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Easter in Honduras The latest from Lindsey Anderson |
While Easter has come and gone, I still find myself thinking of Good Fridays and Easter Sundays. Part of what keeps it in my mind is memories of the trip I took to El Salvador for the 25th Anniversary of the assassination of Archbishop Romero. Before dying, Romero stated that if he was killed he would rise in the Salvadoran people. Attending the festivities for the anniversary, one could not help but to feel his presence. He in fact has risen not only in the people of El Salvador, but in people working for peace and justice throughout the world. As powerful as this experience of resurrection was, it is the continuous example of crucifixions and resurrections here in Honduras that keep me reflecting on Easter.
In February, we became worried by the failing health of the mother of five of our Finca children. Adela is a woman who has always loved her children very much, but found herself unable to provide them with even the most basic of needs. She has remained very involved in their lives ever since they came to the Finca eight years ago, coming to mass every Sunday in order to see them. Over the past year, everyone had noticed that she was never well – losing weight, ailing joints, constant colds and flu. She stopped coming to mass in January and when she came to the birthday party of one of her children all were shocked to see how bad she looked. Knowing that she had worked most of her life as a prostitute, we strongly suggested that she go to the hospital for an HIV test.
Unfortunately, our suspicions were right and Adela was diagnosed with relatively advanced AIDS. She has been in and out of the hospital ever since and we as a community have been doing everything that we can to support her and her children. While this is definitely a Good Friday for the family, resurrection can be found in the midst of it. The siblings have come together in this time of trouble to truly become family for each other. The girls had always been close, but the only boy of the family had always been distant. Today, he strives to be a big brother to his younger sisters and support to his older ones. He was a struggling young man before and now he is a blossoming leader of his family and our community.
We recently ingressed a family of 5 children. The family includes a 6 month old, a 3 year old, a 4 year old, a 9 year old, and a 12 year old. They are children to a single mother, who was rarely home leaving the older girls to care for all of their younger siblings. The youngest children would often find themselves chained inside their home while the older girls went out scavenging for food. The children would commonly get one small meal every few days. Luckily, someone told us of the case of these children and we have the opportunity to give them at least part of their childhood back. The children arrived about a two weeks ago and already they have made great strides. The baby is quickly gaining weight, the little boys belly has deflated after parasite treatment, the little girl quickly came out of her shell and is now the star of pre-kindergarten, and the two oldest girls are learning how to play again. They have experienced resurrection in front of our own eyes.
Not all of the Good Fridays here have turned into Easter Sundays. Central America is dying right now, finding that the only thing that they have left to export is people. Communities everywhere are finding themselves void of young people. Mothers and fathers are abandoning their children in search of the “American dream.” Just the other week, the mother of one of the children to some of our school children paid a coyote to help her to get to the States. Her husband refused to go with, meaning that the children had to stay behind. He also refused to care for the children, leaving them to the mercy of a man of questionable reputation who agreed to take them in. This risk is taken despite the knowledge the failure all too often awaits. Another of our neighbors just returned from the States. She left mojado a few months ago only to be picked up on her second day in the U.S. She spent over two months in a detention center, waiting for a plane back to Honduras to fill up with others who had been detained in trying to attain the dream of providing a means of more than just survival for their family and returned to find that her ex-husband had taken her children to a part of Honduras only reachable by plane, leaving her to beg even more loans in a quest to get her children back.
Honduras is a country full of problems, but also of people working to make things better. I find myself surrounded by examples of people who are living in what seem like intolerable situations, but who by some miracle have not lost hope. Whether it’s making the decision to leave an abusive husband, struggling to come up with the money to keep a kid in school, or getting up before the sun to chop weeds at the property of a large land owner or to go to the mountains to cut wood in hopes of earning enough to feed the family for a day, our neighbors continue the struggle knowing that Easter Sunday always follows Good Friday.
Peace,
Lindsey Anderson
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