wfn.org | UMCOR volunteers find challenges, hope in Honduras

[NewsDesk <NewsDesk@UMCOM.UMC.ORG>]

March 8, 1999  News media contact: Tim Tanton*(615)742-5470*Nashville, Tenn.
10-32-71BP{127}

NOTE:  Photographs are available with this story.

A UMNS News Feature
By Holly Nye*

When the fury of Hurricane Mitch hit the Honduran village of 12 Febrero in
October, the 11 families in the community took their children and some of
their cows and headed for higher ground.  

For 10 days, they huddled on a knoll as the rains destroyed their homes,
their livestock, their harvest, and everything they owned. Afterward, their
neighbors in the village of Los Angelitos sheltered them in a school house
until they could return to what was left of their community.

On Feb. 20, the first construction team of volunteers from the United
Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR) reached 12 Febrero, named for the date
on which land for the village was originally granted. The team consisted of
12 volunteers from the denomination's Troy Annual Conference, which covers
northeastern New York and Vermont.

During the four-hour ride to the village, the UMCOR volunteers saw
washed-out roads and the empty spaces where bridges had been, and were
overwhelmed with the scope of the damage. 

Arriving in 12 Febrero, they found two wells, hand-dug by the villagers in
the four months since the hurricane.  

"They had done so much work to prepare for our arrival. They had dug
latrines; they had tents ready for us. They wanted to welcome us," said
Sarah Rath, team member and translator from Granville, N.Y.  Another
volunteer, Bill Vanderminden of Queensbury, N.Y., was impressed by "how much
they had accomplished with so few resources."

The volunteer team worked to put platforms under the tents for the comfort
of future work teams. "We named the tents 'Motel 12'," said team leader
Roger Ellis of Granville, "because there were 12 of us and we were in 12
Febrero." 

They dug and poured foundations for three homes, fixed a broken generator
and built a "bodega," a warehouse for tools and supplies. For the first
three days, until a gas-powered cement mixer arrived, they mixed cement by
hand on the ground. They hauled wheelbarrows full of rock from surrounding
fields. Together with the villagers, they cleared trees and brush with
machetes and a chainsaw so trucks with supplies could get through. The "new"
village that is taking shape is set uphill from its original location, in
case of future flooding. 

The tools the team brought were like treasure to the villagers, who
meticulously cleaned, organized and put the valued possessions away at the
end of each workday.

"It was so exciting to have the people working alongside us each day," Ellis
said, "and to realize that after 10 days on that knoll, they had the faith
to come back home, and with absolutely nothing, start their lives over
again."  

The spirit of the villagers, and the team's growing relationship with them,
kept the volunteers going during hot, difficult days. "By the end of the
week, they had made up nicknames for us," Ellis said. One man was "el toro"
(the bull) because he broke a shovel. 

Volunteers and villagers worshiped together, and ministry went both ways.
Vanderminden said a villager named Sebastian became a source of inspiration
when he prayed that other communities, suffering like his own, might receive
similar help. And when Rath experienced what she called "a meltdown" of
physical and emotional exhaustion, some women of the village perceived that
something was wrong and visited her at Motel 12 to see how they could help.

"When I saw their concern for me, I really began to cry -- no longer from
exhaustion, but because I was so touched," she said.

The team brought a soccer ball, and a game followed each day's labor (the
average daytime temperature was 105 degrees). The team soon discovered the
villagers' love of baseball, and were recruited to join the village men and
boys in a game against Los Angelitos one day. The game was cut short when a
fire that had been set to prepare land for planting got out of control. The
volunteers and villagers rushed to put it out.
  
"We really didn't know what to do," said Tom Albrecht of Hudson Falls, N.Y.
"We were trying to shovel sand on the fire, but the villagers told us not
to. We watched in amazement as they used their machetes to cut back brush
and stop the progress of the fire." 

The volunteers quickly realized that what seemed like a crisis to them was
just a part of everyday life for their new friends. "I realized that, strong
as I think I am, I could never make it there in the long term," Ellis said.

The long-term survival of the villagers is by no means assured. Mitch struck
just weeks before the November harvest, washing all the crops away. What is
left in place of the sugar cane fields is "six feet of clay, baked rock
hard," Ellis said. 

It is uncertain whether there will be a harvest next fall. Heifer Project
International is providing chickens and other animals, and trying to
determine what can be planted in the soil. The villagers have grown some
melons, but they are far from able to provide for their own needs. Before
Mitch, the families of the village lived on what they could grow and the
livestock they could raise - much of it from the Heifer Project. They have
no money and no automobiles.

"The world needs to know how poor the people of the Honduran countryside
are," Albrecht said. "They live to survive. But with UMCOR, we felt we were
helping them to rebuild so they can farm again - helping them to help
themselves."  

Albrecht said that for him, the people of 12 Febrero were "an example of the
Scriptures being lived out. They live for the day. They share everything and
help one another."

Preparing to leave from Tegucigalpa airport, the workers received word that
the villagers were sad about their departure but were looking forward to the
arrival of the next team. The thought of more people continuing the work,
and the relationships, comforted the volunteers as they headed home.
          # # #
*Nye is editor of The Connection, the monthly newspaper for the Troy Annual
Conference of the United Methodist Church.

______________
United Methodist News Service
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