REACH HONDURAS FOR CHRIST
ROD AND KRISTY RUDINE
BAPTIST MISSIONARIES TO HONDURAS
AUGUST 2023
We pray you are doing well. We are so grateful for your prayers and support to help us in this war. Interestingly, as I was beginning to write this newsletter, the hymn “He Leadeth Me! O Blessed Thought” was coming to mind really strong. Come to find out the hymn’s author, Joseph H. Gilmore, wrote it during the darkest period of the US Civil War in 1862. The song was inspired while Gilmore was preparing a sermon out of Psalm 23 highlighting two points: 1) “He leadeth me”, and 2) “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death.” This is an amazing revelation of the Holy Spirit as it is precisely what I wanted to express to you about the violence of life in Honduras that is like a war. In addition, we believe there is also a war going on in the United States, a political and geopolitical war.
Gangs operate in the shadows everywhere in Honduras. Inside of the last 20 years gang control has reached complete saturation in my observation. You can only insulate yourself by living in a neighborhood with an armed guard, which most can’t afford. Apart from that you are living with constant exposure. In brief, gangs sell drugs, steal, extort, and impose their own lethal law enforcement. They make themselves the neighborhood dispute police and do not hesitate to take someone’s life in course of imposing a resolution. This is Honduras, the banana republic where we have fought to bring the Light of Christ.
God answered prayer by working out the time to meet privately with the young man, Steven, who I mentioned in the last newsletter. Steven listened to the gospel, read the Scriptures for himself, and got on his knees to call on the Lord Jesus. We prayed for the time to speak to his girlfriend, Elody, and the opportunity came in just a few weeks. I remember the look on her face when she read 1 Cor. 6:9-10 and felt the weight of her sins against God. Elody also called on Jesus to save her. Glory to God! How shall they hear without a preacher? (Rom. 10:14)
The town of Tocoa is about a two-hour drive to the east of us. It had been in my heart for many years to go to Tocoa and preach. Kristy and I went in May and set up on the corner of their Central Park and preached and gave out tracts for a few hours. It was HOT!, so hot in fact that Kristy’s cell phone only let her take five pictures and then shut down giving her the message “it was too hot.” After several minutes of preaching, I paused to reach for some water only to be immediately intercepted by a passerby giving me, of all things, a cold bottled water. A man bought cold water for me and Kristy. What a blessing!
We know our time is short and our resources are very limited for few options, so we have been praying to walk in the wisdom and peace of the Lord regarding decisions for the future. Travel back to the States is something we are trying to work out right now. Simply put, it is a complex endeavor which we will face by faith. We thank you for standing with us because the battle has run very long and we feel it.
For the cause of Christ, Rod and Kristy Rudine