A prayer for the innocents

I just read that because of widespread violence and unrest, the Peace Corps will be pulling their volunteers out of Honduras starting in January and that no more volunteers will be sent there until it's deemed safe.

My son, David, spent 27 months in Honduras serving in the Peace Corps from Feb. 2008 though April 2010. His experiences there changed his life in so many ways, and John and I are so very proud of his service.

We traveled there in 2009 and met his host mom and her family. Dona divorced her abusive husband and raised her four children on her own by cultivating a plantain field and eventually opening a tiny yet successful cafe in her village.

You need to understand that a husband beating his wife is more usual than not in that machismo culture, yet divorce is rarely an option because of economic and cultural constraints. So for Dona to have taken that step and successfully raised her children is a tribute to her personal fortitude and strength. She treated David as one of her own while he was here, and for that I am forever grateful.

That's why it disturbs me that the level of violence in Honduras has risen so much that the Peace Corps needs to remove those young women and men who spend two years of their lives there teaching and working.

While it is generally peaceful in Dona's village, reports of gun fights in neighboring towns occurred while David was still there. Who knows how far the violence will spread now from the big cities, who knows which innocent families will become victims.

And why? Because of cocaine flowing from South America through Central America to Mexico to the United States.  The U.S. is the destination of the drugs that make the cartels so many millions of dollars that they don't care who gets killed in the process.

So at this time of holiday light and joy in our homes, please take a moment to remember the innocents elsewhere. The innocents who are trying to make a living, educate their children, and who want to celebrate this season as much as we do.

Thanks for taking a moment to read this.