Lord willing, on April 13th, I will head back down to the hot city of San Pedro Sula, Cortes, Honduras. I’ve made the trip several times over the past three years, so I kind of know what to expect. But, this journey will be a new one in several respects. I won’t have Alania or Brantley with me. This will be very different. They have both made this journey each way without me, but this will be the first time I’ve made it without either of them. The flight will be a little different too. I’ve only flown on direct flights arriving in the afternoon. This time I will have a connection and will arrive in San Pedro around midnight.
It’s not just my travel plans either. When I get there I will be beginning a new role as pastor to the International Christian Fellowship. This is a new journey. However, there is something already familiar about it. The Lord. Whatever new in this life may come, He is with us. You see He was with me when I went to kindergarten. He was with me when I finished high school. He was with me when we got married. He was with me when Brantley was born. When I went through college, when I have followed Him, when I have strayed from Him, He has always been there. There was a day in my life when I stood broken, not sure I could put one foot in front of the other. God spoke to me as clearly as He ever had that day. The message was this, “Kris, I’ve gotten you through every thing you’ve ever been through. And ifyou make one more day on this earth or if you don’t, you will be with me and I will be in control.” Jesus was telling me that worrying, striving, and fearing would not sustain me, only He will.
So, on this new journey, God will sustain me. The different travel plans, the exciting new role, the desire to change the world for Jesus. These are all His plans, their not really mine because “We are His workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works which he foreordained so that we might walk in them” (Phillippians 2:10). God has something all for us to do in each of the seasons in our lives. Right now, ours is to live and lead in Honduras and share life with the people of San Pedro. For you, it may be to teach Sunday School or lead a Bible Study in your home. It may be to write or speak at conferences. It may be to adopt or serve as a foster home. It might even be to do what you are doing right now and make disciples in that context. Whatever our journeys are from this day forward, I bet they are somewhat new and they may be a little intimidating. But, no matter what it is, they are God’s plans, not our own. Wow, how exciting!
Do you remember the show Fear Factor? Maybe it’s still comes on somewhere but I haven’t seen it in quite some time. It was one of Brantley’s favorite shows when he was little. If you’re not familiar, here are the basics. It would start with several contestants who would go through a series of exercises in overcoming certain fears. These exercises would be things like walking a very high tight rope, or staying underwater for a long time, or being covered by snakes or rats, or eating something disgusting. As the show progressed players would drop out because they were not able to overcome their fears and complete the tasks. At the end of the show, the last person standing would be declared the winner and Joe Grogan, the host, would end by saying something like “evidently fear is not a factor for you.”
Bowdon, GA Honduras Mission Team
This past week, the team from our hometown, Bowdon, Georgia, and the surrounding area was here serving in an extremely rural village of Honduras. The village was really just a collection of houses of mostly sharecropping families with a small school and a Catholic church. The week began with rain and ended with rain. The village was in a pretty high elevation so the rainy nights saw temperatures low enough to make you shiver, not to mention the “primitive” bathroom and shower conditions. There were rats and bugs, muddy walks to those rough bathrooms in the pitch black rainy nights and a lot of unknown for a team of mostly new members. There were exercises in patience by all and possibly the scariest for most of us U.S.A.’ers, the absence of being in control of just about anything.
For some reason, those old Fear Factor shows kept coming to my mind. I kept drawing parallels to the trials the team was facing during the week and imagining that I was Joe and would say to the team at the end of the week when they made it – “you conquered the mud, the freezing cold nights, the pitch black darkness, you went without electricity, you fought the rats and you made it off that mountain, evidently fear is not a factor for you!”
At the end of the week, the team had a time of sharing and many of the team members talked about how they had overcome those trials during the week. Some talked of missing home and family, upset stomachs and lack of control, in addition to the elements which they lived and worked in over the week. But, the bigger common theme of these testimonies than the obstacles themselves was the provision God made for the team. People gave testimonies of the peace that passes understanding, the ministry of the Holy Spirit to their own hearts and eyes being opened to the love and grace of our Lord Jesus Christ through their obedience to follow Him on this journey to the uttermost parts of the earth.
It appears to me, not through intellect or insight but through walking through this life with my friend Jesus, that our God is faithful. Several years ago, Brantley and I committed a verse to memory. 2 Timothy 1:7 says “God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power, of love and of a sound mind.” You see, fear is an emotion. It is natural and it is part of our physical life. However, God has never intended for us to let it deter us from following Him. He gives us tons of promises in His word of how he will take care of us. He tells us that He will never leave us, that He will provide for us and commands us not to worry. The thing is though, God tells these things to us as His followers. God is interested in providing for us to overcome fear in order for us to follow Him. The fact that He helps us overcome fear is valid for the use of living out His purpose. Fear is a part of life that we all have to face. Being here in Honduras and working in this ministry to help the team members, who are the real missionaries, we hear testimony after testimony of how God has helped these short term foreign missionaries overcome their fears to do this work. And the cool thing about it is that we not only hear their stories but we see it work out over the course of a week. It’s like testimonies in action. I have to say that it’s one of the coolest things I’ve been a part of. That is to actually see how obedience to God’s call works and manifests itself into faith. When “fear is not a factor” with regard to obedience, the short term foreign missionaries who come and work here gain new faith and strengthened faith and thereby trust God more with their lives.
The team singing Bible songs with the children from the village
Will we all trust God? Will we trust His promises or will we trust our fear. When it comes to being afraid to be obedient, the Bible says that’s not from Him. To see His faithfulness we must step into the water, or go into the snake pit or whatever the hard task may be. He is asking us to take small steps of obedience – to restructure our priorities, to be obedient with our time, talents and money. Can I assure you of one thing? You will be afraid to do these things. However, if you act on the word of God and not on your fear, He will provide.
You can do it! Don’t drop out! It may have nothing to do with foreign mission trips for you. It may be to begin to submit your life to Him. Maybe you identify as a Christian but you’ve never truly followed Christ. It may be following Christ in the way you think, talk, drive or spend your free time. Whatever it is, give it to Him. He will open doors for you that will make your life more abundant than you’ve ever dreamed. He will show you how to live life to the fullest. When it seems like you can’t take that leap, just remember that Jesus Christ died for you and sent the Holy Spirit as your helper to teach you the way to an abundant life here and a secure future once this life is over. Just keep going and conquer what God has already conquered for you. I can even imagine Jesus telling us one day about the trials we made it through for His sake and how we overcame them through faith and that evidently fear was not a factor for us!
Early morning view from the school following a rainy night!
In our first year here in our new home here in Honduras, Brantley started this blog. He called it the Honduras Hendersons instead of just something with his name. The idea was that at some point maybe his mother or I would feel/have the need or calling to also write about some of our experiences and share them here. With that in mind, I decided to share. God has blessed Alania, Brantley and I with opportunities to share, preach, live and labor over this past year here in Honduras and for a short time visiting the states during Thanksgiving and Christmas. But honestly, as exciting and exhilarating as some of our experiences have been, what is truly spectacular is that God continues to teach us so much.
The biggest takeaway I have from the past year is God’s Faithfulness in answering prayer and how he has been teaching us to pray. In John 16:23 Jesus told the disciples “if you ask the Father for anything in My name, He will give it to you.” I’ve known that verse for some time but during my first year I’ve found out that it’s true. Not that I didn’t believe it before, I did. But, I am now learning how to ask God for everything I need. In the next verse, vs. 24, He says “ask and you will receive, so that your joy may be made full.” When we ask and receive of God our joy level goes through the roof! At least mine does. It’s not that I had to move to a foreign country to start asking God for things. I’ve asked God for plenty prior to moving to Honduras. But honestly, I just asked God for big things. You know, like to guide Brantley’s life into the right path, for protection when traveling, for a friend or family member to become a Christian, etc. What God has shown me so far this year is that actually our joy is in the small things. That’s why the Bible says things like “you ask and do not receive because you ask with the wrong motives” and “you don’t have because you don’t ask.” (James 4:2-3) The wrong motives are many times just asking for the big things and thinking those will make our life great or give us peace. And, not asking has to do with not asking for the little things at all. I’ve had to ask God for some “nuts and bolts” stuff lately – small stuff but REAL stuff. I’ve asked in areas of my life that, prior to now, I didn’t ask God about because I either thought it was too insignificant to worry God with or, quite honestly, I thought I could handle myself. The answers have not all been yes but many of them have. But even the no’s have come quickly, clearly and have brought joy. The point is that I have truly experienced God in new ways and that He has answered ALL those prayers. Once again, maybe not the way I want, but He has answered. Those answers on small things are what I really believe to be faith builders. Asking God to fix a less than desirable situation with another person, asking God to take care of a task or project that you are dreading, asking God to heal a small physical pain, asking God for patience… These wants that we have but don’t typically take to God because we think we can handle, are where we build our faith enough to ask in faith for big things. The problem is how can we ask in faith believing we have already received, like Jesus told us to in Matthew chapter 21, if we don’t regularly experience God answering our prayers? How can we regularly experience God answering prayers if we don’t depend on him for the daily things we need? How can we trust God if we never entrust anything to Him? How can we entrust big things to Him if we don’t entrust small things to Him? The answer is we don’t. To get answered prayers we have to pray. How anxious are you at this moment about anything? Pray about it. Tell God your most honest thoughts about the situation. Philippians 4:6-7 says “Be anxious for NOTHING, but in EVERYTHING by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” In the context of what I’ve written, please let that sink in.
The Catch
The catch is that if we ask God to fix a situation, we are trusting God to fix it His way. Thereby, we have to give up some control. This is a big place God has been working in my life lately, giving up control. Obviously, you give up a lot of control when you sell everything and go into ministry. You give up control of big things and little things. But consider a question – Which brings you joy? Answer truthfully! Is it in having control or relinquishing of control? I’m not asking which you prefer necessarily, but rather, which brings you joy? Joy actually is in relinquishment of control to someone you can trust. But, control feeds our pride which tells us that we can’t trust anybody else with the situation, not even God. That pride becomes our faith. That is idolatry because our pride is not God it is an idol. So we serve the idol of pride by thinking we can handle a small situation rather than relinquishing control to God, watching him work, learning how He works, experiencing His answers, experiencing His faithfulness, and seeing our faith grow. Instead we entrust things, situations to ourselves by serving our pride and we begin to believe the lie that we can’t trust anyone else with our problems…not even God. Then, when a problem comes too big for us to handle, we try our best to give it to God but we don’t trust God because we’ve never given any little things to God. This scenario has played itself out in my life in years past and I’m so thankful to The Lord for beginning to show me by His grace how he answers prayer and how I can trust Him. Joy is in the relinquishment of control of our lives to God. Controlling your own life may seem comfortable, but relinquishing control is the only place of true joy. Start with the little things “ask and receive that your joy will be made full.”
The whole time I’ve been in Honduras I have always kind of wanted to go to school here. I have not really had the opportunity because when we moved school was already in the second half of the year. As the school year was approaching, I thought it would be a good idea to check out all the options of me possibly enrolling in a high school. There are a few good bilingual high schools in San Pedro so I looked up their phone numbers and called about possibly going to visit the schools. All of this happened the first week of August on Sunday and Monday. On Wednesday my dad, mom, and I all went around to the three schools. The first one we stopped at is named Internacional Escuala Americana. When we pulled up to the gate, the guard came out and asked us what we were there for. Just for future reference, everyone at a bilingual school doesn’t speak English. Of course the guard was limited to only Spanish, so my dad tried to explain the best he could that we needed to talk to a lady by the name of Joanne Rogers (the lady we talked with on the phone). The guard had no idea what he was talking about, so he pointed at a sign that said, “Matricula.” We obviously had no idea what that meant, so my mom looked up the word on Google Translate. It means enrollment, so we agreed with the guard and he let us in. We pulled into park and got out looking for an entrance to the building. I saw a small yellow gate so I started that way. About that time my dad said, “Wait, come over here real quick.” I thought oh gosh what is he about to make me do. Of course we did what all gringo missionaries do and we held hands and prayed in the middle of an empty parking lot. It felt pretty silly, but doing that helped to open up my eyes and let the Lord speak to me about the right decision to make about each school. As we walked in the small gate, another guard came up and said something so dad just said, “Matricula,” and he knew where to take us. We came up to this room named High School Office. We stopped there and the director of the school came out. He was an American so it kind of surprised me. We started talking and it turns out that no employees were at school yet, because they were still on vacation. The director didn’t know much about what we were asking him, so he just showed us around the campus and told us to come back on the 18th. This date was familiar because that is the day my online classes started. I am currently taking dual enrollment online classes through West Georgia Tech. These classes also started on the 18th. I came to realize that I was going to have to make a pretty quick decision. We were on to the next school. This school is named Freedom High School. We have a lot of translators that I am close with that go to this school, so it was already pretty high on my list. When we got up to the gate at this school we just told the guards that we were here for matricula and they let us right on in. We parked right up next to the school and went around to where all the offices were. We were standing there and a lady came up and asked who we were waiting for. My dad told her we were looking for a woman named Gloria (The lady we spoke with on the phone from Freedom). Well, that lady was Gloria so she told us to wait right outside her office and she would be with us in just a moment. When she called us in, we all sat down and she started going over the costs and things like I was 100% going to enroll there. We told her that we were just there to talk about the possibilities of me enrolling. She took us on a tour of the school and then took us to the principal to talk about further things. When we got there, we just asked him a lot of things about what classes I would take and if I would be able to get out for each team that comes down. He was very open to me missing some weeks here and there for teams but not all of them. After that, he gave me a paper that showed what classes I would take. The Honduran school system only goes to eleven grades, but they learn the same amount as the U.S. They said that I would be in the tenth grade, which makes sense because I would still have two years of school left just like I do now. He showed me my classes and I noticed that I would have to retake Biology and Chemistry, in which I have completed both, so that was a big negative in me going there. He then told us that school starts on the 18th. I knew that this was going to be a faster decision than I thought. We talked a little bit more and then we were on our way to the third and final school of the day. This school is named Albert Einstein International School. This school is in downtown San Pedro, which is like being in a jungle with a lot of concrete. When we finally got to the school, after trying to figure out where it was, we just walked right in and didn’t have to explain anything to the guard. When we were inside, it reminded me of a small two story apartment building. We went and talked to a lady who couldn’t speak much English, but she was trying really hard. She started explaining how the school is a trilingual school and that I would have to take four weeks of French before I could start classes. When we heard this we pretty much just left. That was probably the weirdest school I have seen in my life. As I started to think about the possibilities, I really only felt like Freedom was the only option. Then again, I didn’t want to have to retake classes because it seems pointless. I thought about it and came to realize that the best thing was just to stay with the online classes. It would be a really good experience but I felt like God spoke through the responses we got at each school. As school has started back up in Bowdon, I am a little sad because I’m not there with all of my classmates. This is the first year since kindergarten that I will not start off at Bowdon. Then, I think about how I am doing God’s will and there is nothing else I would rather be doing than that. Please continue to pray for my family and the whole organization here in El Plan. Thank you for everything!
In the United States, when the word “football” comes up in a conversation, there is no question on what sport you may be talking about. It is the sport in which fans dedicate their lives to supporting and watching every Friday, Saturday and Sunday. There is no doubt that I love American football just as much and more as the next southern guy. Now when I hear football, or in Honduras “fútbol,” I think about what us Americans call “soccer.” Prior to moving to Honduras, if someone would have asked me if I liked soccer, I would have said no without hesitation. Now I enjoy watching and playing soccer almost as much as any other sport that I played back home. I love sports with a passion and that will never change. Prior to moving here my whole life pretty much revolved around sports and when I moved here I noticed a new sport that I have never really thought about. I thought, “Why not learn the sport that everyone craves for in every country other than the U.S?” Now I know so much more about the sport than I did before I got here. It is like basketball in some ways, but at the same time it is totally different. I have had to spend time watching and understanding the different positions and how each has a different role in the game. There are eleven men on the field at all times, just like American football. Like I said earlier, the ways that the game sets up and the strategy is a lot like basketball. There are positions such as a “forward” that exist in both basketball and soccer. Also, the main goal in both sports is to get the ball to the basket, or in this case, the goal.
The ways that the teams schedule is set up is unlike any other sport that I have ever seen. Teams play for multiple championships, or “cups,” at one time. Unlike in football, baseball or basketball where there is a postseason and playoffs; in soccer you are constantly playing for some sort of cup. Another thing is that there is pretty much no offseason. There is a time where players get a break but it usually only lasts for at most a month. It is a good thing that it is not longer because the fans would go into a rage of not having any sport to watch. There are two well known teams that play in Spain and just about everyone in Honduras either like one or the other. The teams are Real Madrid, which people shorten to “Madrid,” and Barcelona, which people shorten to “Barça.” Probably the most frequent question I have been asked in Honduras is, “Madrid or Barça?” I had to make a choice so I picked Real Madrid and now I feel like I have been a fan all of my life. When people ask me that question it always makes me think of being in Alabama and someone asks, “Alabama or Auburn?” or being in Georgia and hearing, “Georgia or Tech?” It is funny that passion for sports teams never go away whether in a third world country or in the U.S. I really wish that soccer would become big in the U.S just like it is in the rest of the world. Atlanta is getting a soccer team in 2017 and I am really excited about that. As I am here I hope to keep learning about the game and getting better at playing it myself. I still love all the sports that I have always loved such as basketball, golf, baseball and American football. Soccer is starting to win my heart as well. I am really glad that I found a new sport to play and watch and hopefully teach some people back home who think soccer is for girls. Please continue to pray for the Honduras Baptist Dental Mission and everything that is going on in El Plan. Thanks for your support and I will be seeing some of you very soon!
In Honduras and pretty much all of Central America, the week before Easter is known as Semana Santa (Holy Week). The whole week is celebrated but people usually don’t start getting off of work until Thursday. This week is usually spent traveling to see family or laying around in a blow-up swimming pool. We spent the week traveling and ended up doing a little swimming ourselves. Monday we traveled to Santa Lucia, Francisco Morazan, Honduras to visit friends that work with the mission. They invited us to stay with them in their house in Santa Lucia. Santa Lucia is located about 30 minutes outside of the capital city of Tegucigalpa. The drive from El Plan to Tegucigalpa consisted of one road for 4 hours. The ride wasn’t that bad except for mountain roads and having almost the whole road occupied by buses. Once we got to Tegucigalpa our friends, Aquiles, Lucia, and Swan, met us at a gas station and we followed them to their house in Santa Lucia. Once we got there, we checked out the town and saw a lot of cool places. That evening Aquiles cooked some meat on the home made grill that is made out of a wheel barrow and a long rack thing. We put charcoal in the wheel barrow then put the rack on top of it and there was a grill! The next day we all went to a town beside Santa Lucia called Valle de Angeles. Here we walked around on the streets and ate at a really cool restaurant that served pizza and pupusas. Pupusas are basically a very thick corn tortilla stuffed with cheese and pork. They were interesting but they were also very tasty. After we ate, Swan tried to take us to a secret place that is supposed to be very beautiful. We were on our way through the back roads of Honduras. When I say back roads, I mean someone’s backyard. We were driving in between these two rows of fences, and all of a sudden the fences started getting closer and closer and the truck would not fit through the narrow way. Swan tried to get us to park in front of some lady’s house, but we didn’t want to leave the truck there because something could easily happen to it. Swan was pretty upset but everything worked out okay. The next day we traveled about 2 hours to the village of Teupasenti where Pastor Luis Santos lives. He is the Honduran pastor that leads all the church services when we are out in the field. On the way, I got a call from my pal Luciano who works and is living at the mission. He had also traveled to Tegucigalpa to visit some friends during Holy Week. He called me to see if he could ride with us. He was going to catch a bus to Pastor’s house but since buses are the main way of transportation for Honduras, the bus station was so backed up he wasn’t going to be able to get one. He called us at the right time because we just entered Tegucigalpa on our way to Pastor’s house. We picked him up at the bus station and then we were on our way. It was a pretty rough ride to where his house was but it was well worth it. When we got there we went to his house and then on to the river for some swimming. When we got to the river there were a good many people there swimming. People were on the shore cooking and playing music. We swam, ate some watermelon, and then went back to Pastor’s house for lunch. For lunch his wife cooked rice, potatoes, and some kind of really good meat. The meal was excellent. We left shortly after that and Pastor showed us all of the churches in his village. I really hope that we can go and stay with him for an extended amount of time. He is a really great guy who loves serving the Lord. It shows because it is not easy for him to get from his house to El Plan due to the fact that he does not have an automobile. He has to catch a series of four buses to get to the mission compound. It usually takes him anywhere from 6-8 hours just to get to where we live. He travels like this each time a team comes in. He is truly dedicated to serving God. The trip this past week was great. I really felt like my family and I are becoming more like Hondurans each and every day. Please continue to pray for everything that is going on here. Thank you so much for your support and I hope to see you all soon!
God Bless,
Brantley Henderson
All of us at Pastor Luis’ house. He is the one standing in the white t-shirt. I’m the one in the back trying to watch a very important soccer game.
Henderson Missionary Family 