Part 1: Brokenness
Every Tuesday we (usually Kristy) teach “Bible values” to two sixth grade classes at a local school. One month ago at Union Biblica’s weekly Monday devotion we were told that there was a chance school would be suspended the following day. Sure enough, as teachers stayed home to strike there was no school across the country.
The following Tuesday Kristy went to the school. Like many weeks she found the large gate at the entrance locked. She proceeded to call the teacher so that she might be let in, but discovered instead that the teachers were still striking.
“Do you know how long this strike will last?” Kristy asked.
“I do not know, you have to listen to the news at night to know if there will be school the next day,” she replied.
Therefore, the children had now missed over a week of school, and it was uncertain when classes would resume. Yet we must also remember that students here are in school for a total of four hours each day; this is close to half of the time students spend at school in the States. There is no potential to make up lost time. Rather, the children are being sacrificed. They will simply never learn what they have missed. It would seem the basic and foundational intelligence of each child (reading, writing and arithmetic) will have holes.
This was one month ago. To this day school has not resumed. Not only does it remain uncertain when classes may resume, but as we write there are now daily skirmishes ensuing between the army/police and teacher protesters in the capital. Each day the violence rises one notch, this was yesterday. And if you’re wondering what will eventually happen with the students… when a similar lapse in school occurred last year in the wake of the presidential coup, every student simply received a passing grade at the end of the year.
Such brokenness with an uncertain end is, unfortunately, an accurate description for many (seemingly all) of the major sectors of this society. For example:
Public safety: Depending on the source, Honduras is either the second or first most violent (by homicide rate) country on the entire planet. In the past year for every 100,000 people there were 67 homicides. For a reference point, last year the United States came in at 6 and the global average was under 10. Furthermore, as recent as 2005 Honduras’ number was 35; the number doubled in four years!
Government: Corruption’s roots run so deep… that it appears much of the political scene is a puppet show. And since the puppeteers are the few profit-focused persons who own all of the major corporations, the Honduran people like pawns are consistently sacrificed in strategic moves to make a buck (well, a Lempira).
Despite everything, we work with Hondurans that are moved by their faith, by their hope, and by their Lord’s calling.
Before we go any further with this post, we are interested in hearing your thoughts. What might you imagine to be a faithful and measured Christian response to brokenness? We are interested what you think in general, not necessarily just for us. Please add your voice in the comments (click on “leave a comment” below).
