Burro Bueno Recap February 2025

Burro Bueno, February, 2025

42 years -ago, a quirky professor at a Christian College sensed God’s call on his life to leave his position at the school and go to Honduras to minister to “the poorest of the poor.” Charlie Smith asked his friend Miguel Pinnell to go to Honduras and simply seek out the poorest of the poor and minister to them in the love of Christ.

A great work was started in Canchias – a tiny community at the end of a dirt road in the mountains of Honduras. There was a medical clinic and a school. They developed a clean water system, and tilapia ponds to help feed the community. The ministry thrived and many lives were touched.

One day, Charlie Smith died and was buried on Ambassador Mountain just outside of Canchias. And like many ministries, the second generation of ministry leadership began to lose focus and chased other “outreach concepts” like a youth soccer program, and a summer camp for youth. Gradually their mission drifted away from humbly taking Christ to the poorest of the poor, and the new group of leaders abandoned the work in Canchias. 

Many promises were broken, and relationships were deeply damaged, along with the reputation of North American Christians. The people of Canchias began to distrust any foreigners from the north. The property and buildings on the ministry grounds were abandoned, the community felt betrayed, and nature began to reclaim what was built there. The property laid fallow for seven years.

A group of campesinos, peasant agricultural laborers, had moved on to some of the land owned by the ministry. The history of the Campesinos in Honduras is tragic. In the 70’s North American corporations bought large swaths of land from the Honduran government. They sent security guards to evict some of the Campesinos, and when they met resistance, the security guards murdered several Campesinos. The Honduran government at the time looked the other way because they valued the money from the corporations more than the lives of their own people.

When my brother Glenn and his wife Jeanette felt God’s call to re-establish a ministry in Canchias, they faced the resentment caused by the former ministry who had lost their focus. They used the story of the humble donkey as their guiding principle.

When Charlie and Miguel started ministering on the mountain, they prayed for a 4x4 to help them bring supplies up the mountain. But God provided a different kind of 4x4 – one with four legs instead of four wheels. God gave them a donkey, a burro, instead of a high-powered machine, and the burro became a reminder that we are all called to humbly take Christ to the world – just as another donkey carried Christ into Jerusalem the week before he went to the cross. And that is where the name Burro Bueno came from – the good donkey.

Working to humbly bring Christ to Canchias, their ministry has been a ministry of reconciliation between the people and God AND between the people of Canchias and the “gringos” – foreigners. We are foreigners to the Honduran culture, just as we were foreigners to the covenants of promise before we were reconciled to Christ. Reconciliation is what we saw in Honduras.

Like I said, the previous ministry had a medical clinic that was also abandoned. Over the years it was broken into and vandalized. A few months ago, Glenn had organized a work team to come to Canchias and begin cleaning and repair work. Little did they know that a handful of local women had been praying for seven years that God would send someone to restart the clinic. They went to the clinic before the work team got there and removed debris, and swept, and mopped. After they had finished cleaning, there is a VIDEO of them praying and thanking God for the work team that was coming. The hope is to have a dental clinic in March.

It was a joy to be part of this trip and to share the experience with my mom, my two brothers, a sister-in-law, and a nephew. But let me tell you about what happened on Sunday.  

About two months before this worship service, Glenn had a “chance meeting” with someone at the San Pedro Sula airport. This silver-haired man and his wife were helping put a local Honduran woman through medical school. Sunday, they showed up for the service and she may volunteer at the clinic when it opens.

There is Darwin, Presidente of the Patronato (kind of like the president of the local HOA) who had been resistant to Christ and to the efforts of Glenn and Jeanette. That weekend, Darwin committed his life to Christ. The work done in Canchias was instrumental in helping him plug into a local church.

The local Campesinos who had been staunchly opposed to the ministry efforts in Canchias, came to the service Sunday night – some still with crossed arms, but others open to the gospel. Two of them ate with us on Monday evening before we flew home. One asked if Leo, the local program director, would hire him for odd jobs. The Campesino leader is starting to soften.

The Sunday evening service was designed to highlight a posture of reconciliation. The dream was for Hondurans and Americans to share equally in the service, but initially, it looked like it would be Anglos presenting to the locals.

Burro Bueno had 100 drawstring backpacks, each filled with a loaf of bread to distribute to those who showed up. We had anticipated between 80-100 people. Berto, a former chef for the American Embassy in Tegucigalpa, was hired to prepare a meal for after the service. Berto, who had worked with the previous ministry, prepared food for 120 as any good professional chef would do. Berto had experienced hurt when Canchias was abandoned but now he is open to reconciliation.

But he wasn’t the only one who had experienced the pain of broken relationships.

Miguel Pinell had helped start the former ministry but had been “fired” years ago. He showed up Sunday evening for the service, and the next morning came back to lead a group up the mountain where Charlie had been buried.

Translator Anny Chinchilla Luna, who had experienced hurt when Canchias was abandoned, came to be our interpreter for the service. Being a former elementary school teacher, she hosted a fun interactive learning experience with the students from the town the following morning.

A sound system was rented from a local company, and the sound tech for the company brought an assistant with him. It was soon discovered that this sound tech assistant had helped in the previous ministry and had experienced the pain of broken relationships. We also learned that he played bass guitar. My brother Glenn quickly asked this young man to take his place on the worship team. Later, as the service was closing, this young man openly wept at the sight of healing and reconciliation taking place in the room.

A Honduran keyboard player was found, and the team moved their Anglo keyboard player to a mic to become a vocalist. A local church loaned us the drums from their church. The worship team was now evenly balanced between North Americans and Hondurans.

Pastors came from the surrounding communities - one pastor and his wife drove three hours for the service.

The service started late because people kept coming – two or three at a time … five or six at a time. They kept coming in a steady stream. There were so many people that we had to find more chairs several times. It ended up standing room only, somewhere between 225 and 240 people! What a blessing of over twice as many as we had planned for!

But now there’s a problem! There were only 100 loaves of bread in drawstring backpacks. But earlier it was discovered that the market had given us more than 100 loaves, and we were able to give the extra loaves of bread away without backpacks.

Berto was in trouble too! He had only planned food for about 120 people. But a miracle happened! After everyone had been served, there was one plate of rice, and three pieces of chicken left over.

At the end of the service, we shared communion with this community. It was truly several days of genuine reconciliation and a re-establishment of ministry, at the end of a dirt road in the mountains of Honduras.

We didn’t go to build buildings, we went to heal and restore broken lives and broken relationships. We came to restore faith in the God we serve, and in his often-imperfect servants. We came to begin the process of discipleship. And God honored our efforts, and a community is being restored.