CRC Travels to Honduras

[Worldwide Faith News <wfn@igc.org>]

> CRC Travels to Honduras

> Story Two

February 9, 2011 ? The mother of five children
did not know where to go to get help after her
husband left, married another women, and refused
to pay to support the children he had left behind.

A resident of Nueva Suyapa, a poor neighborhood
in Honduras, the mother decided to turn for help
to a Gideon Center, a legal/psychological clinic
sponsored by the Association for a More Just
Society, which runs this program out of a
classroom in the building that houses the local
congregation of the Christian Reformed Church of
Honduras. Others help to support the Gideon
project as well. For instance, Christian Reformed
World Missions helps to support the at-risk youth portion of this ministry.

At first, the abandoned wife was reluctant to go
to the clinic, not wanting to stir up trouble
between herself and her husband who now was
living a new and entirely different life. She was
reluctant to have him arrested for not paying to support the children.

But she needed help and so mustered the courage
to walk down the street to the clinic in the
church. Once she entered, she met and sat down
with Augustina Gomez, a paralegal who listened to
her story and then started to talk to the mother
about possible legal remedies available to her.

With the help of Gomez, she filed a complaint
with the proper authorities and may ultimately
have to take the father of her children to court.

?They are really helpful here. Whatever problems
we have, we can bring here and they will help us
to resolve it,? she said. ?I don?t want to go to
court, but I will if I have to.?

Responding to the needs that people in the

neighborhoods themselves expressed, the Gideon
Center has set up similar centers in other needy
areas. On staff are paralegals, counselors,
psychologists, youth workers, and volunteers.

Since the Gideon Centers first opened their doors
in July 2004, the project has dealt with over
5,000 legal and psychological aid cases, directly
benefiting over 10,000 individuals.

They have won or come to out-of-court agreements
in 900 child-support cases, trained 4,000
children, youth, and adults in preventing child
sexual abuse, and formed eight ?Youth Impact?
groups that provide leadership training and mentoring for at-risk youths.

?We have had 23 new cases this month alone,? said
Augustina Gomez in January. ?We?ve dealt with
cases of child support in which mothers want the
name of the father on the birth certificate. If
necessary, we will do DNA tests for this. We?ve
dealt with conflict between neighbors, domestic
violence, for which we will take pictures as evidence, and sexual abuse.?

Hundreds of people have been helped in the

clinic, she said. With some of the children,
Gideon Center workers will go to school with a
child ?and work with the teacher and the family
to help the child succeed,? said Gomez.

Workers at the Gideon Centers undergo training on
how to handle the difficult situations that they
frequently face. They will often use Bible
passages as part of the work, such as pointing
out verses that deal with how to handle conflict
to those who are having disputes with their neighbors or others.

A grandfather, sitting in one of the chairs at
the center in the CRC in Honduras building, spoke
about coming here to seek help for himself and
for two of his grandchildren who had been
sexually abused. ?I?m so grateful to the staff
here who have helped us,? he said. ?We don?t have
the resources to pay them back for all they do
for us. I hope God will do that. We have a lot of needs in Honduras.?

When necessary, staff at the Gideon Centers will
refer clients to nearby health clinics to address
certain problems. They also connect and work with nearby churches.

One woman spoke of using the clinic for

psychological services. She had been experiencing
problems with an older man who wouldn?t leave her alone.

?This clinic is good because it teaches people
how important they are and helps people who are
depressed. There are a lot of people who are very sad sometimes,? she sai d.

In Nueva Suyapa, as in other communities where
the Gideon Centers work, the neighborhood is made
up of many people living in small tin-roofed
shacks on less than one dollar a day.

?The stresses of severe poverty are compounded by
broken families, domestic violence, high levels
of street crime, and inadequate public services ?
causing psychological, emotional, and physical
trauma. Children and youths are especially
affected by problems like sexual abuse,
overcrowded and underequipped schools, and lack
of opportunities for work and study,? says the AJS website.

One of the Gideon Center programs is an outreach
to at-risk youth. To be in this program, a young
person must not be enrolled in school at the
time, live in poverty, and be in danger of
joining or have already gotten interested in one of the local gangs.

Based on a similar and successful program in
Romania, the at-risk youth program involves
talking with the youth about healthy ways to
resolve problems. They learn various methods to
develop good values and morals and about
respecting one another. They also get involved in
projects, such as learning how to cook pizza or
make t-shirts. In addition, they may undertake a
work project such as cleaning garbage from a messy ravine.

?I like going there,? said one of the members of
the at-risk youth project. ?We learn about values
and the Bible. We do games and play soccer. When
we leave, they give us a snack.?

Because of the program, the youth ? a sixth
grader ? says he?s returned and is now doing
better in school and attends church on Sunday.

Late on a cloudy Friday afternoon, dozens of
young people from this program were playing
soccer on the large flat roof of a church building.

Anyone inside the church might have thought a
herd of elephants was romping and stomping across
the roof. The youth, all boys, kicked and passed
the ball, blocked it, ran back and forth with
abandon, yelling out to one another, and yet no
one was disruptive. One youth, though, stood to
the side. He had a grimy face and downcast eyes
and kept sullenly kicking a soccer ball against a wall.

?There are not a lot of opportunities for these
kids,? says Abe Huyser Honig. ?There are no
parks, few soccer fields, and those are usually
taken up with leagues. So coming here to play games is a big deal for them. ?

During a break in a soccer game, one of the young
people was asked if the neighborhood experienced
a problem with gangs. He didn?t want to answer
that question, but he did say: ?I?ve been coming
to this group for two years and it has helped me
stay away from drugs and bad company.?

> ?by Chris Meehan, CRC Communications

> --
> Chris Meehan
> News & Media Manager
> Christian Reformed Church in North America
> 1-616-224-0849