First, Some Background...

Why Go to Honduras and to El Hogar?

Honduras is the second poorest country in the Americas. With an illiteracy rate of 20 %, an unemployment rate hovering at 30%, and more than half the population living below the poverty line, it is difficult for Hondurans to even imagine a better life, much less create one.

Many children literally live “on the streets.” In the face of desperate poverty where the average annual income is under $1,000, children who should be in school are on the streets. The families they come from can no longer feed, clothe, or educate them. Their homes, little more than cardboard and tin pieced together, offer no space, no running water, and little hope of a future. Sniffing glue relieves their hunger pangs, while simultaneously destroying brain cells. Begging and stealing become the means to survive. Teenage gangs offer a sense of belonging. This is childhood for many in Honduras. This is the face of poverty.

El Hogar Projects, in the capital city of Tegucigalpa, is one small answer to these problems. Founded in 1979 and a mission project of the Episcopal Diocese of Honduras, El Hogar Projects provides food, clothing, shelter, education, and Christian development to some 250 children, aged 5-18.  Unable to feed, clothe or otherwise provide for them, their families have found in El Hogar a path to a better future. El Hogar not only means home, El Hogar is home.

Why send a work team?

First, from the perspective of a team member, it is an opportunity to be part of a small, focused group of people who share an interest in learning and in serving others.  It is an opportunity to see a part of the world that is vastly different from our own.  It is an opportunity to get a sense of how the vast majority of humankind lives.  It is an opportunity to have your mind, your eyes and your heart opened.  It is an opportunity to give back a small bit of the blessings we have been given.  It is an opportunity to live with, and to get to know, young children whose lives are being transformed and to experience an inkling of their sorrows and their joys.  It is an opportunity to grow spiritually and to see the hand of God at work in the world.  

So how is this better for El Hogar than just sending money?  Well, a work team comes to do work, yes.  But more importantly, a work team comes to be present to these children and teachers, to learn from them, and to build a relationship with them and with the work El Hogar is doing.  For this reason, work teams spend significant time participating in activities that are not all project work.  In short, there is a deep human connection that is established that builds up all involved and is a key component in God's hope for us and for this ministry.