Why Trish Became a Cartographer For a Day

Pastor Lorenzo, of Guacutao, with his
ministry motorcycle

If you follow Trish on Facebook (and if you don’t, you really should), you may remember that back in June she was tasked with creating a map of eighteen specific locations. This was a little more advanced than a middle school social studies project. She was asked to map locations even Google Maps hasn’t dared to tackle. Why, you ask? (Thanks for asking, by the way.) Trish became a cartographer for the day because of a request by the congregation of Edgewater Alliance Church. They requested to see all of the places Pastor Lorenzo Rivera ministers.

Edgewater Alliance is the sister church of Pastor Lorenzo’s church in Guacutao. The church has been supporting Pastor Lorenzo’s work for four years and they wanted to expand that help to include the churches under his supervision.

As you can see from the map, Pastor Lorenzo regularly logs a lot of miles. He is based out of Guacutao but tries to visit each of the 17 other villages at least once a month. The distance beside each location shows the kilometers from there to Guacutao. Pastor Lorenzo is his denomination’s main supervisor for this area. He pastors churches in Guacutao, Posa Verde, and Arenales. All of the villages on the map are in the department (like a state) of Lempira, but they span at least five counties.

A full ⅔ of the locations on the map are so remote they aren’t shown on Google Maps, even using the satellite version - which is why Trish needed to create this map.  The journey from one village to another isn’t a piece of cake. The distance from Guacutao to Montanita is a whopping 86 kilometers (approx. 53 miles). That might not sound like much if you don’t realize that trip required at least four different vehicles, as he had no transportation of his own. The trip to Montanita required an entire day of travel time. The trip home wasn’t any faster.

What it looks like when the team from Sowers4Pastors goes
to the city to pick up motorcycles for pastors

With the help of the people at Edgewater Alliance, Pastor Lorenzo was able to get a motorcycle. Now, the trip to Montanita is a much more manageable four hours. He is still doing the same work, but now he’s trying to hit an even larger area.

You should be interested to know that, even with all of his responsibilities, Pastor Lorenzo still doesn’t get paid to fulfill these duties. He supports his family through coffee farming. Sadly, he lost most of his coffee plants due to the recent drought. The Sowerses have the means to take measures to keep their plants at a healthier level, and because of that, their coffee plants were able to survive the unusually dry season. Many people in the area don’t have the funds to invest in their plants, and lost numerous coffee plant this year. It’s the same sort of reason so many in the area are now struggling with food.

Currently, there are matching funds available for helping pastors like Pastor Lorenzo purchase a motorcycle. For every $500 donation to the motorcycle ministry, this other donor will match that amount. The pastor then kicks in $600 toward the purchase. If you would be interested in helping someone like Pastor Lorenzo obtain a motorcycle, you can make donations on the Sowers4Pastors website.

 - posted by Christi