We had an incredibly unique month as a missionary community at the Finca… It was a month in which we experienced some of our lowest lows as a missionary community yet also some of our highest highs in our 6 months that we have lived at the Finca together. All in the span of a couple of weeks! WHAT A UNIQUE EXPERIENCE! Let me explain a little further…
While I was visiting some Honduran universities in early April with our psychologist, Lic. Ircy, promoting our missionary program and encouraging local Hondurans to visit the mission to further their discernment, I found out about some behaviors of our Finca children over the previous months, especially when interacting with Finca children of the opposite gender. I obviously cannot go into the details on a blog like this, but the behaviors were certainly not horrendous and no one was physically harmed yet concerning enough that our director and her clinical team felt like some changes needed to be made in the supervision of our children, especially in the short-term.
These behaviors sometimes happened while the kids were under missionary supervision, but there was a much, much greater scope beyond simply taking advantage of the gringo missionaries that don’t fully understand the culture and the language, especially the local slang. There were certainly also some incidents while the kids were under the supervision of their tías, our religious sisters, and our teachers in the school. That being said, the director established new rules that the tías must always be in charge of supervising their children after the school day is over.
To fully understand the implications of these new rules, you must understand that our most important mission here at the Finca is to simply be present to the kids, tías, employees, religious sisters, people from the outside communities, and everyone else included in this beautiful mission. One of the biggest ways that we have always executed that mission is by giving our tías a break during the day by taking the kids to the beach, to the park, to the campo to play soccer, to the library to watch a video, to the missionary house, to PAVI and pre-PAVI, etc. Our tías have an incredibly difficult job here at the Finca, and one of the ways that we love them well is by giving them breaks to take a nap, call their family, or simply relax without worrying about the children in their house.
With the new rules, this mission like we have always done it was no longer possible… Now our tías must always be with us if we want to take the kids to the beach or watch a movie on Sunday afternoons with the kids in green who have behaved well. In the snap of our fingers, we no longer had the ability to love our tías in the same way as prior, and this made us incredibly sad, frustrated, and concerned if our tías would be willing and able to handle the additional responsibilities thrown at them. They now must always be with their kids when they go to PAVI and pre-PAVI in the afternoons, when they go to Tema on Wednesdays, and when we simply want to go to the beach on a free Saturday morning.
In the light of these new rules, we struggled to come to terms as a missionary community with what is exactly our place in the mission. We felt frustrated, misunderstood, and simply not important in this mission anymore. We felt like we were no longer able to simply be present and love the person in front of us, which I have always preached is the heart of this mission. We struggled to come to terms with our new reality, and there were certainly lots of tears and heart-felt conversations that we shared as a family in Casa Santa Teresita.
However, Semana Santa (or Holy Week) came at the ABSOLUTELY PERFECT time this year!! We were not able to do any paseos in the beginning half of the week due to the new rules, but our religious sisters executed the spiritual events beginning on Holy Thursday through Easter Sunday SO, SO, SO well!! There is no place quite like the Finca during Semana Santa, and that time of pure gratitude for the mission could not have come at a better time than when it did, especially considering what we were trying to emotionally overcome as a missionary community.
From acting out the Last Supper celebration with 12 of our Finca kids and employees acting as the 12 disciples and Teddy as Jesus washing their feet to acting out the Stations of the Cross on Good Friday to celebrating as a Finca and Mojaguay family during the Easter vigil mass at the Finca to attending mass in Trujillo on Easter Sunday with the Bishop, it was an INCREDIBLE Holy Week at the Finca this year! This was my 4th Holy Week at the Finca during my time as a missionary, and I have been deeply moved, both spiritually and emotionally, every single time. That is something that I am so grateful for!
After walking with our Finca kids and our entire Finca community during Jesus’ passion, death, and resurrection last week, we are doing much, much better as a missionary community! There are certainly still days where the new rules restrict how we would like to serve, but we have had to adapt and get creative on finding new ways to be present to our Finca kids and staff. That is certainly still a work in progress, so please pray for us as we continue to work our way through those challenges.
Please pray for all of our Finca kids, specifically that their hearts and minds can be opened to God’s love and will during a retreat in May that the Missioners of Christ will be doing at the Finca.
Please let me know how I can pray for you!
God Bless!