Some General Updates, Including Hurricane Relief and Coffee Farms

UPDATE: This post was written before the arrival of Hurricane Iota, so it only includes hurricane information from Hurricane Eta. We will have an update once we have assessed the damage from Hurricane Iota, which is a currently developing situation. 

Russell is not one to over-dramatize things. When gearing up to tell me about the aftermath of Hurricane Eta and everything else that is going on at the homefront, he started with the following quote:

“Things in Honduras are a little bit crazy right now.”~ Russell Sowers 11/11/20

If any of you are crafty, you might want to needlepoint that on a pillow to give Russell for Christmas. While most of the update of the hurricane’s aftermath is going into a separate post, here’s some of what’s happening with Sowers4Pastors.


Welcome Home, Kelsea

Kelsea is back in Honduras for the first time since June. Between COVID-19 shutdowns, the road trip to collect backpacks, zany airport antics concerning what constituted acceptable COVID testing, and a tropical storm, her trip was a little longer than originally scheduled! You can read about her adventure in her own words. She is planning on returning home for Thanksgiving, if possible. However, her ticket is for a flight from the airport in San Pedro Sula, which is flooded.

Now that Kelsea is back, she’s enjoying all of the leisure time of someone who returned to four months worth of stacked up work. She is charged with keeping the ledgers of items the ministry purchases in Honduras. Or as Russell summed it up, “She’s working on lots of administrative stuff.”


Extending Helping Hands

Kim and Jonathan Hall with Manna 4 Lempira are down on the North coast of Honduras right now. They headed out with a load of clothing and other items to extend help to those hit hardest by Hurricane Eta. Pastor Omar’s church is connected with sister churches in that area and he joins the Halls in lending a helping hand.

Coffee Harvest

The coffee harvest started on November 9th. This isn’t one of the little “first fruits” harvests. This is the super-colossal coffee harvest. If coffee harvesting were a sport, this would be what Russell and his crew have been training for. Not to oversell it, but this is the Olympics and Super Bowl of coffee harvesting. There are currently about sixty people working in the fields.

On top of the harvest, Russell and some of his crew have been building two coffee patios for drying the coffee. The hurricane threw a wrench into the process, but they are back at it now. They are also working on building a coffee warehouse for storage.

- posted by Christi. 

Aftermath of Hurricane Eta in Honduras

UPDATE: Prayers desperately needed! Tropical Storm Iota is expected to hit Honduras early this week! Honduras is not ready to deal with this so soon after taking a bad hit from Hurricane Eta. Please pray!!

As you are probably aware, Honduras has been having a very rough year. COVID-19 and the lockdown had really made life difficult for the people here. Honduras is a poor country, and many Hondurans barely scrape by as it is. Now they've had a hurricane thrown on top of a pandemic!

     DONATE HERE TO HELP   

 WITH HURRICANE RELIEF!! 

For us Sowers, it feels almost like coming full circle - we arrived in Honduras almost exactly 20 years ago in response to Hurricane Mitch to build a hospital in Guanaja, long before we had made it our mission to empower Honduran pastors or moved to Gracias. So while we are NOT a humanitarian organization, we do have a history of helping with humanitarian efforts. During normal years we don't have much disaster relief work, but here we are this year, working on pandemics and hurricane aftermath.

Similarly to Mitch, it was not the wind from Hurricane Eta that really did the damage, but the rain. Widespread flooding and landslides have knocked out bridges and roads throughout the country, but especially along the North and East coasts, making relief efforts difficult. Exact numbers are unknown and are all rough estimates at this time, but CARE International estimates that around 38,000 Hondurans have been displaced from their homes. Mr. Allen suspects, once all damage is accounted for and all communities thoroughly assessed, that that number will be far higher, perhaps into the hundreds of thousands. This estimation is based on damage reports from specific communities, such as La Lima and El Progresso, that experienced flooding in almost 100% of households.

Sadly, around 60 people have died in Honduras - but considering that during Hurricane Mitch that number was estimated to be between 10,000 and 11,000, we do have much to be grateful for. 

Unfortunately, the bridges and roads being out is making it very difficult for relief efforts. Porta Castilllo, one of two shipping ports in Honduras, is currently having a difficult time sending out supplies. Mr. Allen is concerned that this means Porta Cortez, where we normally send our containers, will be overwhelmed by incoming shipments that have been diverted from Porta Castillo. This has the potential to delay the arrival of our containers of food and backpacks. 

We are extremely grateful that the Lempira area was not hit too hard. For more information on the damage and our relief efforts for our area, see this post. We are more worried about the potential delay to our containers - the school year is coming up quickly, so we are feeling a little bit of a time crunch to receive and sort the backpacks. The food of course is an ongoing need in response to COVID-19, but it is possible we could get it expedited as disaster relief supplies. 

Please pray with us for Honduras during these difficult times! Here's our current list of prayer requests:

- Please pray that the containers make it in promptly, with no delays. 

- Please pray for the relief efforts, that they would be effective.

- Please pray for strength and healing for Honduras.

- Finally, please pray that all God will use all of this for His Glory, as we know He will!

- posted by Kirstin S.

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 WITH HURRICANE RELIEF!! 

Hurricane Relief and Missionary Syndicates

On Tuesday, Russell had a meeting with a fellow missionary in Lempira, Mr. Shannon Hopkins, to discuss consolidating hurricane relief efforts. There are four or five local missionary families and it simply makes sense to join forces right now. Russell struggled to find just the right word for this teamwork, so here are a few suggestions: a consortium, a fellowship, an alliance, or my personal favorite, a syndicate. The world needs more missionary syndicates right now. 

Elderly citizen being carried to safety during the aftermath of hurricane Eta.

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 WITH HURRICANE RELIEF!! 

Shannon had already sat down with the mayor of the county (similar to a county commissioner in the U.S.) to discuss the current COVID and hurricane relief needs. Even though the area around Gracias was not the hardest hit, the needs are still very real. According to the mayor’s statistics, sixty houses in the county were seriously affected by Hurricane Eta. Of those houses, forty of them need new roofs. The other twenty were completely destroyed.

Russell explained the benefits of working with the local government and the team of missionaries. It will help control the possibility of people going from one person to another asking for help. Besides those in need of housing help, the mayor said, “Here is a list of 200 families who are not finding a way to get enough food.”

Shannon and the mayor calculated that $200 per family will be enough to see them through to the end of the year. That comes to $40,000. With your help, Sowers4Pastors has been working diligently to get additional food resources for the extra burden COVID-19 has placed on their feeding program. Allen and Russell anticipate that some of the food coming over by container at this time can be used for this cause.

For those with damaged or destroyed homes, it makes sense to begin with the 40 houses in need of new roofs. It costs $1000 to fix a roof on one house. That comes to an additional $40,000, but you probably already figured that one out in your head.

In case you’re wondering how assistance is given, please know that it is not like Santa Claus tossing out candy from a float in a Christmas parade. There is nothing haphazard about this process. Remember that list of 200 families in need of help? Those are the people who will receive aid. Remember the 60 families whose homes were damaged or destroyed? They are the ones who will receive help with construction.

Sowers4Pastors is not trading its mission and becoming a humanitarian aid organization. They are still empowering pastors. The people being helped will be ministered to spiritually as well as physically. The pastors will continue to evangelize. This is not an either/or proposition. As Christians, we are instructed to help the poor among us. Nowhere in the Bible are we told to help people until we are bored with it, or until there is one tragedy too many in the same location.

Allen, Trish, and Russell are very cognizant of the fact that they just did a big push for funds for the food handed out during the COVID shutdown. As Russell said, “We weren’t expecting a hurricane to come in and wreck the country. Our area was hit less, but the aid that was being given has all been taken away and redistributed to those affected in the northern part of Honduras. Our area was affected. Now we are struggling and there are families left out in the rain.” Literally.

Solider carrying an infant during flooding 

He continued, “We are really short on time, as a ministry. Working with a team of other missionaries will help stretch both financial and time resources. We are hopeful that we will raise money to help purchase supplies and get a Honduran crew together to work on the houses.” 

Yes, this is a plea for money and a plea for prayers. Russell added, “We’re sorry to ask, but that’s where we are right now.”

Please consider donating to this crisis. It’s not like you get the chance to help fund a missionary syndicate every day!


- posted by Christi

     DONATE HERE TO HELP   

 WITH HURRICANE RELIEF!! 

When Disaster Strikes

In our 24-hr news cycle world, it can be difficult to remember something that happened just a few weeks ago. The Fuego volcanic eruption that affected thousands of people in Guatemala probably isn’t at the forefront of your mind. So, let’s refresh our memories.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5aU4RQoNzXY

On June 3, an active volcano in southern Guatemala had its worst eruption in decades. People weren’t surprised by an eruption; they were surprised by the enormity of the eruption. Over the years, people become complacent about living near an active volcano and move closer and closer to it. When the mammoth eruption happened, it destroyed villages, rather than just empty countryside. More than one hundred people are known dead, with two hundred plus still missing and assumed dead. It is not yet safe to search the area. Almost 2800 people remain in shelters, after losing their homes. That means there are many more people who lost their homes, but are staying with family members, etc…

Whenever disaster strikes in Central America, people ask Trish how they can help. Trish’s advice is always the same: “Find someone who is already working on the  ground in that area. That’s the person you can trust to get the resources to the people who need them.”

Sowers4Pastors is far enough away that, aside from some air quality advisories, they were unaffected. There were some flights which were cancelled, due to ash in the air, but the Sowers family is not close to the volcano. However, one of their local churches, in Gracias, is taking relief supplies collected by their congregation to the area, working in conjunction with a church in Guatemala. Sowers4Pastors has decided to help these churches in this endeavor.

They are sending boxes of food from their supplies for feeding centers. They are also sending some backpacks, which were not distributed this year. Because Trish remembered people responding to the needs of homeschoolers, following the flooding in Houston, she realized there would be Guatemalan school children who had lost their school supplies. The backpacks are already filled with toiletries, as well as school supplies. In that way, Sowers4Pastors is able to help.

Trish said, “We are always glad when we have more on the ground than we need at the moment. That means we are able to respond quickly to unforeseen needs! We had more than we needed right this minute. We will still have to replenish the supplies, to keep the feeding centers running and to have sufficient backpacks for the upcoming school year, but we can act NOW. By working with these local churches, we can help.”

By working with Sowers4Pastors, you can help, too.

 - posted by Christi