Bringing the Gospel to Honduras

From July 7-12, I’ll be in San Pedro Sula, Honduras in house-to-house evangelism and preaching each evening in local churches. I arrive in Honduras on Sunday, July 6 and fly back to the U.S. on Sunday, July 13.

My first evangelism visit to Honduras was to La Ceiba in 2005. La Ceiba is on the Caribbean Sea coast and is the country’s third largest city. This year, I’ll be in San Pedro Sula, which is inland and Honduras’ second largest city. Honduras in an emerging Central American country. It has coasts on the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific Ocean and is bordered by Guatemala, El Salvador and Nicaragua.

Honduras is open to the Gospel. I’ll be part of a STAR (Sowing, Teaching And Reaping) team sponsored by Bible Basics International, which is headquartered in Odessa, FL near Tampa. In both La Ceiba and San Pedro Sula, several local churches sponsor week-long efforts for STAR teams by setting up visitation appointments for the team with interested families and then sponsor evening meetings in churches. Schools allow—even welcome—qualified medical people from the team to speak directly on AIDS, which is exploding in Central America. In many instances, direct evangelistic invitations are allowed, and students decide for Christ on public school property.

Hondurans are well acquainted with American culture. Hotels may have as many as 40 U.S. TV channels available. Even though some will express dislike for Americas, they are copying our ways and learning our language. On my last trip, I asked why the girls were dressed the way they were and was told, "They are copying you Americans!" Many students are in English schools to learn our "mother tongue," which has become the foremost language of the world. While some Hondurans express distress with America, most would come to the U.S. in a heartbeat if given the opportunity. Even pastors are discouraged from coming to the U.S. for training conferences for fear they will never return thus depleting the population.

On my visit in 2005, I was able to lead ten people to Christ in their homes or places of business as I witnessed though a Spanish translator. One visit saw a father and grandfather receive Christ. In another home, both husband and wife received the Lord. In a hot, humid, little neighborhood store, a woman asked Christ to be her Savior. In another visit a young man who was recovering from gunshot wounds suffered in a holdup opened his life to Christ.

The final house visit was to a well-to-do gated community where an English-speaking businessman and alcoholic lived. His father had spoken English fluently. "He’s all yours, Dave," our team’s translator told me. "You won’t need an interpreter for this one." After nearly an hour of conversation, he surrendered to the Lord, and he came to church to hear me preach that night.

In another home, a man dying of cancer that was eating away his chest refused to accept Christ. He had promised his father he’d never leave the Catholic Church even though it meant he would not be born again and enter Heaven. I asked whether his father was in Heaven, and he said he didn’t know. I told him that if his father was in Hell, he was pleading for someone to tell him how to avoid that place as Luke 16:27-31 says.

"‘I beg you therefore, father, that you would send him to my father’s house, for I have five brothers, that he may testify to them, lest they also come to this place of torment.’ Abraham said to him, ‘They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them.’ And he said, ‘No, father Abraham; but if one goes to them from the dead, they will repent.’ But he said to him, ‘If they do not hear Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded though one rise from the dead.’"

I pointed out that his one witness to truth was the Bible but he refused to hear. His dear born-again Christian wife sat nearby crying as we talked. We finally left as she sat sadly nearby her dying husband. But we had discharged our obligation and sadly felt like the prophet in Ezek 3:18-19:

"When I say to the wicked, ‘You shall surely die,’ and you give him no warning, nor speak to warn the wicked from his wicked way, to save his life, that same wicked man shall die in his iniquity; but his blood I will require at your hand. Yet, if you warn the wicked, and he does not turn from his wickedness, nor from his wicked way, he shall die in his iniquity; but you have delivered your soul."

I preached at a city-wide rally on the last night of our 2005 trip. I am still in touch with a young man who rededicated his life in that meeting. He told me, "I want to be just like you, and preach and preach and preach." He is continuing in the things of the Lord.

I am thankful for the many friends who have supported this year’s endeavor financially and for those who are praying for a harvest of souls as many are born into the Kingdom of God. If you can, breathe a prayer for me July 6-13. Many of the sponsoring local church people in Honduras are having all night prayer meetings, even with fasting, as they anticipate a rich harvest of souls.

Dave Virkler