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HONDURAS CURFEW DELAYS PINE BLUFF MISSIONARIES

By Wes Clement/OF THE COMMERCIAL STAFF
Saturday, October 3, 2009 8:42 PM CDT

A group from First United Methodist Church took a longer mission trip than anticipated recently as a travel curfew was enforced in Honduras.

Special to The Commercial

In May, the church sent a team of 18 to Honduras to do construction work at an orphanage for children whose parents have either been infected with HIV or have died from AIDS.

“When we were there (in May) we sort of heard rumblings that there were a lot of problems with the political situation in Honduras.,” Debe Hollingsworth said. “Little did we know, right when we got back, that’s when they ousted (President Manuel) Zelaya.”

The team decided to keep plans for the September trip since other teams had still been traveling to and from the country without incident. Hollingsworth said the seven person group realized they might encounter difficulties in the country.

A travel curfew went into affect after Roberto Micheletti, who replaced ousted Zelaya, found out Zelaya sneaked back into the country, reports said.

The team could not legally travel from the village of Limon and the curfew was extended that Tuesday morning during their trip.

“We couldn’t travel up into the mountains, we had to stay put,” Hollingsworth said. “We couldn’t do anything.”

She said the team’s remote location was far removed from the looting, violence and other effects of the uprising.

When the team woke up the next day, they heard the curfew was to remain in place all day.

People from the First Methodist team and the church they worked with prayed the curfew would be removed.

“At the last minute Micheletti lifted the curfew from 10 to 4 that afternoon, which was nothing but an answered prayer for us. That gave us time to pack up medicine and get ourselves out of there. We had a window of six hours to get to the ferry and we got there at 4.”

“We had doctors that were busy seeing patients in a clinic and a lot of things to wrap up before leaving,” Jack Hollingsworth said. “So, we wrapped those things up as quickly as possible.”

The ferry took the team to an island where the Honduras government did not have authority to enforce a curfew.

“Normally you’ll go through what we call checkpoints where you’ll have police standing in the road,” Debe Hollingsworth said, “and that’s not unusual in Honduras at all. This time we went through 10.”

Jack Hollingsworth said the curfew experience has not changed the church’s plans for future Honduras missions.

An election is to be held during late November in Honduras.

“We’ll be watching the political situation throughout the election period and following the election and assuming a new leader is accepted by the international community, there shouldn’t be any problems with travel.”

First Methodist is in its seventh year of sending teams to Honduras.

“It was worthwhile,” Dr. Lloyene Reid said. “We got some things accomplished and we were never in any real danger. The people there have a difficult situation, but they’re trying to do something about it.”

Debe Hollingsworth said the office of former U.S. Sen. David Pryor and the U.S. Embassy were helpful during the curfew.

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