What's the situation in Honduras?

In 1985, 1 to 1.5% of the Honduran population considered themselves to be evangelical Christians. Basically 98% of the population considered themselves to be Catholic. Frequently, especially in the remote areas of the country, the designation "Catholic" does not imply any actual interaction between the individual and the Catholic church or church leaders, or any particular knowledge or understanding of church teachings. As few as 1% of the population in remote areas attend mass on a regular basis.

Gradual acceptance of the evangelical church in Honduras, throughout the late 1980's and into the 1990's was accelerated by the flood of evangelical church teams who responded to the disastrous situation created by Hurricane Mitch in 1998.

Today the evangelical church in Honduras can claim 18 - 20% of the population as a whole.

 

What's the situation in the Department of Lempira?

 

The mountainous terrain in Western Honduras, and in Lempira in particular, effectively cut this department off from the rest of the country until recently. A paved road into the capital city of Gracias was only installed ten years ago. Access to radio only became available about 17 years ago. Within the past couple of years Lempira  passed the point where 50% of the population has electricity available to them. 90% of the population of Lempira is rural.

This isolated situation slowed the process of evangelism into the mountains of Western Honduras, and the rugged terrain continues to present challenges to this work.

As evangelical Christianity spread into the larger population centers of Western Honduras (Santa Rosa de Copan being the nearest big city), the Honduran Christians began the work of spreading the Good News into Lempira. When we arrived in Gracias Lempira in 2005, about 8% of the population of this city of 10,000 people were attending evangelical churches.

Up until that time, missionary efforts into the more rural areas had been almost entirely indigenous, with occasional short-term mission visits from groups based outside of the area. To the best of our knowledge, we were among the first non-Honduran missionaries to set up a work specifically geared toward the evangelism of Lempira, and are currently the only North American missionaries living in Lempira.

What we found, upon arriving in Lempira, was (and still is) a population of people who would tell you they were Catholics, but who have almost no opportunity for interaction with the Catholic church (or any other Christian church). These are people who want to be Christians, but they really know almost nothing about Christianity. At the time we arrived there were approximately 8 Catholic priests serving an area with a widely spread out population of 400,000. There was no way the needs of the people could be served by these few workers. In this spiritually needy area, evangelical pastors (coming into Lempira from the surrounding areas of Honduras) made huge inroads, reaching out to the people in the mountains.

The usual pattern for the evangelical pastors is that they start a small house church in a village. They receive no salary for this work, instead supporting themselves and their families on agricultural work. If they have the opportunity, they often plant several additional churches in homes in surrounding villages. Some of the pastors with whom we work travel to hold services in 4, 5 or even 6 villages on different nights of the week. In general, in areas where churches are planted, the people flock in for the opportunity to gather as Christians and learn more about the Christian faith.

Our work has been to support these Honduran pastors and missionaries in their efforts to spread the Gospel into the remotest areas of the mountains of Western Honduras. It's an exciting time and place to work! Unlike many parts of the world, where years of work may show few examples of changed lives, we can hardly keep up with the new churches being planted in our area. The people of Lempira wanted to be Christians, even considered themselves Christians to the best of the limited knowledge and experience, and they are excited about having opportunities in their remote villages to gather for worship, and to learn more about the Christian faith.