According to the Center for Economic and Policy Research, Honduras has suffered immeasurably in the last 12 years, during which the country has endured two devastating hurricanes and the slowest economic recovery from the pandemic of any Central American country. As recently as July of 2021, the government estimates that 73 percent of Hondurans live in poverty with 53 percent living in extreme poverty which, among many other things, impacts children immensely.
In the midst of all this, Debbie and Steve Buckner, missionaries at the LAMB Institute, have made ministry to children their full-time focus since 2014. They serve at the Children’s Home, one of several LAMB ministries around Tegucigalpa, Honduras. Spend just a minute with the Buckners and you will not only hear the stories of these kids of various age ranges, but you’ll also hear firsthand the love the they have for these children. “Steve is basically a human jungle-gym for the younger ones,” says Debbie. “And the teenage girls with all their moodiness tend to come to me.”
Kids who have been shunned, orphaned, or impacted by grinding poverty now live in a Christ-centered environment. Showing Christ’s love personally is the Buckner’s trademark. For instance, every year, every child, is given a personal birthday party. “We give each child a personal gift from us, a gift from the Children’s Home, and a cake. All the other kids in their cabin, and any siblings, are invited. We try to be creative with each one and all the kids so look forward to having their own party,” Debbie says.
Steve assists with things like parties, but his main focus is a carpentry ministry. In 2018 a shop was built for him to build pieces that the kids could sell, but with the pandemic Steve had to adapt. “I was already making bookshelves for the school, but then with the new shop I starting making tables, desks, stools, anything that was needed really. But now that we have mission groups returning, the kids are once again selling the items we make and they earn some decent money. Plus, the kids come to me with their ideas of something creative to make.”
Steve adds, “In addition to school, they are learning to run a business. We now have a store and I buy the wood and they make the piece and then they pay me back with the proceeds from their sales. I teach them how to price things and also that raw materials aren’t free – everything counts – the wood, the glue, the screws, the nails, the stain. All of that stuff adds up and has to be accounted for in the price of the item. And they also learn to tithe and give ten percent to the church.”
Debbie is the money person. She has a bank set up and the money is there as the children need it, but the children are counseled by the Buckners on how to manage money and make wise saving and spending decisions. They are taught to save for things they need and they are held accountable to ensure the money doesn’t burn a whole in their pocket, spending it on snack food and sodas.
Money management is central to Debbie because she runs a clothing bodega (thrift shop) and sewing ministry. The kids help run the shop comprised of donated clothing, hats, jewelry, and items that are handmade. The kids share in the profits from the items they sell in which half goes to the kids and the other half goes to buy more material, thread, or whatever is needed.
The role that the Buckners play is evident in the kids themselves. Alex is one such child. “Alex was one kid that was due to be leaving. He was angry all the time and aggressive and never listened, “says Debbie. “He bit Steve. He even fought physically with the pastor.”
Yet they began to see a change. “Since the woodshop opened, he’s a different kid. He started coming to work, and giving him a place to release his energy and creativity was key. Soon his creativity spilled over to a garden at his cabin. He built, by himself, a fence for the garden. He began to farm and grow vegetables. The catalyst was encouragement and really just having a safe place where he could find an outlet for his talents. He’s now a joy to be around, plus he’s good at it and he’s proud of his work. Just recently he’s been confirmed and now he serves the church on the altar guild. He does it with reverence and now knows how to serve on a team with other kids, being a crucifer, and helping the others. Seeing the likeness of Christ in kids like Alex is what energizes us every day.”
I have not written a prayer letter in a long time! I have not ceased to be a missionary, but I had ceased to be completely dependent on financial support. However, prayer letters are not just about financial support but also about mutual encouragement and prayer. I repent and I apologize, especially since I do consider many of you as friends and certainly brothers and sisters in Christ.
Life gets in the way! That is certainly what the enemy uses to distract us. Fortunately, in spite of my self-reliance, God has kept me busy doing missionary work. I continue to be an associate missionary with the Society of Anglican Missionaries and Senders (SAMS). I continue to be President of Osman Hope, Inc. and we continue to help the children and families of Honduras.
As an update on Osman Hope, I will tell you that the last couple years have been a period of adaptation as it has in everybody’s lives due to the pandemic. During the pandemic we had to switch to closing shelters and feeding families by providing baskets of goods every couple weeks. Starting in 2022, we officially opened all the shelters and with the necessary measures are receiving the children and going back to feeding them, helping them with school work and encouraging them with their walk with the Lord and with their life goals. Of great encouragement is that we have several of our high school graduates attending university and have just celebrated the graduation from university of a young lady with an Electrical Engineering degree. Others did not choose the university route but are gainfully employed! Thank you for your encouragement and support as I have walked through this call.
On a personal front, three years ago I decided to move to Florida. The empty nest and the cold weather of Pennsylvania influenced me to move to a very active retirement community. I thank the Lord every day for the move, but I also have to watch my priorities as there is a lot of pull into worldly activities that can zap my energy and take away from God’s work. Although just being the light is good! I am still very close to my Lord and sometimes I am surprised that people notice and react/ respond to the light that is in me because of Christ being in me. I am constantly reminded that it is about “being” not “doing”, but I do believe that doing is good for many reasons.
A new call! Another call? Last September I went to Kenya and Tanzania to fulfill one of my life’s desires, to go on Safari! I had a wonderful time! I loved the people, the animals, the land… I came back resolved that I would go back. Five days after my return from Africa I attended the New Wineskins missionary conference in Ashville, North Carolina. It was there that I discovered that my trip to Africa had a greater purpose than I realized.
SAMS had a missionary gathering/conference prior to New Wineskins. It is a great event of meeting as a society, meeting with the other missionaries, worshipping, spending time with the Lord, etc. As part of this conference, we were broken into small groups to share with each other and encourage each other, be of support. Well, lo and behold, my small group was composed of women who either were or have been missionaries in Africa. By day 2, I had these women laying hands on me and praying for me to discern a call to Africa!
In all of the activities that we did for self-reflection, Africa was on my mind. So, I met with SAMS about this stirring and was given a list of people I should talk to while at the conference since many were there. It was amazing how God orchestrated me running into the very same people I needed to talk to! If I told you how all of that happened, it would take many pages but believe me God was doing His thing!
In summary, I left the conference knowing that God was calling me to do work in Africa. But what about Honduras? Was my question. The answer was and is “You can do both”. In prayer I was given the word that there would be synergy between Africa and Honduras and that one would benefit from the other! Wow! How exciting!
I am in conversation with two different teams of SAMS missionaries in Africa. First, Richard and Martha Menees will soon be arriving in Uganda to work on a project of the Diocese there. They will be working on renovating a site in an island to convert it into a prayer retreat center. They would love for me to join their team to do some project planning, marketing plans and general business planning. As you may remember I have a business background and they do not!
The second SAMS missionary is Lucy Chavez. Her ministry in Kenya helps youth with scholarship, mentorship and very much the same that we do at Osman Hope. During holiday, they do vacation bible school. It is possible that I can help with that.
Where do we go from here? ”But I know the plans that I have for you says the Lord” What I hear is to go to Africa in the Spring/Summer of 2023 to help the Menees kick start their project. There will be a need for canvassing the competition, assessing the realities of the resources and do a reality check of what is possible. Of course, the Lord oversees that!
I will take advantage and visit Missionary Lucy Chavez’s ministry and see how and where I fit in their plans. I believe their holiday time is later in the summer so there would probably be a second trip in the summer. Only God knows. I will probably go to Africa at least twice next year for a period of two to four weeks in between trips to Honduras.
I am excited about the work in Uganda as we plan to work with the locals providing employment as well as forming relationships. We want to involve them in the project creating opportunities to share the gospel while gaining access to their knowledge of the land and culture. I am equally excited about the ministry in Kenya as it is very similar to what we do in Honduras. I love finding fun ways to share the gospel with the youth.
Would you be interested in helping to send me on this mission financially and with your prayers? Airfare to Africa is on average $1,500- $2,000 per trip. I am not sure at this point what the cost of room and board will be or the local transportation. All in all, I am foreseeing that I will need an additional $5,000-7,000 to be able to go twice and stay 2-4 weeks on each trip.
All I know is that the Lord has put the burden on my heart to go to Africa to make disciples of all nations!
So, I humbly come to you to ask you to partner with me in this mission to Africa while still helping in Honduras. You can help in prayer, encouragement and financial support. And I promise, I will keep you informed of God’s miracles on this journey because you know there will be many!
For His glory,
Margarita
Psalm 37:4 “Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart”
As I have delighted in Him, He has placed the desire to go to Africa in my heart!
Last week, we hosted our 6th Thanksgiving gathering! Thanksgiving is an inherently American holiday, but even more than that it’s a way of life that God calls us too. These words from Catechesis Books, a publishing company, really sum up our heart for hosting and sharing Thanksgiving to those around us here in Cambodia.
“As many of you may know from “We Believe,” the word “Eucharist” simply means “Thanksgiving.” This word has been used for over two thousand years to refer to the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper. When we celebrate American Thanksgiving, I always think about the Eucharist as well – how very beautiful to be invited to and to participate in a Thanksgiving feast instituted by Christ himself in his final days!
There are some distinctly common elements shared by the two feasts – both are a participation in ordinary graces (our basic food) for the sake of remembering with gratitude what we have been given and for binding us more tightly in relationship (during the Eucharist with Christ, and during Thanksgiving with one another).”
This has been our heart, to host a Thanksgiving that fits into a larger picture of fellowship that God calls us to have with other believers. We gather, reflect on the year, and give praise to God for the wonderful things he has done for us, in us, and around us.
When we first started this six years ago, we rented large tents and invited everyone from AHIS and had 120 people! We’ve toned it down since then to more of our closer friends who we walk alongside with regularly. This year we prayed about who we will miss the most since next year we will be in the States for Thanksgiving, and it mostly centered around our Cambodian friends. So this year we invited our closest Cambodian friends and our new Norwegian friends (who had never experienced Thanksgiving before!) We are so grateful for these fellow image bears the Lord has placed in our lives.
Roberto and Cameron Vivanco have been serving together in Ecuador as SAMS Missionaries for over 16 years. (Cameron, 2001, Roberto, 2006)
Cameron and Roberto serve in an international non-profit Cameron started in 2009 to help children in desperate and difficult situations. This ministry resources Ecuadorian churches to come alongside children and families trapped in poverty, through micro-scholarships and other projects. The team lifts people up through wholistic assistance, empowering them in their inherent worth as people created in the image of God. Some children who have benefited from micro-scholarships are now serving their communities as interns. In addition to this work, Roberto, who is Ecuadorian, serves in music leadership, preaching, administrative, and mentoring roles at English Fellowship Church in Quito.
Cameron, Roberto, and their children visited the SAMS home office over the summer, and we got to learn more about their ministry. What they shared reiterated for me the reality that poverty affects so much more than a person’s physical circumstances. By ministering in both practical and spiritual ways to those in poverty, Christians can help people see their true worth in Christ.
“There are two types of poverty.” Cameron shared. “There is the poverty of condition. So, for example, you don’t have running water or you don’t have food to eat, or you don’t have access to medical care, or you don’t have access to education. The micro-scholarships themselves address that poverty of condition – there’s an immediate need and there’s an immediate thing that we can do that will help you get a long term developmental thing like education.
“Yet obviously poverty is more than just poverty of condition. There’s also poverty of being. Those in poverty tend to have a lower self – it’s not just self-esteem – it’s like the whole world tells them that they’re worthless and that’s why they don’t have food, or water, or housing… they’re not worth it. They’re not valuable, they’re not seen, they don’t have a voice. So, part of what we do is alleviating the physical poverty, but a huge part is just standing with those in the margin, saying ‘you are seen, you are heard, you are valuable, you have worth because you are a child of God. You and I are the same. We are children of God and we’re in this together.’ We want them to know that they matter and know that there is worth and value in them, which is the intangible….Seeing that perspective change in a person and seeing them start to take themselves seriously, which therefore makes them take their education more seriously… We’ve seen just those tiny little increments of change over and over again.”
Cameron and Roberto’s non-profit, Education Equals Hope, runs an intern program that gives ministry experience to both Ecuadorian and North American young adults (pictured above with Cameron). “In our intern program, we generally want the group to be half North American interns and half Ecuadorian interns.” Cameron explained. “The Ecuadorians are former students from our ministry sites, and we see them feel like they can ‘hold their own’ alongside college educated North Americans that have come down to Ecuador to serve.
“They live in a discipleship house together. Watching those relationships form and the Ecuadorians have that understanding that ‘I am somebody and I have something to offer’ has just been incredible. This year, two of our Ecuadorian interns are named Michelle and Erica. They came out of churches that our non-profit partners with. One of them was a micro-scholarship recipient as a child. They have now gotten to go visit four or five ministry situations – churches or families – and they always come back blown away. ‘I cannot believe what this program does and what it does for these students and how their lives are changed and how they’re transformed.’ And it’s just so exciting to get to see these interns come alive and then see their new perspectives on how the ministry is reaching into other students lives.”
“Another intern this summer, Marvin, one of our first students, came up through the program and actually graduated valedictorian of his high school. A specific donor said ‘I want to send him to college’. He just graduated from one of the top universities in Ecuador with a degree in sound engineering, and has now been hired by the Christian radio station to work there. He asked for two months off from them to come intern with us for the summer, because he wanted to give back and be in that community again that that helped him change the trajectory of his life. Now he’s a youth minister in one of the Ecuadorian churches that partners with our ministry. It’s just a really, really fun community.”
If you interested in serving in Ecuador with Cameron and Roberto’s ministry as an intern, please contact Nita Dempsey at info@sams-usa.org to learn more about the SAMS Missionary Bridger internship program.
Pictured: Women of Christ Church Heiloo pray together
Deuteronomy 31:12 Assemble the people together-men, women and children, and the foreigners residing in your towns- so they can listen and learn to fear your God and follow carefully all the words of the law.
Christ Church Heiloo (CCH) in the Netherlands is a multicultural, multiethnic, and diverse community. It has a remarkable outward focus despite being a small church – supporting five missions as well as the local food bank.
On Saturday, October 15, 2022 a group of fourteen very enthusiastic female members of CCH gathered to talk about starting ladies’ Bible study groups. During the following 2 weeks two different groups of ladies met to study the scriptures together. These Bible study groups aim to provide a learning community for everyone, a safe place where there is accountability and encouragement. It is also a place where members can invite non-believing friends to “come and see” what Christianity is all about.
Louise leads a group study on prayer at a recent women’s retreat in the Netherlands.
Johann baptizes a family of new believers in the Netherlands.
