As we traveled dusty roads together, Luis Flores and I had much time to talk about current events, program planning and the challenges that we faced in our work together. Flores had left his secure position as a public-school teacher and regional coordinator for a nongovernmental organization in Choluteca to be the Honduran Mennonite director for Mennonite service work in the refugee camps along the Honduran/El Salvadoran border during the Salvadoran civil war in the early 1980s.
ELKHART, Ind. — Willi Hugo Perez was 10 years old when he lost his father. During Guatemala’s 36-year civil war, Marco Tulio Perez was accused of being a communist, tortured in front of his family and then killed by government soldiers in 1975. That turned Willi Hugo, a Catholic, into an angry youth with a shattered faith.
Almost a century ago, Mennonite missionaries T.K. Hershey and J.W. Shank undertook a dangerous 27-day sea journey during World War I with their families, facing the threat of submarines and floating mines from New York to Buenos Aires, Argentina.
What a difference a quarter of a century makes.
In July, the 25th annual meeting . . .
According to Myron Weaver, the pastor at that time, each family was given $10 to multiply if they could. The $13,000 yield was collected at a harvest offering a few months later.
A large portion went to fund went to . . .
