An average day in Tegus can indeed be quite average but also quite interesting. I’ve always been the type of person who has sought after adventure and excitement but it seems here that one doesn’t need to seek after it but rather it comes knocking on your door.
Today I met with people of the local affiliate of Habitat for Humanity to inquire about how I could help several people in our church to obtain a house of their own from Habitat. At the same time we talked about maybe getting a team together to come down and help to build a part of it for this pastor. In talking with the Habitat staff this morning and mentioning where we were the previous night visiting a family in the church, they replied wow Mateo that’s a very dangerous barrio in Tegucigalpa. What are you doing there? Just visiting folks I replied!
From there life took me to a friend’s house, who is out of the country, to look over things and having looked things over found all to be in good shape. Whew! It’s always nice to have some routine in one’s life. Driving to my next stop was interesting with maybe only 5-6 close calls in the street from cars and motorcycles passing on the left and right.
Later, I met up with a pastor friend who brought me to a mechanic’s shop to attempt to fix an ongoing problem with the loaned car we’ve been graciously given to use until we purchase our own.  The mechanic, a lady of about 30 years, knew what she was doing and I got out of her way to make it happen. As she was working, I inquired of two guys hanging around from a neighboring shop if they were Christians or not. One replied to me, “No I’m not a Christian†whereas the guy sitting next to him said to me, “but we haven’t rejected the gospel eitherâ€, whereas it gave me an open door to share with them about the new life we can have in Christ. I told them I had only one regret in becoming a Christian, and that being that I hadn’t done it sooner. They acted surprised to hear of the joy and peace one can have in knowing Jesus Christ personally.
From there we went to a Chinese grocery to buy some food items for his wife. In seeing an armored car out front with 4 guards with automatic 
rifles and helmets, he replied rather casually that some months before one of these armored cars had been robbed of 8 million in local currency. It had been stopped by a bazooka which is used to destroy tanks. In other words, there are still lots of weapons around from the Contra-Sandinista war of the late 80’s and early 90’s.  So is life in Tegus. Always interesting, never boring.
In Joyful Service to the people of Honduras,
Mateo
