Welcome to our YALTers (SALT and YAMEN program)

It has been a while since we have written on the blog. We have been busy throughout the last couple of weeks. We spent two weeks in Copan working on Spanish. We were able to take advantage of that time to meet some people at the hostel we stayed at and to see several of the parks in the areas including the ruins of Copan and the bird park that had toucans, parrots, parakeets and macaws.

We returned home to San Pedro Sula to welcome our new group of Salt and Yamen participants.

For those who do not know. Serving And Learning Together (SALT) is MCCs program for younger participants from Canada and the U.S. The idea is that they come for a year and are seconded to work for a local organization, live in a host family and participate in team activities throughout the year. In some ways it is like an internship or Peace Corp with the idea that they will serve but also learn. We believe at MCC that learning about another culture, engaging in local mission and the church and living with the people builds understanding and builds for peace. I would add to that, that where one or two are gathered, there God is, and we gather believers from different parts of the world to serve together, a little taste of what the many tribes gathered will look like in God’s new world. Young Anabaptist Mennonite Exchange Network (YAMEN) is almost identical to SALT but is for people coming from countries outside of the U.S. and Canada. This year we have on YAMEN participant from Columbia and two from the U.S. (Baltimore and Boulder). We also have sent, a participant (a doctor) to Guatemala to serve with MCC there. We also have a third program IVEP, which is a one-year program that takes people form outside of U.S and Canada and places them in host stays and volunteer work in the U.S. and Canada. We have a coordinator for the program in this country who gives oversight to the program and helps participants work through the application process, works with in country organizations we partner with to place participants and find host families.

The participants have been in orientation over the past week, learning how to ride the min-buses, catch taxis, know where things are and learn a bit about culture and living in Honduras. This week we are traveling to visit partners in various places in Honduras, so they have an idea of what MCC does. One person will be placed in our office to give oversight to external and internal communications which means gathering stories for MCC and our face book page and MCC and working at communicating to our constituency within the country. Another person will be placed with a school that is a day center and school for children from families who work in the trash dump in Tegucigalpa. The other one will work with an organization fighting for justice for communities to access schooling, education and reduce corruption in the public sector. They are excited and ready to be involved. They all have some Spanish already but will also have two weeks of language study before starting their jobs.