Curious Tablon

I’m about to hang up my gnome hat because today the knock-off Travelocity gnome is taking you to our final stop on the tour of sponsorship centers. Today, we’re visiting Tablon. Come along as we explore what makes Tablon special.

This is the easiest center to get to from Gracias. While five churches make up this sponsorship center, the main church is right on the paved road toward Las Flores. The other churches are spread out over an area within 6 miles of that church. One of the locations that feeds into Tablon has no church, only a Sunday school program. The kids don’t often make it to the main center because of the distance. Kim Hall explained that the Manna staff meets with those groups separately and travels up to where they are.

There Tablon program is one of the largest of the Manna programs; it is similar in size to the program at Mercedes.

Tablon is also the Hall family’s church home in Honduras. The church is led by Pastor Omar, whose name you may remember from previous posts. Kim is so impressed by his love for the children. She said, “It’s cool to see. A lot of the pastors are stiff and professional and very formal. Pastor Omar gets up and dances with the kids. He knows them by name.”

Pastor Omar with members of his flock

With Tablon being closer to Gracias, a lot of the residents do jobs other than fieldwork. There are welders, builders, and other blue-collar employees. Many of the women work as cleaning ladies. While this area is a little better off financially, there are a lot of families making sacrifices to send their children to school. A few of them are even able to send their children to a private bilingual school. There are many more children who are able to go to secondary school. Kim said, “With Tablon, we see a lot of kids studying and pursuing a higher grade.”

At the same time, the small sponsorship church that is farthest from the main Tablon church is the poorest community of all of our sponsorship centers. Tablon has the biggest disparity of income and education levels.

“Talkative and curious” is how Kim described the people of Tablon. In the early days, many kids at the other sponsorship centers were afraid of the people with Manna 4 Lempira. In contrast, the kids of Tablon have always been curious about them. They like letter writing and building relationships with their sponsors.

Kim also spoke of the impact the backpacks program has had on the community. She said, “The church is incredibly thankful for the support of getting the bags.” She continued that thought by saying, “The backpacks are not a social project for them. Pastor Omar is using the program to reach the community. People are participating in the program, getting baptized, and becoming involved in community service projects.”

And that concludes our tour of the Manna 4 Lempira sponsorship centers. Thank you for making the trip with us.

Inside the main church at Tablon

 - posted by Christi