| Bio: We are church planters working with the Chorti in western Honduras. Our career with the IMB started in 1998 and after one year in language school in Costa Rica, we arrived in Honduras. In 2002 we began working with the Chorti and after stateside assignment in July 2003 we moved to Copan Ruinas to be closer to the Chorti.
The Chorti are direct descendents of the Mayan civilization. They live in remote mountain villages in western Honduras and eastern Guatemala in very poor conditions. In Honduras they are third generation Spanish speakers. While there has been evangelical work among the Chorti in Guatemala for several years, there was no missionary from any mission agency working with the Chorti. The Chorti population in Honduras is estimated to be about 55,000 and less than 1/3 of 1 percent evangelized.
There are many physical needs among the Chorti such as food, water, education, medical care, housing, general hygiene, and the list continues. Parkwood and other Southern Baptist churches have been instrumental in opening the doors of the Chorti communities with prayer walking teams, medical teams, and evangelism teams. The Rotary Club of Gastonia North Carlonia working with Rotary International and Rotary Clubs in Copan have are working to get clean water into Chorti villages.
Parkwood has also worked with us developing an agricultural training center. The center purpose of the center is to reach the Chorti with the gospel while meeting some of their physical needs such as hunger and health. There are currently 6 villages participating. All the teaching is centered around Bible teachings. Participants of the agricultural project are required to teach others what they have learned with makes the model reproducible. The training center has a model farm; goat, fish, and bee project; and very soon a health education program that is linked to an improved wood cook stove project.
There is now a church in the village of Otuta. After over two years of working in this village in June Billy had the privilege of baptizing 6 young people. The leader of the group is from that village as well as the young lady teaching the children.
We have also been teaching for over three years in San Isidro. There is one Christian family in that village. The children attend the Bible study on Sunday but very few if any adults attend. This is one of six villages being impacted through the training center.
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