Honduras (MNN) ― Exiled Honduran president Manuel Zelaya has announced his intention to return to Honduras on Thursday. He was ousted from his office and flown to Costa Rica on Sunday. Since then, protestors have been clashing with police in Tegucigalpa, the capital city.
Christian Resources International has a short-term mission trip to Honduras planned for the end of July. Director of Missions John Lowrey said for now, the trip is still on.
"Most all of the concern is in the capital city, and we would be a long distance from there, so I don't really expect it to impact us," he said. "At the moment we have not heard anything that's going to deter us from going. The State Department [is]...suggesting that unnecessary travel probably shouldn't happen there at this time. But...all of the airlines are still flying in and out. There's nothing going on that suggests that there's going to be a risk.
"Of course we're keeping close tabs with our in-country hosts, and they're watching things from the inside. They will let us know if at any point it looks like there would be the kind of trouble that would prevent us from being able to go in."
Twelve adults and five youth plan to go on the trip, which is scheduled for July 27-August 7. Their work will include training for pastors, training for children's ministry workers, ministry at an orphanage, distribution of Bibles and Christian literature, and holding evangelistic rallies for children and youth.
"We'll have quite a gambit of opportunities to meet various kinds of people and do ministry with them. We'll distribute appropriate kinds of literature individuals to help them with their life or their work with the church, or whatever their respective need is," Lowrey said.
The pastors' training will take place in the mountains. Many of the pastors will be unable or barely able to read.
"To come up with resources for them is obviously a little bit of a challenge!" Lowrey said. The team has come up with a few solutions, however.
"We're going to be taking a lot of picture-oriented materials," he explained. "We're going to be taking some Bibles on cassette--one of those pre-packaged kind of deals with the audio enclosed in the little recorder. It can be operated by electricity or by battery power, or it can be hand-cranked to make it work. We want the folks in that village to be able to re-listen to the things that we're teaching many times after we're gone. So we hope that will be of value to them."
Lowrey urged Christians to pray for the team and for Honduras.
"We do want to pray for the team and for their safety," he said. "We want to pray for the country and for God's man to be in leadership, whoever that would be. We certainly want to pray that if the political climate changes, that it will become more friendly to Christians in the country rather than the opposite. So there are many ways that people can pray for not just our work but for the country in general."
