By Sean Hawkey, photographer | 13/1/2021 LWF Honduras representative Carlos Rivera (with white face mask) visits Chamelecón, Honduras, to look at damage done by hurricanes Eta and Iota. As the flooding came unexpectedly fast many people lost all their belongings. All Photos: Sean Hawkey
Honduras after the hurricanes
I’ve worked in Honduras over many years since the late 90s, working in emergency response and as a photojournalist. Recently I went to visit some of the areas that were worst hit by the double hurricanes in November 2020.
I spent a day with Rev. Julio Caballero, who is pastor in the Christian Lutheran Church of Honduras (ICLH), an LWF member church. With us was also Carlos Rivera, the representative of the LWF World Service program in Honduras.
A man participates in an interfaith vigil before the 2014 U.N. climate summit in Lima, Peru. (Barbara Fraser)
Editor s Note: EarthBeat Weekly is your weekly newsletter about faith and climate change. Below is the Jan. 1 edition. To receive EarthBeat Weekly in your inbox, sign up here.
Happy 2021! As we begin a new year, this seems like a good time to look back at where we ve been and where we re going. I joined EarthBeat five months ago, and it feels like home now although I m kind of glad that my physical home is in Lima, Peru, in the Southern Hemisphere, where we re now having summer instead of winter.
Christmas comes in Honduras amid post-hurricane devastation
Dec 24, 2020
Two years ago I accompanied a migrant caravan as a journalist, a 2,600-mile journey on foot and taking rides on trucks that started in San Pedro Sula, Honduras, and went to the U.S. border at Tijuana, an exodus to the land of milk and honey.
One of my strongest memories of the journey is of an early morning, leaving Huixtla in southern Mexico at 3 a.m. As I walked with 15,000 people on unlit rural roads, the quiet of the night was broken as people cried out to God in the darkness, praying for help. Last week, I heard the same prayers under a bridge in Chamelecón, Honduras, as people who d lost their houses gathered for shelter at night to sleep on flattened cardboard boxes.
by Rich Copley | Presbyterian News Service
The Rev. Dori Hjalmarson, a mission co-worker serving in Honduras, holds a baby born among the devastation brought by hurricanes Eta and Iota. (Photo by Katherine Rivas)
LEXINGTON, Kentucky â The rainwater from the hurricane was held back by debris that formed a dike at the top of the village. But as the storm continued, hour after hour, the barrier broke in the middle of the night sending water rushing down the main road, taking cars, trees, homes, and people.
The Rev. Dori Hjalmarson, Presbyterian mission co-worker serving in Honduras, tells the story of a man who woke up to the sound of rushing water. He got his two young children to safety and went back for his wife and one-month-old son.