New Challenges for DESEO and ESPERO Due to School Closures

10 Jun New Challenges for DESEO and ESPERO Due to School Closures

While COVID cases and deaths are dropping in the U.S., they are on the rise here in Honduras.  Our hospitals have been at the point of collapsing.  Most of the public schools were not fully in person, but rather they had one grade attend daily so that they could get some limited instruction as well as their homework assignments.  The government decided to close schools for a 2-week period and have now extended it for another 60 days.  This includes our deaf school for adults.  We are in the process of presenting our case before the school board for special permission with the promise of limiting attendance and respecting spacing and mask wearing.  We are praying for approval as online instruction is very challenging and ineffective for deaf individuals.  Please be in prayer about that.

Our DESEO team has been visiting schools on the days the students were attending in the mornings and then offering tutoring in limited numbers in the afternoons.  In response to this new shutdown, we have responded by choosing to go from house to house to offer one on one tutoring, or in some cases in small groups, outdoors and respecting spacing.  We were not certain how parents might react due to everyone being so fearful about the spread of COVID.  To our delight, almost all the families we have visited are overwhelmed with gratitude.  One father even offered to build a roof over his porch to make it easier for our team.  We see this as an open door for evangelism as we become more personally connected with families in the community by being in their homes and meeting one of their greatest needs by helping to educate their children.  Our video program continues, and now we can see clearly that videos are the key to continuing to teach the Bible and important values to as many children as possible that will impact their lives now and in the future.