Downtime, Sowers Style

For those of you who worry that the Sowers family never gets any downtime, you’ll be delighted to know that this past week they were lounging around sipping pineapple juice from glasses with little paper umbrellas in them. Hahaha! I crack myself up.

Really, they’re doing things like buying new tires and having their vehicles serviced while they have a momentary lull between teams. I’m pretty sure they don’t even own any little paper umbrellas. Seriously though, Russell and Iris did head to the beach in Tela Honduras for two days while the Hall family and Kelsea headed back to the States to renew their visas.

It is nice they have time to be sure the vehicles are in good working order. Trish and Allen joked that the mechanics love them. The official Sowers4Pastors vehicles are expected to go on roads few vehicles dare to travel. It is their goal to keep the vehicles dependable enough to drive gringos around when teams are in town.

While Russell and his family were traveling back and forth to the beach, they also made good use of the trip by stopping off to purchase the next batch of Sunday school curriculum for use in the sponsorship centers. Trish brought up an interesting point that it is difficult for those of us who have not visited those centers to understand what it’s really like.

Sunday school class in a village in the mountains

Up until very recently, the Sunday schools in most Honduran churches had no materials at all. Sunday school consisted of an untrained person with minimal education standing in front of kids with a Bible and possibly a storybook. There were no separate classrooms. Sunday school meant everyone from newborns to 18-yr-olds were hearing the exact same Bible lesson. That makes the flannelgraph lessons of my childhood look positively cutting edge!

The curriculum for sponsorship centers is revolutionizing Sunday school for many of the churches in the area. Pastors are starting to separate the children into different levels for classes. They can only do that when there are enough separate spaces and enough teachers to make that possible. That’s something the sponsorship centers have helped make possible.

RJ posing in front of the display of Honduras-specific Sunday School curriculum
at the store in San Pedro Sula

They are using a curriculum created by a Honduran for use in Honduras, which is way more revolutionary than it might sound. When North American curriculum is used, lessons invariably make cultural references the children do not understand. Something as simple as an object lesson involving playing baseball or missing the school bus must be explained to the children. This curriculum offers relatable object lessons for Honduran children--such as having a chicken walk through the house, or grinding the corn you grew, to make tortillas.

Each child receives his or her own consumable curriculum, specific to their age/grade level, which is a very big deal. Even at school, these children often do not have workbooks of their own. Now, they are able to study their lessons and color the pictures in their own books. And that is why Sowers4Pastors has already put in an order for a bunch more curriculum. Who needs little paper umbrellas when you have the satisfaction of changing lives?




 - posted by Christi