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Ambiance MOTHERS’ DAY is a bigger deal commercially than Christmas in Honduras. Mom is important! For weeks prior, shoppers scurry with boxes topped with pink bows, or large gift baskets of food or toiletries. The big day itself begins before dawn with serenades and firecrackers to awaken feted moms. Everyone tries to travel to mother’s or grandmother’s house.
Meet “Lutheran Mother 2007”, chosen by lottery at the Monte de Getsemaní Mothers’ Day Celebration
AIR QUALITY: This month the whole country is blanketed with a pall of smoke. Even in the mountains it looks like there is fog. Eyes smart and water, throats burn, heads ache. Some report that neighboring countries are sharing their slash-and-burn smoke with us.
NOW ON-LINE: Like to see back issues of the newsletter? Go to my brother’s website http://www.tedsplace.us and click on the “Janet’s Newsletters” tab. You can also find a direct link there to the new ICLH website http://www.iglesialuteranadehonduras.com It is in Spanish only, but there are lots of pictures. Click around—you never know what you may find!
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May 07
in Honduras
--Janet Alcántara
"God, my soul thirsts for you in a dry and thirsty land, where no water is."--Psalm 63.1 Dreaded words: “No ha caído el agua…” ("there’s no water"; literally, "the water hasn’t fallen"). Whether in a rural village or at home in the city, within hours of finding the cistern dry, life begins to fall apart. Hygiene suffers (this happens when weather is at its hottest), bugs proliferate on unwashed dishes, cooking is a challenge, nothing—not even hands—can be washed. Plants and animals can’t be watered. In the city, people stand at street corners with buckets hoping for a water truck. All of life suddenly centers around water, and how to get it. Equanimity frays. Wars could easily be inspired by the desperation of the waterless. Water is a challenge while traveling, too. A sufficient supply for days on the road is a surprisingly heavy addition to an already-hefty load of materials-plus-backpack to lug. Sometimes the pulpería (local tiny grocery) sells pint-sized pouches of water, which usually tastes stale, or like plastic…or perfume (!) But the alternative in many communities is local—sometimes greenish—unboiled water. Like the Psalmist, I also look for “your power and your glory” (Ps. 63.2) in a dry-season country. And I find them! This month, I began a Women’s Spirituality Group for staff from the ICLH office, and God sent women who are thirsty and longing to drink deeply. At Monte de Getsemaní, in Santa Cruz, I led a Service of Thanksgiving for the Blessing of Mothers. How profoundly touching to see the arc of women ranged before the altar, stating their intention of continuing in their baptism and to mother as women of grace and truth. On Mother’s Day in a house-church in Bacadía, I took portraits of mothers with their children, and then they eagerly studied I Cor. 13: 4-8 as we considered God’s and our own mother-love. Water does flow in dry Honduras. In faith and service in Christ. --janet Deaconess Janet Russell Alcántara/Iglesia Cristiana Luterana de Honduras |
