I recently had an opportunity to
interview Stu Reed, an Alliance man who has been a missionary in Honduras for
the past twenty years. He was an engineer at B&W Research in Alliance where
he received twenty patents. Stu retired from B&W after twenty-seven years
with the company, and became a missionary with the Friends Church in the city
of Santa Rosa. He ministers with his wife Odilia, who is from Honduras, along
with their four children still at home, ages seven to thirteen. His insights
are very helpful for our understanding of the current immigration situation.
Carl: Your mission in Honduras is with children?
Stu: Yes, with children
and adolescents. Most of the ministry is for preschool children, ages 3-5
(there are three years of pre-school in Honduras); the ministry for adolescents
is primarily grades 7-12.
Carl: You and your wife Odilia meet the needs of how many children each
week?
Stu: We are teaching approximately 3000 children each week, and are
feeding almost 1000. We have 5 teachers
who teach in the kindergartens and a team of 16 volunteer teachers, who are
mostly pastors, from various local churches who help teach in the High School.
Carl: How and where do you shop for food for the kids? Grocery stores?
Open air markets? Walmart?
Stu: Our
projects in the kindergartens are all cooperative. The teachers
administer the funds for the food and line up someone to buy the food and
prepare it for the children, usually one of the mothers. At the end of
each month, they provide us with a report of what the menus were, and how much
was spent for each meal. In this way, the work for any given class is not
so huge and can be managed by a single teacher and her designated person.
We provide a reimbursement to the teacher who manages the funds at the
beginning of the next month, sufficient to cover costs for the upcoming month.
For our Saturday
projects, we and our teachers generally do the food preparation
ourselves. In most all cases, the food is purchased at the open air
market or agricultural fair, where we buy directly from the growers. Bread
is purchased from a bakery outlet, and tortillas from a woman who makes her living
making and selling them. Where we live, there is no Walmart, but there
are several larger grocery stores which are pretty well stocked, although not
by USA standards.
Carl: Why are there so many kids in need?
Stu: Honduras is a very
poor country with great inequality – about 2/3 of the population lives below
Honduras' definition of poverty, and nearly a 1/5 in what is called extreme poverty,
which is a family income of less than $2 per day. Little is being done to improve the situation
of the poor, since they comprise a profitable supply of cheap labor. The percentage level of poverty in Honduras
is largely unchanged since I first arrived there in 1999. The absolute number of people living in
poverty now is significantly larger since the population has grown
substantially in those twenty years.
Carl: Does the government allow / support your work?
Stu: We are permitted by
the government to teach the Bible in the public schools. Our projects are
supported by the teachers who are government employees, and by the departmental
board of education, a government agency.
At present, we are the only ministry that is permitted by the department
to teach the Bible in the kindergartens.
Carl: Are living conditions as bad as we see on the news?
Stu: Definitely. The
conditions are very bad, and a great many people feel they have no recourse or
hope that things will get better, or that they can make things different or
better for their families. The poverty
is grinding and it affects the majority of the population, especially since agriculture
is on a downturn. Gangs and narcotraffickers are endemic. Many in the government,
including the police and the military, are corrupt. Most people feel both
hopeless and powerless.
Carl: Have you had any encounters with the gangs?
Stu: Yes. Encounters with
gangs in Honduras, including in Santa Rosa, are commonplace. We have not been specifically targeted by the
gangs as of yet, but we and our ministry are still affected by them and their
presence.
Carl: Do you personally know any who have fled for the USA?
Stu: Yes we know a fair number who have fled to the USA looking for
work, both family and friends, some before the current caravans, some
since. And we are aware of many that are
still actively considering it.
Carl: What do Hondurans say about the USA?
Stu: Hondurans
generally see the USA in a positive light. It is seen as a very wealthy
country, with workers that are well paid and where decent paying jobs are
readily available. Even the minimum wage is considered to be very
generous. The USA is considered to be a safe place to live in comparison
with Honduras – less corrupt and less violent, with a much more extensive
“safety net” for the poor and disadvantaged.
North
Americans are seen as generous and willing to give to those less fortunate, and
it’s generally assumed that all Americans (especially tourists) are rich and
have money and goods to give away. Interestingly, one of the largest
sectors of the Honduran economy consists of the money which is sent to Honduras
by Hondurans working in the US (both legal and illegal) to support their
families. Most people are very aware of what is going on in the USA in
politics and international affairs. They are sufficiently sophisticated
to know the difference between what is reported about the government in the USA
and what its citizens are like.
Carl: Is there a middle class in Honduras?
Stu: Yes, there is a middle class, but it is not anywhere near as
large as in the USA While in the USA there are perhaps 5-10% rich, 80% middle
class and 5-10% poor, in Honduras, there are about 5% rich, perhaps 10% in the
middle class, and 80%+ who are poor or very poor. From our point of view in Honduras, we are
not moving towards the income distribution present in the States, rather the USA
is moving toward the situation in Honduras.
Carl: What utilities are available, such as water, sewer, gas,
electric, or fuel oil?
Stu: This
depends a great deal on where you live. In larger cities, most utilities are
available. Electricity is available in about 80% of the country. Water
and sewage services are available in cities, which are provided by the
municipality. Sewage is typically not treated, even in some of the larger
cities. In outlying areas people rely on wells or streams to provide their
water. In Santa Rosa, our water comes typically once a week – we have 4 tanks
on the roof to store the water to use during the week.
There is no gas
distribution in Honduras, neither public nor private. Propane is available in
tanks for those who have a gas stove. There is no central heating and no
water heater in a typical house, so gas is used strictly for cooking.
Firewood is widely available from vendors, although in cities like Santa Rosa it’s
not legal to use it for cooking – but some still cook with it.
Carl: Are there many thriving commercial businesses?
Stu: There are many thriving commercial businesses in Honduras,
and most are subsidiaries of, or suppliers to, companies in the USA and
Europe. They are generally owned by the
rich or large international businesses.
Stu: I personally am not,
because I am a resident and I’m expressly prohibited from stating political
opinions. While in theory Hondurans have
the right to express their opinions, in practice it is not so, and they are
rarely heard. For that reason, there are
very many large public demonstrations (thousands of people). Frequently the
people involved in protests risk their lives because they fear police or
military repercussions. Dissent is
actively discouraged and so is organizing opposing political entities. The government controls virtually all print
and broadcast media; so much of the work to organize protests and to
disseminate news is accomplished through social media.
Carl: So you have Facebook and Twitter etc. readily available as well
as internet service?
Yes, we have pretty much all social media which is internet based,
including Twitter, Facebook, WhatsApp, etc. But we are also well
aware that licenses for these are granted by the government and can be
withdrawn at any time – this has happened in the case of radio stations and
newspapers that have supported opposition views. The government owns and
operates the telephone system and licenses and controls cell phone networks and
has the ability to monitor both voice and text messaging. We are a bit careful
because of that. If the social media become more inconvenient for the
powers that be than the international backlash, these will no longer be
available, but for now they are.
Carl: On a personal note, how
and when did you come to Alliance?
Stu: I grew up in Canandaigua
New York, and graduated in 1970 from Bucknell University in Lewisburg PA with a
BS and MS in Mechanical Engineering. I moved to the Alliance area right
after graduation to work at B&W. I also studied at Malone College,
and earned an MA in Christian Ministries in 1996.
Carl: You had a very successful
career at B&W Research.
Stu: In addition to the
patents, I was inducted into the Inventors Hall of Fame, and was McDermott’s
Inventor of the Year in 1996. I’m a lifetime member of American Society
of Mechanical Engineers, a Registered Professional Engineer (Ohio), and a member
of the Society for Experimental Stress Analysis and the Instrument Society of
America. I have written approximately 100 technical reports and publications,
both internal and external to B&W.
Carl: When did you start going
to the Friends Church?
Stu: I grew up in the Methodist
Episcopal Church until age 17, when I went to college and became secular.
I started going to the Friends church after volunteering on a Disaster
Service project in 1990. We went down to Shadyside OH on the church bus,
and by the time we made it back to Alliance I was convinced by my fellow
workers. This was on a Saturday and the next day I was at the Friends
Church and accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior. I’ve been part of this
wonderful church ever since.
Carl: What is your long term
goal for your mission?
Stu: Our ministry is known at
Alliance Friends as “Stu’s Kids”. In Honduras, it is known as “MInisterio
VIVE”, an acronym for Vida Integral, Vida Eterna (full or complete life,
eternal life). Our motto is “Feeding Body, Mind and Spirit”. Our
goal is to introduce our children to Jesus, so that they know Who He is, and to
prepare them to recognize His voice when He calls them, and to prepare them to
follow Him. We want them to be healthy in body, mind and spirit, and to
see that there is hope for a different and better life, and that that hope comes
from following Christ. We seek to follow the Lord’s leading in our ministry
and cannot say what the long term holds for us or our ministry, but we are
confident that He holds the future, and know that at present we are where He
would have us be and doing the work that He has for us to do.
Right now there are
major disturbances going on in Honduras, so we need Americans’ prayers!
COPYRIGHT 2019 BY CARL E GUSTAFSON
