December - International Society of Certified Electronics Technicians

Sharing Electronics Knowledge with Future Servicers in Honduras
by Sheila Fredrickson, NESDA/ISCET
Director of Communications
In mid-December, the ISCET office
received an inquiry from Jeff Smith, Ph.D.,
President and CEO of SensorLogic, a technology
company located in Addison, TX
(near Dallas). Jeff wanted to know if ISCET
could donate any training materials, electronics-related
literature, old parts, or old
test equipment to a missions effort underway
in Honduras. Through a Dallas church,
Lovers Lane United Methodist Church, Jeff
had become involved in a humanitarian
effort to build houses for the people displaced
from their homes by poverty and
Hurricane Mitch. He will be making another
trip at the end of December.
The following background information,
from the website of Hope for Honduras, the
ministry Jeff works with, will help to
explain the urgent needs in Honduras and
set the stage for Jeff's upcoming trip:
"Immediately after Hurricane Mitch in
November, 1998, approximately 300 people
fled the devastation of their homes to find a
safer and drier place to live. The land high
above the capital city was invaded by these
families in hopes of starting again.
This was not happening only in this area
of the country. Thousands of people had
been displaced and invasions were happening
every where. Mogote was an undeveloped
area which sat just below two huge
water storage tanks which overlooked
Tegucigalpa, Honduras. It was a million
dollar view, but solid rock everywhere you
looked!
The rocks seemed secure to these
refugees of Hurricane Mitch and they began
building shelters for their families with
whatever they could find. They were evicted
from the land three times by the government
before they finally obtained papers for
the property. Today, the area houses 300
families instead of 300 people. It is subdivided.
There is water, electricity and roads.
Still, no one knows where this colonia
is. They have heard of all the colonias
around Mogote, but don't know it exists.
The people are some of the poorest in
Honduras and yet, live in sight of a prospering
city.
The name "Nueva España" was give to
this group of people because the country of
Spain was the first to come in and help them
after the hurricane. They were there for the
first year, but have not really been seen
much since then. Several other aid organizations
also helped out in the beginning, but
left after the initial trauma subsided.
Hope For Honduras, Inc. has been
working in Nueva España for almost three
years. No one else is there. The Catholic
church from Spain built a beautiful little
church and the priest and a Catholic
Charities worker from Spain are there sometimes.
There are seven other churches that
only meet on Sunday and their pastors live
in Nueva España and are as poor financially
and spiritually as the other residents.
When missionary couple Ron and
Shelly Jones saw that there was no one there
to help the people on a daily basis, they did
not know exactly what they would be doing
there, but they had to go. Their ongoing
ministry has attracted support from all over,
including the church in Dallas that Jeff
Smith and his wife Lisa attend.
Today, the changes in Nueva España are
tremendous … but they are still one of the
poorest colonias in the country.
Ron and Shelly Jones have a single
focus on this little colonia and with the help
of people from all over the world, they hope
to continue to help the people of Magote
become self-sufficient … whether they stay
there or not."
Into these deplorable conditions Jeff
Smith and a team of others are going to help
build houses. Jeff will be back to Honduras
in late December to continue setting up an
electronics training center in Tegucigalpa,
Honduras, in the colonia of Magote, and this
is the context of his contact with ISCET. He
has been down to train twice already and
says it is going very well. On this trip, he
will be taking several oscilloscopes and a
couple of voltmeters. While in Honduras,
Jeff met Freddie, a young man with an avid
interest in electronics.
Jeff was invited to visit the
NESDA/ISCET office in Fort Worth to pick
up some materials that ISCET wanted to
donate. While in the office, Jeff told this
heartwarming story about Freddie:
"I went to Honduras to help build a
house for a family of 9. The house is bigger
than the houses that we normally build. It is
12 feet by 24 feet. Rainwater is captured
from the tin roof into a "pilla" for drinking
and washing, and there is an outhouse.
Another family is out of the mud.
"While in Honduras, I met Freddie. He
works part-time for Ron and Shelley Jones
doing construction work.
"Honduras is the poorest country in the
Western Hemisphere. Tegucigalpa is the
Capital and was ravaged by Hurricane
Mitch in 1998 that killed 10,000 people and
displaced many others. The
colonia of Magote is situated
on a small mountain
PAGE 19 –
December 2004