Diocese of Honduras Extends Ministry to Miskito Indians
Episcopal News Service. April 17, 1986 [86082]
TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras (DPS, April 17) -- The need for bilingual services has become common in many areas of the United States, but it may be difficult for those in the U.S. to think of the Church in Honduras, known as a Spanish-speaking country, as having a problem with ministering in yet another language. However, that is exactly what the Diocese of Honduras has been faced with in the Miskito district in the northwestern area of the country, where the language and culture are Miskito, not Spanish.
Faced with this problem, the Rt. Rev. Leo Frade, bishop of Honduras, found answers in nearby Central American dioceses -- with some help from the Anglican Church of Canada in the form of the Rev. Atinaldo Carlos and the Rev. Hemrick Rigby, Nicaraguan Miskitos trained and ordained to the diaconate in Nicaragua.
Carlos comes to the Diocese of Honduras directly from Managua, on loan from Nicaragua through the cooperation of the Rt. Rev. Sturdie Downs, Episcopal Bishop there. Rigby comes to the diocese by a more indirect route. Through the Church of Canada, Frade heard that Rigby was in a camp for Nicaraguan refugees located near Puerto Limon, Costa Rica, and, with the assistance of the Church in Canada, Rigby was able to obtain the proper documents to come to Honduras. Before coming to Honduras, Rigby spent one and half years in the camp. In 1984, caught between the two sides of the fighting in Nicaragua while leading a service in a village, he escaped to Costa Rica, where soldiers told him that a few hours earlier Nicaraguan planes had been patrolling the coast, firing upon refugees.
The problem of language barriers is not easily overcome, however. Both Rigby and Carlos speak English and Spanish as second languages. Yet, like most Nicaraguan Miskitos, Spanish is the weakest of their languages, while Honduran Miskitos generally do not speak English and some speak Spanish. Therefore, the Diocese of Honduras, primarily Spanish-speaking, must deal with the problem of language yet further. For example, the work of translating the Bible into Miskito has only been completed for the New Testament. In addition, Sunday School curriculums in English would be useful to the two deacons where they themselves would be teaching, but the teachers they will be training would be more likely able to deal with Spanish curriculums.
Nevertheless, in all things the Church has learned that it must be flexible in Honduras. Rigby and Carlos will be leaving Tegucigalpa in the near future to begin their work in the Mosquitia. They will be going in true missionary style: after waiting for weeks to obtain legal residences and to obtain air passage. They will be working in almost complete isolation, in an area that is mostly swamps, where illness is the norm rather than the exception. Go they will...to plant churches in communities suffering the same problems of isolation.