 All right, friends, good to see all of you. Welcome back for the second night of our virtual mission trip to Honduras. We had a good beginning last night, even with a few technical glitches, but those of you who are with us last night still, I think we're able to get a good feel for the country and the mission. And we had rich conversation about the realities of migration in Honduras as well as the impact of the pandemic. And so anyway, we'll build on last night and have another good session tonight. Let me go ahead and give a few words of instruction here at the very beginning. And then we'll kind of step into our content for tonight. So first word of instruction has to do with language and translation. So tonight we have with us Jorge Arayano, who is a skilled translator. And throughout the evening, you're able to hear his translation simultaneous with the presenter. In order, when the presenter speaking English, Jorge will be translating in Spanish. And when the presenter is speaking in Spanish, Jorge will translate into English. So at any point, if the presenter is not speaking a language you understand and you would like to benefit from Jorge's translation, then all you need to do is if you go down, take your cursor to the bottom of the Zoom screen, you'll see there an option for interpretation. If you will select the English channel, then you will hear Jorge's translation. So again, if the presenter is speaking in Spanish, if you're on the English channel, then you'll hear Jorge. If the presenter is speaking in English as I am now, if you choose the English channel, you'll hear Jorge translating into Spanish. Is that clear? And is anyone need me to explain that one more time? Maybe the bottom line is if you don't understand what's going on, choose the English channel on that interpretation button and you should hear Jorge. Okay, so that's new from last night. A couple of things that are similar to last night is that as we move through the evening, if you have questions about what's being presented, just drop those in the chat. Kali is gonna translate those in written form and we'll keep track of them. And so we'll be able to come back to those questions later on. The one other thing I wanna mention at the beginning is that tonight we have the opportunity to have breakout sessions with church to church partners that are already established. So I have a request for our folks on the call. If you're from 1st Dallas, first UMC Dallas, if you're from Christ's Foundry or if you're from Elmwood, El Buensamaritano, if you would please let me know that in the chat, what church you're from, your name and what church you're from and then I'll be able to put you in the right breakout room later on tonight. Same thing if you're from La Cofradilla, if you'll let me know your name and that you're from La Cofradilla, then put that in the chat. Similarly, if you're from Prosper UMC, tell me your name and that you're from that church and if you're from El Pescadero, tell me your name and that church. That way later on, I can sort everybody into breakout rooms and you'll be with folks from your partner church. And I see them coming through. Excellent Callie, I know I'm asking a lot of you. If you can try to track those for me as well, maybe we can connect on the break and you can help me do that. All right, so that's enough preliminaries, enough logistics. Let's begin to get into what we came here for to connect, to continue to build relationships across international borders, to learn from one another and to spend time together that will be mutually a blessing to folks in North Texas and to the folks in Honduras. And doing this virtually because of the pandemic, we know there's some things missing, some things lost and yet we all got to sleep on our own beds last night. We all got to see folks important to us today and yet we're able to reconnect this way. And so we're grateful for technology in the way that we can do that. So to begin our second evening, which will focus on church to church partnerships, we want to invite, did I see in the chat, Pastor Yamileth, are you leading our opening devotional this evening? And if so, feel free to lead us. Amen. Misiones a todo. Inflinamos nuestro rostro, por amor. Amado Dios, en esta hermosa tarde nos acercamos aquí. Una vez más con corazones agradecido por una oportunidad más. El poder estar reunido como su pueblo. Juntos extendiendo el reino del cielo. Te pedimos odio dirección durante todo este tiempo. Que sea un que sea un que sea un tiempo de bendición, tiempo de conocernos, tiempo de estar juntos a través de este medio virtual. Te pedimos que te quedes con nosotros, que nos guíes en todo lo que vamos a hacer. A ti, señor, sea la gloria, la honra y el honor. Hoy, mañana y siempre. Amen, amen. And then thank you, Pastor Yamileth, for that beautiful opening prayer. And I believe I saw Pastor Lara from La Cofridia has a scripture to share. Sí, buenas tardes. Soy el Pastor Lara. Me oyen. Hola. Sí, Pastor, lo escuchamos. Okay. Quiero leer el salmo 133. Me pareció bien traer esta lectura bíblica. Y quiero leerla para bendición de nuestra vida. Mirá con bueno y cuán delicioso es habitar los hermanos juntos en armonía. Es como el buen óleo sobre la cabeza, el cual desciende sobre la barba, la barba de Aarón. Y baja hasta el borde de sus vestiduras. Como el rosillo de Hermón, que desciende sobre los montes de Sion, porque ahí envía a Jehová bendición y vida eterna. Amén. All right. So I believe, as I mentioned, that the topic for tonight is church to church partnerships. The general board of global ministries has a long standing program called Enmission Together. And we are blessed to have with us tonight from the general board of global ministries Reverend Edgar Avitia. And so I wanna turn it over to him to share a little bit with us about the Enmission Together program. Talk to us about the vision for this program, the values that have shaped it and the goals of the program. And Edgar, whatever else you'd like to share as kind of a foundation as we begin to talk about these partnerships between North Texas and the Nishin and Honduras. Good evening. I am Edgar Avitia Legarda, clergy from Rio, Texas, annual conference serving as regional representative for Latin America and the Caribbean with global ministries. Was asked to briefly speak on a background purpose, goals, goal vision, expectations of the Enmission Together. And I will do that for some brief additional thoughts. I don't have the sense of values of please. I apologize if I am speaking too loudly. Back in the 1990s with the relaunching of mission initiatives in Eastern Europe. Global ministries adapted a mythological approach, really, for church and leadership development permeated by best practices learned. And particularly things we learned in through different mission practices we had, mission volunteers, and so on and so forth. And it was then that the Enmission Together that Enmission Together was created. The purpose is to basically to set a connection in good metalist thought, connection. And through that connection equip conferences and missionary entities for transformational relationships based on mutuality and accountability. It's just, it's not a network, right? It's not just partnerships. It's really, in our theology, a connection, a new way to go about connecting the people called metalists. The goal of the so-called IMT partnership is to develop healthy relationships. Relationships that hurt, that do not hurt, I'm sorry. One of our rules, right? A healthy relationship is between within United Methodist brothers and sisters in Christ across cultures modeling and encouraging best practices. That the vision for the Enmission Together, the desired future really for the United Methodist mission in Honduras, and in this case the North Texas International Conference, is to set partnerships with churches that can walk with the mission with the mission now called legally the United Methodist Church in Honduras, that can walk with the mission on becoming a provisional iron conference, hopefully by next, not by this, but by next general conference. Expectations that I see is for such, partnerships to basically abide by the principles of the Enmission Together strategy, and Andy can describe details. We don't have time for that necessarily, but I take Andy as the Enmission Together coordinator for the mission, he can convey those details to whomever is called to work this way. I want to add just some thoughts. I wanted you to, I want to say that Enmission Together is really not a funding strategy which it is, money is involved, but it's more a sort of a sharing of church life. We hope to set covenant in good Methodist theology, a connection in which we can pray for one another, we can study the Bible together, we can pursue a means of grace together, and just find ways to collaborate with God in a given mission context. It's complicated a bit because it's, we live into different geographical areas, right? But we've been trying to do, to find ways to encourage that sharing virtual Bible studies, summits and visits and things like that, and yes, if there's a capacity for a given entity congregation to support the works financially that will always be welcome. And secondly, this is not really a church-to-church relationship, which it is, it is more like a church to mission relationship. So it is connecting churches or conferences ideally. And I think we, in the case of the North Texas conference, we're talking about a North Texas conference we're talking about a North Texas conference, a United Methodist mission in Honduras, sort of relationship. And so it is connecting the different levels of the church in different ways, because one deals with local church for sure, but also with districts, right? We are about to organize very soon districts that's a huge step towards becoming a personal conference and we hope to set partnerships in different levels. And for the church to walk and understand and support and assist and learn from and being blessed by and offer an opportunity to go about mission with the sisters in Honduras. So the hope in that sense is that the local churches and the general mission work are, their strategies are taking into consideration in the relationship of mutuality. So in a nutshell is very, just a very general description of the, of admission together. Thank you, Edgar. And later on tonight, when the churches who already have a admission together partner church are in their breakout rooms, I think what we'll do is have a third breakout room where I will be. And if you'd like, as Edgar said, to kind of explore even more of the detail in terms of how different churches have lived into those partnerships and their practices and the lessons they've learned and even just the nuts and bolts of how to, how to initiate one, then we can have that conversation. But that, Edgar, thank you. It lays a good foundation and reminds us that these partnerships first and foremost are about relationships. If they're about anything, they're about relationships. All right. And so to hear, we want to hear some testimony from first persons in Honduras who have experienced a church to church partnership, talk about the difference it's made. And then after that, we'll hear from one of our North Texas conference churches about their partnership and the difference that it's made. So I want to begin. Who is sharing the testimony tonight? And I'll share my screen because I believe you've got a PowerPoint. Is that Pastor Orlin? Is that you? Bendiciones, no soy yo el que voy a compartir. La presentación se la envía a Milton. ¿La tienen? Here we go. Ah, yes. Sí. Bendiciones a todos. Soy Pastor Orlin. De la Iglesia Metodista de la Segunda. Mi esposa Lorena. Que es una, pues. Vamos. Para concretar y para poder entrar lo que es el testimonio de la relación que tenemos con la Iglesia de Suleyman para nosotros, es, son nuestra familia. Por muchos, nos han acompañado. Y hemos caminado. Varios proyectos se han realizado y uno de ellos es el comedor infantil, donde ellos pues son los que sostienen el comedor financieramente y la Iglesia y la comunidad elaboran los productos para los niños, los alimentos para los niños que atienden un promedio de 80 a 120 niños diario de la comunidad de Seipita. También, pues, durante esta pandemia que aún no está muy bueno y los huracanes también del año pasado los lazos de hermandad se hicieron más fuertes. Sentimos ese acompañamiento de ellos en estos procesos difíciles no nos dejaron de, no nos dejaron solos. Han estado con nosotros siempre. Estas son las partes afectadas de aquí de Seipita. Todas estas familias les ha dado seguimiento con alimento de algunas necesidades que que hay en el cada año bueno, durante el huracán después del huracán aún estamos asistiendo con las familias gracias a la hermandad y gracias a la alianza que hemos tenido con la iglesia no solamente la iglesia de Zulivan y la iglesia local de la Seipita sino la comunidad en general se ha involucrado a participar en cada uno de estos proyectos y actividades. Este es un proyecto es una escuela que también la iglesia de Zulivan igual que la iglesia local hemos estado cambiando en la construcción de las hablas el tipo de material que es necesitado para poder llevar a cabo con la unión de las clases equipando al unión. Cada año tenemos una brigada médica también donde 15-30 personas nos unimos asistiendo a la comunidad a la comunidad de Seipita La Montana y también parte de la ciudad de Tokua esto nos ha ayudado a crecer juntos y a compartir juntos no solamente los proyectos los sueños que tenemos sino compartir nuestras culturas creencias y somos una misión un equipo y un solo Dios un problema trabajamos con una sola misión somos un equipo y para un solo Dios toda la semana nosotros nos reunimos para compartir nuestras experiencias los avances de los proyectos problemas que puedan surgir tenemos una comunicación muy linda y esto nos ayuda a permanecer más unidos nos ayuda a sentirnos estamos cerca no estamos tan distanciados no estamos cerca avance con la presentación thank you so much Paso Arlene mucho mas just two things that I want to say about what you shared are these one is that you talked about how important the regular communication has been for your partnership I think we all understand how critical partnership is to a strong communication is to a strong relationship and it's obvious that as you shared that you and the Sullivan church are in touch regularly the other thing I'd lift up is that I think it's important to see that Paso Arlene and Lorena your church sees the needs and you hear what God is calling you to do and then your brothers and sisters in Sullivan support you and empower you to do what you are feeling called to do and this kind of relationship it's been a blessing you shared that Sullivan has offered financial support but they've directed those dollars where you believe God has called you to send them and so I think it's important for us on this side of the border to remember that and to kind of humbly follow the lead of our friends and hunder us so Paso Arlene and Lorena thank you for reminding us of that and sharing that with us alright so then also we have with us tonight Reverend Holly Bandel and Holly is there another person presenting with you or is it just you tonight it's just me well you will be fantastic great we have UMC Dallas supporters here today good good so thank you for having me I'm Holly Bandel I'm one of the pastors at First United Methodist Church in Dallas and we've had a journey in being in partnership with La Cofradia and Pastor Laura over the past two years I saw a friend on here I haven't seen in a while Dr. Tom Bryan was my first introduction through Send Hope to Honduras I think I was last there in 2008 so it's been a long time so I'm anxious to go to Honduras again and to be like in the picture sitting together worshiping together eating together so I'm excited for that time to come sooner rather than later so our story at First United Methodist Church Dallas begins I guess in 2019 Richard Speese is a member of our congregation was a part of one of the inaugural trips with the North Texas Conference to Honduras prior to that our congregation had taken several courts and ports down to Brownsville trying to understand the efforts with migration and also to be supportive and so we already had a task force of about 25 to 30 people which Richard was leading and so when he saw the opportunity to go to Honduras and to think about church partnerships he went as the only person from our congregation and there he got to see many of the churches the mission in Honduras and also got to know other churches in the North Texas Conference that were interested in connecting in Honduras and so when Richard returned he made a presentation and we also began to connect with Reverend Amy Spar with Christ Foundry United Methodist Mission here in Dallas and also Reverend Martha Valencia working at Elmwood United Methodist Church to really figure out how we might all partner together for and with the mission in Honduras and we dreamed about the potential of relating to a church together as a group of churches with First United Methodist Church primarily being white in English speaking we felt like this would be a great way to connect with other parts of our city with other people of different language and culture in our own city in Dallas and then also to be partners with the mission in Honduras and so when they were on the trip they kept talking about Pastor Laura and La Cofradia and felt a real draw to be in partnership with Pastor Laura and they were excited about the way that La Cofradia was serving in the community and particularly using the gifts of women in their church and so over the past year of course then the pandemic had we kind of did all of this work to kind of begin to tell the story of La Cofradia and then the pandemic hit and so we were given the gift of Zoom and Martha Valencia has kind of been our convener for our church partnership and she brings us together with Pastor Laura it was so good to see him earlier I don't know if he's still on the call but Pastor Laura so good to see you there you are we have met over Zoom about once a quarter and it has been really a blessing to walk with each other to get to know each other in this time of the pandemic which has been a strain on people across the globe and to then be able to lean on one another I know we have talked extensively about how it has been as pastors to be with one another during this time and how Zoom has really been helping us with that so Alan Carroll who's on the call tonight is our current leader of our task force and she met Pastor Laura just a couple months ago and I got Alan's permission to read something she wrote after she met Pastor Laura for the first time and heard about the church in Honduras and she said the pandemic of course is affecting the way Pastor Laura and his congregation function just has as affected all of us they are worshiping from home and family units just like us in Dallas and Pastor Laura preaches to growth groups via his Facebook page several times a week his congregation is working with a nursing home in the area helping to provide them with food and cleaning supplies because they are seeing a rise in cases of COVID Pastor Laura limits his face-to-face contacts with his congregation and community but uses the phone to stay connected to everyone and so I want to thank you Alan for your reflections and witness as we continue this partnership and we have begun in a new way to tell the story of La Cofidia and our church through our first gifts which we do in December and now ready after some months of getting to know Pastor Laura to really get our whole congregation involved and so just on a personal note I'm amazed at Pastor Laura's gifts for ministry as he continues the lead and made the restrictions and challenges and it's been a blessing to share and pray with one another in this incredibly difficult year to know each other and our families and so I'm reminded of the scripture in 1 Corinthians chapter 12 verse 26 where Paul talks about the body of Christ and Paul says if one member suffers all suffer together with it and if one member is honored all rejoice together with it and so that's what our partnership really means to me we are praying with one another we are embodying each other's suffering and also rejoicing with one another and what amazing day it will be when we can be in person with one another and I look forward to that May God make it possible Amen Holly thank you so much and all of the folks on the call tonight from First Dallas and Christ Foundry in particular I love the way that we're creative and recognize that each of your congregations had something to bring to a partnership and that you joined forces and now are connected with La Cofridia and Pastor Laura in that way I think that's just a great testimony to begin the collaboration and partnership in a different kind of way and we know y'all are just beginning so good so we've heard a couple of folks speak about their experience with partnership before we take a break I just want to create a little bit of space here in case there are any questions that you may have about the admission together program about the nature of these partnerships how they work what they're like you can drop those in the chat if there are any questions right off the bat here then we'll address those and again we can pick up the rest after we take a break during the breakout time so I see a question I'm just reading it from Alyssa Dare you said that you were partnering with many churches in Dallas to work with the mission to all the churches in Dallas and the church in Honduras meet on zoom together so I think Holly that's a question for you about how that partnership works so what we did to begin with is that it was me and Richard Spees and the pastors from Christ Foundry United Methodist Mission Reverend Amy Sparr and Reverend Martha Valencia from Elmwood United Methodist Church we met together with Pastor Laura on zoom and we've been doing that for gosh I feel like it's been um yeah about it maybe about a year and and now it feels like we have Alan come on our last call so slowly kind of adding people to our communications into how we are kind of telling the story of La Cofordia so yeah it I don't know how Pastor Laura feels about our zoom calls but they've been a great small group for us and then I envision ways that we'll be able to tell the story to larger groups in our congregation going forward especially with zoom Pastor Laura would you would you like to share about your zoom things with the pastors in Dallas I need someone to translate for me to understand Pastor Laura is asking if you want to share how you've shared our Zoom meetings if you also want to share or add something about our Zoom meetings okay it's been I've never had the experience and it's been very nice because we've had three meetings it's been a great blessing because you give me news about what's happening there I share it with the church leader and the same thing with you and I think you share it too so yeah it's been nice to be a leader because it makes us feel that we're not alone we have a big family then and that family that worries about us because during the pandemic it's been a very difficult time and you've been quite worried about us and it's been a great blessing to know that you pray for us and that we pray for you thank you so much thank you so I think let's ask I have one more question that I see in the chat and then we will take our quick break so the question is for Pastor Orlean so Pastor Orlean do you want to know who do you meet with or who do you communicate with from the church in Sullivan with Mike who is the leader Mike Craig who is the leader of the team with them we are constantly in communication so Mike Craig is the team leader is he a lay member of the church in Sullivan Laicos yes okay on the team good my friends so here is the plan we'll take a 10 minute break in just a moment when we get back Milton Yovatis one of the excellent staff members of the mission and Honduras will share a culture moment with us and help us be immersed a bit of Honduras and then we will switch to breakout rooms and again folks from First Dallas will be with Pastor Laura of First Dallas and Chris Foundry in particular and then folks from Prosper will be with Pastor Yamile and then everyone else is welcome to join a breakout session with me where we'll talk a little bit more about the details of these church to church partnerships so it's 718 we'll plan to resume at 728 I want to welcome Milton Yovatis Milton I should say has been a fantastic partner to me and Janet Fisher a layperson from First Denton as we prepared for this virtual mission trip Milton is the United Methodist Volunteers and Mission Coordinator for the mission in Honduras and we'll hear from him tomorrow and then those kinds of trips will be the focus of our evening together but tonight he is going to share a culture moment we'll have one of these each night and so I'm going to share my screen so you can see his PowerPoint and then turn it over to Milton before you do I believe the administrator can change the names thank you then I will try that too thank you Milton thank you Andy for that introduction I hope I'm on the right channel and that you're all able to hear me well like Andy said my name is Milton and I'm working as a volunteer and mission coordinator for Honduras but tonight I have just a little bit of an introduction for you all so you can learn a little bit about Honduras through a screen of course it will be better once you're able to travel and see it with your own eyes in real life but for now I can guide you through a little bit of Honduras and its culture like you say see on the screen Honduras is archaeology and beaches and mountains and delicious food like Andy mentioned yesterday about the food I guarantee you it is delicious it will make a vegetarian eat meat it's also a lot of most of its friendly people and much more we can go to the next so you what you see right now is what we call Copan ruinas or the ruins here and Copan is an archaeology center of the Mayan culture it is located about 254 miles from Tegucigapa which is a capital city and 70 miles from San Pedro Sula you can get there by car there is a wide selection of hotels and restaurants Copan was also declared in 1980 as a cultural heritage of humanity so this will be something really nice that you will be able to see if you go through, I mean to that area of the country also we have islas de la Bahía what we will call it in Spanish or the Bay Islands in English and of course you can do a lot of research after you see the presentation about each place but because of time I am just giving you little tips about each place just so you can have a little information about so the Bay Islands consists of 8 islands and 53 small caves 10 to 40 miles of the northern coast of Honduras these islands have been administered as a department of the Republic of Honduras since 1872 and they are located on the Caribbean Sea not far east of the entrance of the Gulf of Honduras they are clearly visible from the mountainous mainland the group is made up of the three large islands Itila, Rota, and Buenaja and the smaller islands or smaller island groups St. Helena Barbereda and Morat and closest to the mainland the two high islands and Cayos Cochinos I must say our country director Thomas Brooks I believe it's on the call tonight he's from one of these islands one of the probably the most beautiful ones at least that's the one that has been the most and it's beautiful they are Roatan so that's also a place that you must travel to if you visit us in Honduras we also have Castillo, Fernando de Homoa it is a fortress located in Homoa Bay 40 miles from San Pedro Sula this fortress was used by the Spanish to protect the bay in the place there are also some prisons that are preserved intact and they were used to put enemy troops in them we also have La Seiba and Tela some of the groups that come to the north area actually do a one day tour in some of these places they do at least one day to know a little bit of the area and enjoy the sun by the beach these are probably two of the most popular beaches in the north of the country Tela is located 187 miles from Tegucigalpa and 57 miles from San Pedro Sula La Seiba is 118 miles from Tegucigalpa in La Seiba there is an international airport and the city is also known as the bright of Honduras and they have also a carnival but of course we haven't had that because of the pandemic but I'm sure the city is already ready for that to happen again we have La Ancetilla it is the largest and most important botanical garden in the country it is located in the north in the city of Tela and it has huge diversity of species of plants and trees and it receives around 50,000 visits every year so it is definitely if you like gardens and to learn about all these botanical topics definitely it's a place to go and visit we also have the Cuevas de Tablave which are caves and these were these are like in between the road from Tegucigalpa to San Pedro Sula so probably two hours from Tegucigalpa and two hours also from San Pedro Sula if we go back heading to the capital city and we have also Valle de Ángeles which is one of the most common places where we go with teams because of how close it is from the capital city it's only 30 to 40 minute drive from the city I'm sure like some of the people that are in the call tonight have been to these places and they love it and it's definitely if you come to this area of the country it's definitely a place to go and enjoy a good afternoon a good view and enjoying a cup of coffee of course because they have great coffee and we also have La Tigra it's a national park that it's considered the long of the capital it is a humid forest of 60,000 acres and it can be reached by car to a certain point and then start a good hike if you are a fan of hiking this is definitely a place to go it's located about 40 minutes from the city and it has an enormous biodiversity which is only 15 minutes from the town that I talked to you about in the slide before this one it is definitely a beautiful place to go personally I was there with some coworkers last weekend three days ago and it's definitely a place to go and fully recommend it if you want to have a huge change from the city in such a short amount of time by car so that's it for tonight I hope you guys enjoyed it and made you a little bit curious coming down and going to any of these places and like I said if you want more information you can definitely get a copy maybe of the slideshow if you want it request that to Andy or myself and get more information about it on the web so thank you very much thanks Milton thank you Milton alright so with that with the remaining time we have tonight we have 20 minutes we're going to separate into breakout rooms and so in just a moment I'll open the rooms the folks from 1st Dallas Christ Foundry and La Cofradia will be in room one folks in from Prosper and Pastor Jamileth will be in room two and then everyone else have assigned to room three so two quick words I'm still not sure which Andy Lewis is Pastor Jamileth so I've assigned all of the Andy Lewis's to room number two if that's not the room you want to be in then we'll do our best to move you we'll do our best and then for everyone in room three this is that point on the mission trip where if you're out of gas there's a fiesta happening and you just need to go back to the bunk and lay down and opt out then that's okay if you're in room three and it's time for you to go tuck in the kids that's okay but if you want to stay on and talk a little bit more about these partnerships with me and others on the call then that room will be open and we'd love for you to stay as long so any questions before I open the rooms Reverend Peña good night buenas noches Pastor Jamileth, buenas noches buenas noches