Trip Report - Seeing Fruit in Honduras, September 21-26, 2019
“God does not call his people simply to run around putting out fires after the secular world has lighted them. He calls us to light our own fires, to renew culture. And the best way to drive out bad art is to encourage good art.... Since human beings are created in the image of God, they will create culture of one kind or another. The only question is whether it will be a decadent culture or a godly one.” (Chuck Colson, How Now Shall We Live? p. 450)
Seeing Fruit in Honduras, September 21-26, 2019
Mike Guerrero and I were pleasantly surprised by the fruit we saw at the University of Honduras, both in Tegucigalpa and Comayagua, during our recent trip. Because of the street demonstrations which have closed the university many times, we expected to simply meet informally with professors and students. Instead, we met with 11 department heads in the school of Administration Sciences (the business school) and with the new Dean of Engineering and several professors from his four departments.
We met with teachers from three elementary schools who are teaching Principles That Make You Strong in their classes.
We were also interviewed on Facebook by Jessi Melissa Arita, who connects university activities with social media. She gave us the opportunity to answer questions about PTTW on Facebook, in both English and Spanish. In each language, the interviews have had over 300 hits. Afterward, Jessi told us, “I want to work with you.” Check us out at facebook.com presencia universitaria periodico unah.
In the universities there is significant progress. Professors in the business school have been instructed to include the teaching of Values and Principles in all their classes. They plan to teach three principles each semester. With eleven departments, about a hundred professors and several thousand students, this teaching is making a significant impact.
The school of engineering, with 7,000 students, is planning to do much the same. Rafael, head of the Business Administration School is accompanying Arnulfo to other disciplines in the university to explain how the teaching can work in their areas as well.
We are working with a university-generated program called “The Essential,”
which consists of four things, Ethics, Identity, Culture and Citizenship. We are providing teachers with the textbook, Values and Principles that Can Change the World, to satisfy the ethics portion of this program. The goal of the program is to develop citizens who know who they are, know their history, and live according to long established values that develop character.
Teachers and officials in the elementary schools seemed pleased with the progress being made. Grade school teachers are seeing a change in the behavior of students who are being taught the curriculum. Many children pick up and recycle trash, return lost items they find, and are more respectful of their teachers. Principles is now being taught in about 50 schools.
Elin Torrez became our representative in Comayagua two years ago and has visited nearly all of the grade schools in the city, finding the biggest need in the public schools. Twenty-six of these schools are now in our program. Elin continues to follow up on these schools and will also be visiting other communities nearby.
Arnulfo Matute, our legal representative, has about 25 public schools using Principles That Make You Strong in Tegucigalpa. We anticipate having the curriculum in more than 200 schools within a year or so.
We are donating the book, Principles that Make you Strong, to every teacher who commits to using it with their pupils. We recently printed one thousand books at a cost of $1500. Each book will go to a teacher who will teach these principles to 25 to 40 students. These 1000 teachers will bring this moral teaching into the lives of 25,000 to 40,000 children!
With about 20 teachers per school, this means we will need 4000 books soon, just in Tegucigalpa.
We believe that the teaching of these principles, responsibility, honesty, hard work, compassion, competence, perseverance, helping others and many more are the lost fundamentals of a successful and God-honoring society. The principles need to be taught from Grade 1 through the university.
God is working to transform the foundation of Honduras by rebuilding their education system. Please help change Honduras by supporting our two workers there, hiring more workers, or by providing the resources to print more books.
Current needs:
1) Needed monthly support for our workers in Honduras.
2) Funds to print more books.
$15 reaches 250 to 400 children
$150 reaches 2500 to 4000 children
$1500 reaches 25,000 to 40,000 children
Thank you for caring.
God bless you,
John