David Bercot. Over the past 23 years, Deborah and I have made nearly 40 trips to Honduras. We have innumerable joyful memories about our times with the dear friends we have made there over the years. However, in a few weeks, I will be 73, and I realized the time has finally arrived for turning over the leadership of the Society’s Honduras ministry to another capable brother.
No doubt I could continue in my role for a few more years. However, it is important to me that we have a smooth transition of leadership. I don’t want to wait until I have a stroke or something, and then we have to make an emergency transition. Although Deborah and I won’t be going down to Honduras regularly anymore, we plan to still be active in the Society’s ministry by working from the States. We will still be editing and publishing the newsletters each month, receiving and reviewing the monthly financial reports, and attending the annual Honduran board meeting via Zoom.
Happily, we had the perfect person already in place to step into my former role as chairman: Kevin Brechbill. Kevin has been traveling to Honduras for the past eight years on behalf of the Society. He puts together and supervises the work crews for the various construction projects the Society sponsors in Honduras. He has worked closely with the Honduran directors over the years, and he has sat in on many of the microloan board meetings. Not only that, but he is also an experienced business owner himself.
So, last month, at our annual meeting with our loan recipients, the Honduran directors officially installed Kevin as the new chairman of the Honduras ministry. I handed him a symbolic gavel handmade by one of the Honduran brothers. The entire group of loan recipients prayed for Kevin in his new role. Various ones from the group led us in singing Christian songs, and the work crew from the States sang several hymns for us in four-part harmony. A video monitor displayed pictures of various directors, beneficiaries and events from 2000 to the present. It was a blessed time for all.
One of the things that made the day particularly special is that various Honduran loan recipients from the past 23 years came to the meeting to say farewell to Deborah and me. One such person was Dominga Guevara, a seamstress, whom we had not seen for twenty years. She was one of our very early loan recipients, and she paid off her loan long before it was due. She thereby set an excellent example for all future loan recipients.
Other loan beneficiaries through the years were present, and each person brought back special memories. It was extremely exciting to see them all again. Neither Deborah nor I wanted the day to end. When our plane took off the next day for the States, we looked back on Honduras with a lot of treasured memories from the past 23 years.
As I have mentioned, we will still be heavily involved in the ministry of the Society in Honduras, and we are confident that the Lord will be able to use Kevin Brechbill to oversee and grow the ministry even further.
The Society of the Good Shepherd, P. O. Box 122, Amberson, PA 17210 • (717) 349-7033
Click on the following link if you would care to make a donation to the work in Honduras: Honduras Donations