Couple shares details of mission trip

"Work and Witness" is an arm of the Brazil Church of the Nazarene congregation, which reaches out to people of faith in various parts of the world who need help. A couple from our church recently went on such a trip to Honduras, with 16 other people, from the Southwest Indiana District of our denomination.

Steve and Rhonda Schafer, who left on Feb. 15 and returned on March 1, reported with smiles of pleasure, as they talked about their work there. They went to help a small congregation, near Morazan, Honduras, that had begun meeting in the living room of the rented house, which was their parsonage. They outgrew the living room and went to a large open porch, which had been added to the house. They desperately needed a church building. The ladies cooked, held a VBS, (with 90 children enrolled), and did their share of the labor on the new building, too.

So this crew of folks poured concrete, did electrical work, framed the building and put on a roof in their short time there. The materials used were purchased by the "Work and Witness" organization here and each member of the team paid their own way.

When the building was completed, the pastor and wife, Rev. Jahleel and Lourdes Amador, led a procession of their people to the new building. The joy of having a real building in which to worship was seen in the smiles on every face, Steve and Rhonda said. The living room of the parsonage and the open-air space on the porch were things of the past. Now, the small congregation at Morazan, had a permanent sanctuary with room for growth.

Steve and Rhonda said they went because they wanted to be a part of a project in helping to build a church for a less fortunate congregation.

I asked them if they would go again. They both said they would love to be a part of a similar work again.