Visiting Honduras

President Bugbeee (second from right) meets with Doris Patalino (left) and her husband Frank (right), as well as seminary student Tulio Meza (second from left) in the chapel at the Children of Love Foundation in LaPaz.

HONDURAS – Following the recent Fourth Convention of the Lutheran Church Synod of Nicaragua (ILSN), President Robert Bugbee of Lutheran Church–Canada (LCC) flew to neighbouring Honduras to visit sites where the Nicaraguan church hopes to expand its outreach.

The ILSN has had a missionary pastor, Rev. Douglas Aguilar, serving in northern Honduras at Olanchito for some years now. That community was too remote to visit in the brief time the president was in Honduras. Instead, he flew to the Honduran capital, Tegucigalpa, and from there traveled to LaPaz, a small city about 65 km to the west.  LaPaz is home to the “Children of Love Foundation,” a settlement serving children who are orphans or have been abandoned by their parents.

The founder of the Foundation is Doris Patilano of Orlando, Florida, a native of Honduras who moved to the United States in the 1970s. “Mama Doris,” as she is affectionately called, long dreamed of a home for children without parents in her native land. In the past 20 years, she has overseen the construction of an entire compound near LaPaz, including dormitories, offices, a library, an outdoor kitchen, chapel, and gardens. In more recent times, a partnership was struck between the Foundation and St. Luke’s Lutheran Church (Oviedo, Florida) where Mama Doris and her husband, Frank Patilano, are members.

President Bugbee listens in while “Mama Doris” speaks to LaPaz’ city council. The Children of Love Foundation is planning to increase the work it is doing with needy children in the area.

Reports indicate that more than 400 children have been baptized at the Foundation’s chapel. Because providing proper pastoral care is not possible from Florida, the Nicaraguan church is taking up the challenge and has called longtime missionary-pastor, Rev. Rufino Quintero of the ILSN to organize a new congregation in LaPaz. As of this writing, Rev. Quintero is still deliberating on the call.

After a day spent at the Foundation in LaPaz, President Bugbee returned to Tegucigalpa where he spent two days with ILSN seminarian Tulio Meza, a native of the Honduran capital. Meza embraced Lutheran teaching under the guidance of Rev. Edmund Auger, a missionary from The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod. Rev. Auger was instrumental in connecting Tulio with the Nicaraguan seminary and LCC mission leaders.

A very enterprising young man, Meza has renovated a bedroom in his mother’s home in a poor neighbourhood near Tegucigalpa to serve as a classroom to provide Christian instruction for children of the area. About 20 children are taking the class on a regular basis, and interest among the parents seems sufficient to encourage the start of a congregation in that area. Although the public school Christmas break extends until early February, the children came for a special class January 16 during the president’s visit so he could get an introduction to this work.

“My Spanish is limited,” President Bugbee related, “but I understand enough to realize how well-trained these boys and girls are in the content of the Bible, in the catechism, and also in committing Scripture passages to memory. Tulio seems like a natural teacher, and is a well-known personality throughout this neighbourhood.”

Meza will be among a number of ILSN seminarians who will graduate from pastoral studies on January 25.

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