Siguatepeque, Honduras, Central America
By Karl Snow
We opened our school here the first of last February with eight pupils. The Lord has greatly blessed our efforts, and we now have twenty-four students. They are all Catholics except three. The work is all in English, and we use our denominational books as far as possible. We are continually weaving the truths of the Bible into our work and they all seem to enjoy it. If we gave them straight Bible lessons, it would soon stir up prejudice against our work. From expressions the students make we can see that the seed is taking root in their hearts. The following are some questions and answers concerning the Sabbath by a student who has been one and one-half years in our school. I copied them direct from his paper, and made no corrections:— 1. “What is the Sabbath?”—“The Sabbath is the seventh day of the week in which God rested.” 2. “In how many days did God make the world?”—“God made the world in six days and rested on the seventh, that was the Sabbath, and sanctified it.” 3. “Why did God sanctify the Sabbath?”—“Because that the Sabbath was the seventh day in which he rested and it was made to rest and to give praise to him.” 4. “What shall we do on the Sabbath day?”—“We must do nothing on the Sabbath day but praise and give thanks to God for his wonderful work.” 5. “If we obey his commandments, what shall we obtain?”—“We shall get the eternal life, the kingdom of heaven, and we shall dwell with our Heavenly Father.” Our facilities are very meager as yet, but the Lord can bless little things. The natives come to us with all kinds of aches and pains. At first I had no forceps for tooth-pulling, so I used my gas-pliers, and they did very well. A friend in the States, learning what I was using, took pity on the natives and sent me a nice pair of forceps, so now I can be quite professional. Mrs. Snow and I came here two and one-half years ago as self-supporting workers, and have kept in close touch with our brethren at Washington, which has been a great help to us. We have had to start small, but we feel that the Lord is leading and the work will grow. I asked the students to each write an essay on Siguatepeque, and I will here quote a section from one just as it was written, so you can see how the students feel toward the school:— “The English School is a mixed school, or a school for boys and girls. It is the better establishment of this country for persons who wish to learn the English language. The school the same as the town is going on, but not so slow as the town go. Our school began about two years ago with very few pupils and books, it have gone up so quick that the present number of pupils is twenty-four, it has plenty of books, and the number of our classes is altogether from eight to nine every day, and it is still so going on that in the next year I guess we shall have many advanced classes, and it may get to be the better educational center of this country according with the character of our teachers.” I have not entered into details about our work or location, but merely told you that we are working here. Later I will give a general description of the country, its people, customs, etc., and tell more of our work. Think about the work in this field, and pray for its success.