How I Got Involved

February, 2006

While Rafael was praying for a man of God, I was praying for God to show me the people and the ministry He had planned for me.

I had been to Honduras in 1994 and 2000 on secular medical brigades in a remote rural area. I felt drawn to the mission field, but I knew I was not called to medical work, nor, for a single woman, would a rural area have been a good fit. I also did not particularly care for 2-week trips, because it is very difficult to build relationships.

In 2003, my friend Doug Franck of Equipping Ministries International, who knew of my interest in Honduras and in missions, called and offered to set up a meeting with another friend of his who shared those interests.

In late 2003 Doug and I met with Jim Fatheree of the Springdale, Ohio, Vineyard Church. Jim had been taking mission teams to Tegucigalpa every summer for several years. He offered to take me along and introduce me to his contacts. I said I wanted to go in March, not the summer, and Jim said he would see about putting a team together for that.

A few months later, I heard back from Jim. I was pleasantly surprised, since nothing had been promised. He wasn’t able to get a whole team together, but the two of us went down in March 2004 and taught Equipping Ministries International’s “Teacher Training” to a group of pastors and church leaders. I met Pastor Luis Sorto, who runs a guesthouse for mission teams, Rick Ashbrook, a missionary from Cincinnati, and several local pastors. However, there was one pastor Jim wanted me to meet, who was also a doctor and had had a stroke, but who was out of town.

Having then a place to live, with the Sortos, an American friend, Rick, and a few other contacts, I felt comfortable enough to commit to a 6-month stay. God had not revealed what I was to do, but just told me I was to go and wait on Him. This was a bit scary, but Rick had had to wait a few months before God revealed his ministry, so I figured I could do the same.

I arrived in Tegucigalpa on January 18, 2005 and immediately emailed Rick (I didn’t have his phone number.) I wanted to start getting oriented, so I decided to go for a walk around the block.

Just as I reached the corner, I heard a North American voice saying “Pamela Hanson.” It was Rick! He had not even received my email, but there he was. He was headed for the barbershop and the cybercafé, so I accompanied him.

In the cybercafé he encountered a Honduran woman and began talking to her about a soccer game he had arranged at the school where she worked. Then he introduced me. “This is Sister Patricia. She’s the wife of Pastor Rafael.” I immediately remembered that that was the name of the other pastor Jim had wanted me to meet the year before, and blurted out, “Oh, ¡quiero conocer a su esposo! (I want to meet your husband!)” She told me later that this was quite surprising to her, but when she told Rafael he said, “This is from God!”

A few days later I was with Rick in the neighborhood and he said, “That’s Pastor Rafael’s house. Do you want to see if he is in?” So I met him and he invited me to participate in a medical brigade a few weeks later. I found myself sharing my frustrations about medical brigades with them. He nodded and said, “Yes, we serve much but help little.” I was very struck by this, which perfectly encapsulated what I been sensing. He also invited me to a pastors’ group the following Monday.

So I went to the group meeting, and the brigade, and I helped Rick teach English to the young people of Pastor Rafael’s church, and we got to know each other better over the next couple of months.

Pastor R. was always asking himself, “For what purpose has God brought Pamela here?” A good question, I thought! As he shared his vision of discipling pastors, I sensed that God had brought me here to share in that work. It dovetailed perfectly with my own passion for mentoring and encouraging, with my longstanding desire to develop leaders, and with my overarching, fundamental conviction that it is all about relationship. We found that we were ‘on the same page,’ with complementary gifts.

The remaining time of my stay was all too short as we began building the relationships with the 12 pastors by making home visits to each one (sometimes climbing as many as 2000 steps to get there.) We listened to their needs and dreams while eating plantain chips and drinking banana pop :-o. Jim Fatheree brought a team from the Springdale, Ohio Vineyard at the end of July. We did servant evangelism distributing food house to house, and a marriage seminar, and even put on a wedding.

I returned to the States for six months to wrap up my business affairs prior to moving to Honduras. It was difficult to be separated after such a delightful time of working together in the Lord’s vineyard. However, the Lord used it to further refine and prepare us for the next steps in our ministry, which are now falling into place as I am back in Tegucigalpa for good.

We get the shivers sometimes as we see how God is working!