When the Covid-19 pandemic struck, the nationally mandated quarantine necessary to stem the spread of the virus wreaked havoc on the welfare of the many remote communities that make up the Episcopal Mayan Deanery. These are the communities with which we have worked and worshiped during our Honduras mission trips since 2004. While people were able to avoid infection to a large extent, their sources of income disappeared. If they had jobs outside their home community, they were unable to go to them. If they depended on running one of the myriad little neighborhood enterprises that are a common means of support, they couldn’t get supplies and merchandise to sell. If they produced a commodity like coffee, they couldn’t take it to market. Within weeks many families were on the verge of starvation.
Fr. Marco Varela is the priest-in-charge of the Mayan Deanery. We have worked with him closely during Honduras mission trips. When we learned from him of the severity of the situation, Trinity began to request contributions to provide hunger relief for these communities. We began sending hunger relief money in April 2020. Fr. Marco obtained special travel permission to allow him to deliver basic food supplies to the isolated churches. In fall 2020, back-to-back hurricanes devastated Honduras, destroying roads and bridges. Landslides and extreme flooding left thousands of people without homes and any means of support. This exacerbated the situation and continues to delay economic recovery and humanitarian aid efforts.
We have continued to send money for food relief as Trinity members and friends have generously contributed to the appeals for help. As of this July we have used up the funding we have raised. All of this money has been used to purchase bulk food supplies which have been delivered by Fr. Marco to our brothers and sisters of the Mayan Deanery. View the video above of the distribution of food to some of the church communities. We have worked together with five of the communities shown on this video.
The need has not disappeared, and conditions are still dire. On our recent mission to Honduras, we learned that inflation is very high, and unemployment is rampant. Many people are still on the verge of starvation. Please consider donating to Trinity’s Honduras Hunger Relief Fund. You may donate on the Trinity website using “Honduras Hunger” as the designation for your gift. You may also send a check payable to Trinity with a memo for Honduras Hunger.
-Margaret and Oakley Pearson
