More Skiing

As I was preparing to go out on my bike last week for the first time in almost two months, I expected that exercising with a mask would feel strange... "Not something I've ever done before," I thought. Wrong—as I biked along, wearing a helmet and feeling the wind hit only my eyebrows, I realized the sensation was strangely familiar. I've compared my experience in San Pedro Sula to skiing before, but this time the similarities were more corporeal.

Hi church/office... it's been a minute...

And, speaking of the office, guess I should just get the bombshell out there: the MCC Honduras office is closing. They don't like us to use the word closing; they keep saying, "It's not a closure, it's a consolidation," and, to be fair, MCC will still continue working with partners and funding projects in Honduras. But that doesn't change the fact that the MCC Honduras office is closing, and the administration of all MCC's relationships in Honduras will take place from Managua.

I've known for a while. We were actually told a month ago, today. We were asked not to share the information with more than our closest family members until the comprehensive press release came out. Reasons given included wanting to share the information directly with the partner organizations first. I can imagine it also had to do with wanting somewhere official to point folks so they could get all the information of cuts being made worldwide, so it wouldn't seem like Honduras is the only program experiencing this. But I'm relieved that I can finally tell you all... my supporters, my prayer team, my cloud of witnesses.

So, as the press release says, "Administration of MCC programming in Honduras and Nicaragua will be consolidated in July 2020," meaning I'll be coming home in July, not October as I had started to imagine back in February. I wasn't blindsided by this on April 22; after the first couple weeks of lockdown and an idea of what was happening with the MCC budget, I was pretty sure the centennial celebration would be canceled and my extension along with it. I was, however, pretty shocked to hear that all personnel would be leaving Honduras in July.

I had really been looking forward to getting a taste of life as a service worker, but at least it's not a huge change from what I had thought when I signed up to serve with MCC. Our re-entry will be virtual and a little earlier than I expected, but I'll still be flying back to the states in early July, the day after originally planned (well, if there are flights). I'll just be going straight to Colorado—already "re-oriented"—instead of to Pennsylvania with a week of re-entry ahead of me.

It's really my teammates who have been affected the most severely. Jenny and Joél came here expecting a five-year rep term. They'll be leaving after less than a year here. They'd gotten rid of all the kids' winter clothes—of course they would have outgrown them in five years! Ditra, who had signed on to a three-year service worker term to do some of the financial and planning, monitoring, and evaluation work that currently falls to Rudi, had sold her house in Mexico and was only able to join the team virtually in March after getting stuck in the US after her orientation in Akron was cut short to try to get her here before the borders closed, but her flight was scheduled the day after Lars' on that fateful weekend in March and they weren't letting non-citizens/nonresidents in anymore. She's already been laid off, and they got Rudi to extend from her end date in April to stay through July to close out the books. And Dayna, who I haven't met (not even over videochat) but would've been taking over Lars' role as CPCer in August, thought she had a role all lined up after graduating from university and now will have to find something else. And in this job market...

And to look at that list of countries in the press release and know we're not the only team affected by these changes... and even hearing some stories from country programs not mentioned but which are still "reorganizing" some of their staff... and knowing there's a human story behind each decision about each position...

Seven of the 11 of us SALTers who are still on assignment are in programs mentioned. My second cousin Caleb, a SALTer last year and now on a yearlong extension in Vietnam doing similar historical communications work to what I've been working on here in Honduras, has also had to deal with the awful feeling of withholding information for several weeks. In a note to him, I reflected that our situations are somewhat bittersweet... in a way making our work documenting the legacies of our respective country programs even more important...

On that note, the first of my anniversary articles was published today. Give it a read for an idea of just part of the wonderful history of teamwork between MCC and Honduran Mennonites.