first half hour of this trip was on paved road.
After arriving in Neuvo Palestina, we had a wonderful dinner of rice and beans with a Pastor and his family and spent the night in their church. Results? Our first confirmed ministry opportunity for the teams that will be arriving later this summer. The next morning we bumped along for an hour on the path to our canoe launch on the Rio Patuca.
The site of the canoe launch was situated between a military outpost and a tiny restaurant at the edge of the river. After loading up all of our gear, we headed down river for the next 6 hours and 15 minutes, covering 72.5 miles. Along the way we stopped at various villages on the river’s edge, and set up ministry opportunities in small indigenous schools (averaging about 20 students each) as well as one church called “Tigre”! This area is inhabited by a people group known as the Tawahka… a group that has been largely missed in the history of missions in this area.
The Tiger church was amazing! It is one of the few evangelical churches in a jungle dominated by Moravan churches, and many people travel four or more hours to attend services there! Morava (this is the local, possibly Miskito name for this group) is a syncretism (blend) of Catholicism and Spiritism not unlike the Voodoo or Santeria worship that is seen in West Africa, Haiti, Cuba and the US. All told, we passed three evangelical churches compared to about a dozen Moravan ones… we hope to change that ratio.
After camping at a home on the top of an 80 foot riverbank, we awoke at 4am for an early breakfast and start on the river. So we climbed aboard our canoe to head into Moskito country and travel even further away from civilization fueled, of course, by our steady diet of rice and beans. During our 10 hour 45 minute journey we did make a stop at the village of Tukrun. Tukrun has about 400 residents (130 of them are kids) and only one church of 35 members. You should have seen the Pastor when we showed up and wanted to work with him! He immediately invited us in for, you guessed it, RICE and BEANS! We worked out a plan for distribution and showing the GodMan to the entire village when we return with the team. Finally, after traveling a total of 161.8 miles down river in two days, we arrived at our destination: Wampusirpi.
Wampusirpi is where we met Pastor Samuel. Pastor is renting a space in a local family’s home as a missionary. His own family lives two days travel away (two of his kids are in school) and so he spends one month in La Mosquitia and then returns home for as little as a weekend and as long as a month. He has just managed to obtain a piece of land in the village on which to build a church.
