Tuesday, August 11, 2009

Popeye lost his pop and his eye

Ah what an interesting day. Oscar called me this morning, coming from Sampedrana with the CHE master trainer who is visiting all four Churches to encourage them in how to proceed with CHE in their communities. They had time to call me since they were stopped by the people marching into Teguc...to protest for Mel Zelaya. They were moving...just very slowly behind all the people walking. Oscar evetnually made it to Talanga, just later than hoped. The logistics on how the protestors are getting here, how they are eating, who is paying for all this, etc....I am sure is a very interesting account.

Valerie made it to the clinic, to Bible study, and then back to the clinic with no problems. Good thing, since those people did not just protest by shouting, standing, marching, but eventually got over to Miraflores and set a bus on fire and also a Popeye's chicken restaurant, as well as damaging other businesses (mostly fast food joints I hear)....supposedly business they have identified as part of the coup. I always knew Popeye had an eye for politics. Then again, sometimes it seemed like he only had one good eye.

I am thinking about heading over that way tomrorow to see what exactly what happened. Sad stuff. I see that and lament the polarization as well as people using such violence to make their point...although I am not sure what point looting stores (I saw video of people stealing the pizzas from the Little Ceasar's they were tearing up...and others running a safe down the road while other protestors looked on approvingly) and in general causing problems for everyone is supposed to make. Add to that I suppose none of that will be good for any kind of investments, construction, or development. I know for us we have not been able to sell our cars we are trying to sell...most of all because people are just a little fearful of moving money or buying anything big right now with the overall uncertainty. And right now I just heard over the "national chain" where the government takes over the airwaves for a few minutes for important information (with that snappy song Tat sap) that because of the events today, we are under curfiew tonight from 10-5....which sounds bad, but is actually for most people a welcome thing. The only people out later than that normally are people that are usually up to no good anyway. Tomorrow is the Honduras/Costa Rica soccer game in San Pedro Sula...could be some interesting "protests" up that way because of that.

Saying all that, life continues as normal outside those hot zones, for example I still went out for a run this afternoon and saw normal traffic...people now just get wind of where the protests are and avoid those areas.

Both sides have made mistakes, and errors in thought process are still happening on both sides. But...that sounds fairly familiar for politics, and life, as usual. So we continue to pray for God to work in the hearts of those in power, those who want to wield power behind the scenes, and the lives of all of us here in Honduras, that our base would be Him and not what we see around us. Join us in prayer that Honduras would move forward...but in Him.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Thanks for the update. Popeyes was originally a New Orleans area franchise. Another NOLA/Honduras connection. Destruction of private property can only hurt this poor country even more. It reminds me a bit of the lawlessness after Katrina. The poverty in pockets of New Orleans is akin to third world countries, and people looted stores for food, and then took home everthing within the stores, including TVs, furniture, etc. Despair and poverty provokes strong emotions. As in New Orleans, there is a strong criminal element here that is taking advantange of the weakness of the government, too.