No Answers, Just Questions

by Global Ministries | published on Oct 10, 2014

Bruce & Linda Hanson – Honduras

I have just finished reading the article in the United Church News called “Building Dreams,” an article about UCC churches that find creative ways to use property and land assets to expand, develop or sustain their ministries. Spirit of the Lakes UCC in Minneapolis, Minnesota, a church I have visited in the past, is planning a new low-income housing project for LGBT seniors. Spirit of Peace UCC in Sioux Falls, South Dakota is building a “large facility in a new neighborhood.” First Congregational UCC in Washington, D.C. is rebuilding and its new facility will include a church with “a condo tower on top.”

Bruce & Linda Hanson – Honduras

I read the articles and think of the wonderful ministries that they represent: elder care for transgender folks! Once again, the UCC, the church of “firsts,” is first in meeting the needs of a marginalized group of people. Expanding ministries in a growing community. Wise use of space in an inner-city ministry. What wonderful projects, serving profound unmet needs.

Something nags. Unsettles. Hmmm…

These projects have big price tags: $9.7 million, $2.58 million, and $17.4 million. Huge price tags when seen from the context where I serve, impoverished Honduras. But, I argue with myself (yes, I often have conversations with myself), they represent ways that ministry can be self-sustaining, creative, innovative. They represent wise use of space and resources so church buildings aren’t just used for a couple of hours a week. They represent a church in ministry with a community where the community is actually using the church. That’s a good thing.

I know that! I answer myself. It’s just…

Millions.

I tell myself that it’s a different context from Honduras that you can’t compare. Can you?

I think of the many churches I know in Honduras, simple cement block structures, built for a few thousand dollars, which also serve as multiuse facilities. Many are low cost clinics and dental facilities staffed by church volunteers and supplied with medicines by U.S. mission projects. They meet a need for medical care not available in the public health system of Honduras which is almost always without adequate medicines. Many serve as private Christian schools, the churches answer to Honduras’ low quality public education system. They serve as community or neighborhood centers, recreational centers for youth “at risk” because of limited education and employment opportunities, and feeding centers for children so poor that they are unable to eat adequately and are malnourished, poor learners, and frequently ill.

I turn from the article and begin evaluating once again the requests for scholarships at the seminary where I work. Damary travels each weekend to a market to sell underwear with her mother. After paying transportation costs and restocking their supply they are left with about 500 lempiras ($26) a week. Their family of eight lives on this salary. She is given a scholarship to cover books and half her registration. I wonder where she will find the 50 lempiras ($2.62) she needs to pay each month. Efrain pays 300 lempiras ($15.75) a week in travel costs to get to and from the seminary to study. His monthly income for pastoring a church is 2,800 lempiras ($150.00). Through the Scholarship Program of the Theological Community, supported in part by Global Ministries, I approved him for scholarship and money for transportation.

But, he still must pay the costs of materials to study. How will his family of five have enough money left for food?

I return to the article and re-read it. I sit with my doubts, my questions, and my inquietudes. Should we celebrate these projects? Of course. They are meeting needs of the communities they are called to serve. Do they reflect economic justice? Of course not. Our world is unjust, the disparity between the impoverished of Honduras and the wealth in my country a cavernous expanse that is ever widening. So should we celebrate these projects as the answers to ministry? Can the church of firsts be called to understand their wealth in new and innovate ways? I don’t know the answers. I am left with a sense of wonder at the ministry offered “back home”, a nagging feeling of doubt, and with my pile of scholarship requests.

Linda Hanson
Bruce and Linda Hanson are assigned to the Christian Commission on Development (CCD) to serve the Honduran Theological Community (CTH). Bruce is teaching HIV/AIDS education, prevention and care, while Linda is teaching theological courses.