This is a complete and accurate transcript of the tape of the second oral history interview of Deborah J. Seymour (CN 316, T2) in the Archives of the Billy Graham Center. Nothing recorded has been omitted, except for any non-English phrases which could not be understood by the transcribers. If the transcriber was not completely sure of having gotten what the speaker said, "[?]" was inserted after the word or phrase in question. If the speech was inaudible or indistinguishable, "[unclear]" was inserted. Grunts and verbal hesitations, such as "ah' or "um" were usually omitted. Readers should remember that this is a transcription of spoken English, which, of course, follows a different rhythm and rule than written English. Foreign words or phrases which are not commonly used in English are in italics.
... Three dots indicate what the interruption or break in the train of thought within the sentence on the part of the speaker.
.... Four dots indicate what the transcriber believes to be the end of an incomplete sentence.
() Words in parenthesis are asides made by the speaker.
[] Words in brackets are comments made by the transcriber.
This transcription was made by Robert Shuster and Steven Gertz and was completed July 1994.
Collection 316, Tape T2; Interview of Deborah J. Seymour by Robert Shuster, August 4, 1986
SHUSTER: ...by Bob Shuster for the Archives at the Billy Graham Center. This interview took place at 7:15 p.m. in the offices of the Billy Graham Center on August 4, 1986. [unclear] Where...oh yeah. How did you first hear about the opportunity in Honduras?
SEYMOUR: I heard about the opportunity to work in the Virginia Sapp Christian High School (Virginia Sapp Christian High School) through some missionary friends who had been working in Honduras, and they basically, in giving a missionary presentation, were...were talking about the different opportunities that were present and were sort of looking for people to...to fill some roles in various types of ministries, and one of those was an opening at the Virginia Sapp Christian High School to work as an English teacher and also to work in counseling with...with the young people in...in the English program. And interestingly enough one...one of the missionary gals said to me, "[unclear] There are all kinds of things you could do there." And it was somehow that...that very specific appeal from her and at the same time it was a very general ("All kinds of things you could do.") that kind of clinched it for me, although I...I should say that probably this time when I was in high school at age fourteen, I had felt a definite calling from the Lord to work with Latin American people. And that had been at a time when a missionary from South America had spoken in one of our chapel services at this Christian boarding high school which I attended. And...and then I think that evening, he spoke at the prayer band meetings for World Gospel Mission (people involved with praying for World Gospel Mission missionaries) and we had a prayer band, a prayer cell right at the high school. So Monday night after study hall, I had gone over and...and this Mr. Marshall Cabot [?] (who is I think presently with OMS) was speaking about the needs in South America. And that night as I went to bed, I was just praying before I fell off to sleep, and almost as if in the same way that my voice was audible (and yet not a human voice), I...I distinctly had an understanding that...that, "Stop talking. I want to say something to you," and I just...I...I was so amazed! "Well, well, well, well, what Lord?" you know, and [pauses] at that time, it was a real specific, "Well, I want you to go to Ecuador." And Ecuador, this is where this missionary is from. And I said, "Well, to do what?" and the response was, "Well, to preach for me." And...and I...you know, I think about that now, and actually I am preparing to be ordained right this month yet when I go back to Ohio...and yet I know that there is so much more involved in preaching than actually standing behind the pulpit and...and giving sermons, and just a real life-witness type thing as well as many other avenues of ministry. And I thought, "Oh sure, I'm gonna wake up in the morning and think I was having hallucinations or something." [chuckles] And so I...and yet this impression was really distinct, and so the next day I was looking...I woke up and the...the real awareness stayed with me. And I was looking for some kind of Scripture to bring support to this...this experience I had had and I came across the Scripture in the book of Isaiah, where the Lord was speaking of His...or God was speaking of the Messiah, and it's interesting that the NIV [New International Version of the Bible] titles that section, "My righteous servant" - Isaiah chapter forty-two, the first few verses, and verses six and seven just really spoke to me in a real definite way where the Lord was saying, "I the Lord have called thee in righteousness and will thy hand and will keep thee and give thee for a covenant of the people, a light of the Gentiles to open blind eyes and bring out prisoners from prison and them with sitting darkness out of the prison house," and I said, "That sounds like a tall order." But...but it was the Lord (in the same way that he called his Messiah to...to do His work...helping people to come back into a right relationship and...and of bringing freedom and liberty), and in that same way that he could use me. I was certainly open to the wish of the Lord in that way, so through high school, I...I was constantly thinking, "Well, it's Latin America." At that time, it seemed really like...like Ecuador and as I went on down the road of study and preparation and so forth, I did study in Spanish in high school three years, a good grammar foundation that stood me in...in good stead when I got to Honduras then in 1983. But as...as I began to make an application, I wrote to OMS and so forth, I...I somehow was thinking that I needed to go outside of my own context, I don't know of...of the mission that my home church has, and World Gospel Mission of which I was sort of aware [was] the sister mission and so forth.
SHUSTER: Why did you think you needed to go out...?
SEYMOUR: I don't know. I...I really don't know why, I was just thinking I somehow shouldn't just rely on...on...or trade on the fact that my father was a well-known missionary and our movement, you know, and "Oh, this is Debbie Seymour," you know. "Well, it stands to reason, you know. Her father's a missionary so she's a missionary." And yet at the same time I...so I made application, or began process with OMS and so forth, but I also began to see the wisdom of...of looking for help from the context that...that I was familiar with, and not see it as something to be exploited in a negative way, but rather in a positive sense to appeal to people that knew me from the time I was a small child to the present and simply say, "Well, I'm here and prepared and go and serve. Would you like to be a part of...of making this possible?" And so I did make applications to the Church of Christ in Christian Union and to World Gospel Mission and was...was accepted by both organizations in 1982, and began deputations after. I was accepted by Christian Union in June of '82 and by World Gospel Mission in October of '82. (The board meetings, you know, are every three months.) And so by the time the one thing was...was set and after I realized that really it was...I would prefer to go to Honduras rather than the opportunity on the Texas-Mexican border with the Church of Christ in Christian Union, that for the things that I was hoping to do in...of personal evangelism and be involved in some kind of church planting opportunity which was happening in the high school at that time and I was aware of it as well.
SHUSTER: That's in Honduras?
SEYMOUR: Yes, as well as being able to teach, these types of things. The opportunity there seemed more fitted towards, you know, what I was hoping to...to be involved in.
SHUSTER: Why did you particularly want to be involved in church planting and...?
SEYMOUR: And evangelism? Simply because at that point, I...I guess I was feeling a bit more along the lines of the "Preach for me," part of the...the real sense of calling that...that I had had, and I guess I would...I would say that my understanding of...of what the...the possibilities are from God's perspective, I think, are maybe broader than (as I mentioned earlier)...than just one avenue of physically standing in the pulpit and preaching, but I had done that as well. You know, the opportunity has risen in Honduras and [pauses] so after about...I began deputations for the Church of Christ in Christian Union in...I really began in earnest, I think, in...in September...
SHUSTER: Of '82?
SEYMOUR: ...of '82. September, and then in October, I was appointed by the WGM, although even in September, I wasn't doing that much deputation work. I was under appointment on a one year short-term basis thing.
SHUSTER: Why short-term?
SEYMOUR: At that point because I wasn't...I wasn't prepared to do, I guess, what I'm doing now (make a four-year commitment). And so, you know, I was twenty-two years old, a year out of college, and at that time, there were some...some personal things going on in my life where I felt like I...I need to get in, just get my feet wet, and then take stock, you know, from where I am as far as the direction that my life is going to go, and am I...is this really going to be something I can commit myself to on...for the long-term? And for me, having the freedom to take one year to sort of sort out those types of things was a good option. And the mission was flexible and...but by the time I got to Honduras and had been there a short time, they began to talking to me, "Well, Debbie, why don't you extend for, you know, another year?" which I ended up doing then...went through the channels and...and...because I realized by the end of one year, I would barely be getting my feet wet and then have to turn around and go back to the States...
SHUSTER: Sure.
SEYMOUR: ...and I didn't want to do that either because it's like just getting the piece of pie all cut and then taking one bite and then you have to get up and rush off somewhere, and I...I felt...I felt there was more wisdom in staying a bit longer. But then after the second year, they said, "If you're gonna stay longer, you need to go home and...and get a solid support base that's going to, you know, be behind you for the long haul and then come back." And I also began to feel the need for further schooling at that time, because in teaching English and so on...but it's amazing. Even ESL [English as a Second Language] teachers anywhere in the world...the major skill in which they...they trade from...from my understanding, is the abilities of a native English speaker. That...that is the number one asset. Well, that's basically all I was...I was really using at that point, implementing lessons that somebody else was making and so forth. But I could see through limitations to that system, and I felt a real need to begin preparing myself as a teacher, and became convinced during the two years that I was in Honduras that the only real way to make a lasting contribution to a person's life was to be in a position to enable them to [pauses] on their own, you know, when they get out from under the wing of or the auspices of a given institution or persons who have been guiding them, to somehow during that guiding period, to develop tools with which they can make valid decisions and with which they can assess situations for themselves and not simply be running to people all the time and saying, "Well, what should I do now? What should I do now?" but rather helping them to...to mature and...and become people who can act for themselves. And I...I really have come to feel that...that having a solid basis in education (educational theory, educational philosophy, as well as some training in some methods) was...was gonna be the best route I could go to accomplish that type of thing of really enabling people, having not power over them but power with them to...to...and especially in terms of training leaders for the church and...and things like this.
SHUSTER: Well, to back up for a minute. When did you first arrive in Honduras?
SEYMOUR: Okay, my deputation period went from...really got under way in October and then October, November, December, and a couple services in January, and I had people tell me, "Oh, there's no way you'll be on the field by...by the time the school year opens. Don't even...don't even, you know, tell people you're gonna be there because that's ridiculous. You can't raise the support," and so on, and it was this....
SHUSTER: How much support was required?
SEYMOUR: At that point for a short term, I was needing about $680 a month of support and [pauses] maybe a little more, maybe it was closer to a thousand because for working...by working for two organizations, I, you know, had some overlap and it's a little more, but at this point it's been the...the way to go for me to maintain ties with my home denomination as well as be able to be placed in Honduras specifically, because the Church of Christ in Christian Union channels missionaries through World Gospel Mission in...on the field of Honduras, or in the country of Honduras. Anyway, so I had to raise the support. It was Thanksgiving and Christmas time. Everybody's busy, you know, putting their money into Santa's gifts and all this kind of thing, and...and yet the lady who founded the high school, I met her when I was at the mission headquarters in Marion, Indiana (World Gospel Mission headquarters). She was in for some (I don't know)...some function (and just this little spry lady, eighty-some years old, she lives in Americus, Georgia in a retirement center), and she said to me...she said, "You tell them that you have to be on the field by February, and you go out there and act like you're gonna...you're gonna make it," and she said, "You just watch," and Virginia Sapp...
SHUSTER: S-A-P-P?
SEYMOUR: Yes. ...really encouraged me, and I thought, "Well, okay." [chuckles] And...and so I just followed what she said, and...and as I shared in churches, you know, I said, "There's this English program in...in the high school (Virginia Sapp Christian High School) in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, and I need to be there by February, and it's a wonderful opportunity to serve and minister. Around nine hundred students attend this high school. Only a third of them are really born-again Christian people with a personal relationship of faith to Jesus Christ, and a lot of needs right, you know, in...in Honduras today, with the economic and political, social upheaval going on as it tries...as Honduras as a country is endeavoring to get into (I...I don't know if you would say "world class")...you know, become on the par with other western nations [pauses] so just all kinds of open doors." And as I shared this with people, they were all behind the idea of...of ministry there and me specifically being involved, and so by the 28th of January, I was flying from Columbus to Cincinnati to Miami, cried all the way from Columbus to Cincinnati [laughs].
SHUSTER: Upset over...?
SEYMOUR: Yeah, just...just leaving my family. I had been overseas a lot of times before, but never by myself. The layover in Miami was pretty lonely, wandering around looking around at all these Hispanic people who were coming in from south of the [pauses] whatever, south of Florida and so forth, and yet as I got into Honduras and then passed through the immigration section, I had somehow just been under this delusion that I would be able to talk with these people right in good, fluent Spanish, and then make the adjustment very quickly. Well, I...I think that I did make the adjustment quickly, all things considered, but that first day in the airport, it was...it was pretty dreadful because...
SHUSTER: What do you mean?
SEYMOUR: ...it was in terms of...of having them ask me questions about my luggage, and I had...I had no...I could not understand what they were saying. And I had...you know, I had been an honors student in Spanish, placed in the nation...in...in the national Spanish exams and so forth, and well my illusions of...of being able to do something just right off the bat in terms of communicating in...in Spanish language were...I realized that that was pretty much a pipe dream. But I arrived on a Friday and on Monday, I went to teachers' meetings for that next whole week. That was great, getting me oriented to what was happening in Virginia Sapp Christian High School before just before school opened the second week of February. There was only one problem. All of the teacher's meetings were in Spanish, and so [laughs]...and being able to...to catch maybe one word every five paragraphs, I felt really proud of myself. But as time went on, by about the third month of being there, I was able...I was...I was communicative in...in...fluent enough to...if I didn't understand the words that were being said, I could say, "Can you say that another way, you know, in other words?" and be able then to make the connection with words I was familiar with, and before long was very fluent.
SHUSTER: When you first arrived in Honduras, do you recall what your strongest first impressions were?
SEYMOUR: Yeah, the...the hustle and bustle, just a kind of vivid aliveness that is typical of Latin...Latin life. It's...it's almost a larger than life feel.
SHUSTER: Can you think of an example?
SEYMOUR: Even in the airport, the...the...the gestures, the drama and the people and they...they...oh, these hundreds of voices making conversation and...and so avid and alive, and I'm like, "Oh, look at these people." I mean, they're just really into life, and that, I think, struck me...that is...as we got on the...got...got into the van. The mission director was there to meet me and I didn't even recognize him. And that was...that was awful, but we finally got it together and...and found each other and we carried my luggage out to the van and then began to drive around to different places in the city, kind of a scenic tour to the...to the mission guest house where I would be staying for the next couple weeks. The thing that...that struck me was. It...it had been four years since I had been out of the States at that point, the last time being I had visited my parents while they were still serving in Barbados in the Caribbean, but the squalidness, just poverty. And the other thing that's so different from at least the parts of the States that I'm used to (sort of rural Ohio) was the litter...litter everywhere in the streets, just a real...a lot of trash. But as I understand now, there...there is a purpose in it being in the street. You don't throw trash in the trash can because you would drive...deprive the garbage people, garbage collectors, the street cleaners of their job, so you throw the garbage in the street where it belongs and then the street cleaners have their job. But at that point, even though it just seemed really sort of a unkempt way of living, and the...the apparent poverty and...and the...what seemed to be real dirtiness, and this kind of hit me very hard, I just.... The...the streets...Tegucigalpa is an old city. It was built...really, it became a...a economic center as the silver mines in the city were...were exploited, and a lot of silver mining industry going on, and then the town kept growing and growing until it became the capital of Honduras. I'm not sure at what point. But the streets (and this was like four hundred years ago) and the streets were made for oxcarts, and now they have buses and...and cars. And it's so congested. Everything is...is small, and then to have all these modern vehicles going back and forth, it just seems cramped and dirty, and yet, at the same time, just overflowing with life. And, that, I think really appealed to me, the...the...the vividness of...of the way people...the...the warmth, the vitality for life, I guess (that's maybe a redundancy of...of words) but just a vit...vitalness. Those are some of the first impressions I had. Also, the real warmth of the people and their [pauses] their courteousness, their...their spirit of hospitality, and...and politeness, well...well-mannered, these types of things.
SHUSTER: Can you think of examples of that?
SEYMOUR: Oh, just very....from the very smallest.... Obviously when you meet someone, you don't go...you don't rush up to them and say, "Oh, I've gotta leave in five minutes. Blah blah blah blah blah. This and this, you know, we've got to do business." It's, "Oh, hello. Good day." Talk about anything, everything of interest, and finally, "Oh yeah, by the way," and bring in the item of business. And always when you go to someone's house (I don't know as I went. I didn't really go anywhere that first day on the way to the mission guest house) to...to stop in, and yet, this is...it's very common in any home that you visit. You know, the cookies and coffee are brought out, and you sit and talk, and...and a real hospitableness, a real open space in people's hearts for...for anyone who's coming in, that characterizes the people in general, and even...even on the street. Oh, another thing is Central Park. It's...it's wonderful, especially after five-o'clock when everybody is getting off work, the place just...it comes alive, and...and there are businessmen and...and market ladies and...and young secretaries and bus drivers and...and shoe-shine boys, and everybody is talking, and it's...it's like...and even...even the birds in the trees are having their grand conversation, and so it's just like this...this town happy hour. [laughs] Yeah, you know, without all the alcohol and everything, just a...a real joy in...in being with people and enjoyment of it.
SHUSTER: And you found that in contrast with North Americans?
SEYMOUR: Maybe not so much that I would say that, well, North Americans are totally unlike that, but not with the avidness or the relish or...or the...the verve that Latin Americans have. It's a unique feel for the way that they are in the world...the way that they operate. Don't know how to explain it, I don't know.
SHUSTER: You explained it very well. What was a typical day like when you were teaching at the high school?
SEYMOUR: When I was teaching at the high school, a typical day would be to leave the house early some time around 7:15....
SHUSTER: You were living by yourself?
SEYMOUR: I, after...after the first couple weeks in the guest house, they thought that they would perhaps place me with a Honduran family, but at that point, I didn't really feel like I was prepared to...to [pauses] be gung-ho Honduran. I...I, somehow, my identity needed to...to...
SHUSTER: Adjust?
SEYMOUR: ...to have some time to adjust and maybe not so [smacks her hand to indicate suddenness], you know, right off the bat. And I...I mean it was also maybe I think some thought of having me live with a missionary family, but that, you know, had its disadvantages too, so the mission director.... Well, the...the thing was there was an apartment available. World Gospel Mission had a complex of four apartments. Three of them were being rented to World Relief [a philanthropic organization] folk. But here's a huge apartment, beautiful, and I was the only single person in capital city, and so I would be there by myself. I ended up eventually getting a maid more for companionship, and because the apartment was so big, and the city is so dusty that I couldn't dust my house one day and it not be dirty the next [chuckles], and so having a maid to...to take care of that was a...a real blessing as well. But more just to have someone to be a companion, somebody to talk to when I came home from work and not....
SHUSTER: A live-in maid or...?
SEYMOUR: Yeah, well, she lived in the maid's quarters behind the.... The apartment came complete with a special, you know, room and a bath facility for a person who would work for whoever lived in...in the apartment, and....
SHUSTER: What was the wages of a maid made for a week?
SEYMOUR: For a week? Twelve dollars, [unclear]. Twelve dollars and fifty cents. And for fifty dollars US a month, having someone who will wash your clothes and iron your clothes and cook all your meals and clean your house and buy the groceries as well as just be there as a companion was a real luxury that I felt I could afford. And at the same time, when I got so busy at the high school, I wasn't able to...to keep up with everything, it was a real...a real help to have someone who would sort of take care of the affairs at home and relieve me of that. So...but before then, I (for a whole year) I actually lived there by myself, and this apartment was lovely: large two-bedroom, one and a half bath, a living room that was very big, a kitchen very big. The living room was open to a cathedral ceiling, and I...I was quite...quite surprised, you know, to go to the mission field quote quote and have a lovely apartment (the first apartment I had ever been in, you know, all to myself) but it was about ten minute's drive from the high school, and I didn't have a car so I would take the public transport which means I would walk a block and a half up the hill....
SHUSTER: About what time would that be?
SEYMOUR: 7:15 in the morning, and 7:15, 7:30 (sometimes a little later) but I would take the public bus down into the Central Park of the capital city and from there trade or change buses, cross the park, and get on a bus that was going to the colonia veinteuno de octubre, which is.... Down there, each...each area of the city is called a colony, colonia and so the "colony of the twenty-first of October" which is, if I am remembering correctly, maybe Armed Forces Day of Honduras, and Dia de la fuerza germada and so they...they named...they named the...the different areas of the city after special days of the year. Right behind the colonia veinteuno is one called the catorce febrero which is the fourteenth of February which is St. Valentines Day, but that is the name of a little colonia up there. Anyway, I would take the bus that said colonia veinteuno, and it's so neat, you know, like when the buses are...are coming, they...they have a bus driver and then they have one they call a corredor who...who takes the money from people...
SHUSTER: The conductor.
SEYMOUR: The...the collector..the money, yeah. So is that a conductor?
SHUSTER: Yeah, he also takes tickets.
SEYMOUR: Yeah, okay, okay, so you pay twenty centavos, which is ten cents US, to go to from where I was, the suburb of La Lamera. And so these conductors would be hanging out the door of the bus going, [chants in a singsong] La Lamera, La Lamera, La Lamera, and you go, "Oh, that's me," and you jump on the bus, and then down to Central Park and up come the buses that are going, [chants again] Veinteuno, veinteuno, veinteuno, and you're, "Oh, there goes my bus," [Shuster laughs] so you go and get right up and...and sometimes (it depends on if it's rush hour or not) it's just...it's a free-for-all to get on the bus, and the buses are so packed. The seating...they...they are Bluebird buses. That is a bus company in the United States. It has a company in Guatemala. Interestingly, the owners of the Bluebird bus company are...are very close World Gospel Mission supporters, and the.... Oh land, can't even think of.... The Luces, Jo...Joseph Luce and the Luce family...the different brothers are the ones who have founded the company down in Georgia and then they've got the branch in Guatemala which makes buses....
SHUSTER: Are they related to the Luces of Time magazine?
SEYMOUR: I have no idea. Could be. But...and so there are a lot of Bluebird buses in...in Honduras, as well as...as old, or like used American school buses. That was one of the funny things that was as I...the plane was in circuit to land in Tegucigalpa for the first time and I was on that flight, and I looked down and I could see all over the country all these yellow school buses and I thought, "What on the earth are there so many school buses everywhere for?" 'cause even I could see all the roads leading out and then...to outlying areas from Tegucigalpa and there would be these yellow school buses going up the roads. [Shuster laughs] And I thought, "My goodness, what is this, everybody going to school in Honduras or what?" but it turns that used buses and buses from the United States that are no longer considered to be fit for the road or whatever, the engines get rebuilt, or I don't know what all, but they are used in Honduras as public transport. Well, to get on a bus is pretty much a free-for-all and you have to sneak on as quickly as you can, and there's a lot of jostling, and many times if it's rush hour, as they say...they have the phrase in Spanish, Va in las llantas, you go on the tires, almost you know, like, on the...on the fenders, type thing, and talk about close fellowship [Shuster laughs]. It's pretty much [claps hands] like little sardines. So I would get on the bus and end up taking about forty minutes by the time what an almost...what would be a ten-minute drive in a little car. That's about all the kinds of cars you had in Honduras because, like, the streets are small as I mentioned earlier, so what might be a ten-minute drive ends up being a thirty-five to forty, maybe forty-five minute ride one way to...to get to the high school, and so as soon...soon after eight as possible, I would begin the English language laboratory. I worked with third-year bilingual secretarial students, and we were broken up into small groups of eight to ten girls. I would meet with eight to ten of them for four hours per day in the morning, eight to twelve with a break.
SHUSTER: So you students were all women?
SEYMOUR: Pardon me?
SHUSTER: Your students were all women?
SEYMOUR: My students actually were all women, teenagers anywhere from sixteen to twenty years old, yeah. And at noon, we would break, and at a quarter of one, the...well, actually what happens is that the junior high meets (excuse me) in the morning and then in the afternoon, the high school meets. And the high school at the Virginia Sapp Christian High School anyway is...is broken up into three branches. They called the (like the diversification) and one branch is university prep, the batieres or the batierato which is like "bachelor." And then the perito mercantiles which is commercial accounting type-thing in Spanish....
SHUSTER: Business school?
SEYMOUR: Business school actually, but geared towards accounting types of practices and all of that. And then the third branch is bilingual secretarial study, and that is to...to do typing, shorthand, office and business practice, accounting (did I say that one?), just all the different things that relate to secretarial skills, to do intensive study both in English and in Spanish. And the other two programs, the batieres go three years, the peritos go three years, the bilingual secretarial students go four years to finish their...their degree...their high school degree. But the...the accountants and the secretaries can go right out and get jobs [smacks hands] in the job market right away. And many of the...the students who do graduate and are placed in jobs will work their job by day and study in night school, and those who go on either of those two tracks will go for a third level or go into a bachelor program in night school in order to be able then to attend university because only those who complete the bachelor track of study in high school can actually attend university in Honduras. The university is free. It's government funded and for all Honduran nationals. You go free. You buy your books. That's it. And so...but you have to have completed the university prep track to be able to enter university and there you study to be an engineer or a doctor or a lawyer, or, you know, whatever other than secretary or accountant.
SHUSTER: Are the high schools that give the bachelor track also free?
SEYMOUR: No, no. The...the public...the public schools, I believe, are all free, to my knowledge. I know the primary schools, and I think...I think the...what they call the common cycle, ciclo comun, (seventh and eighth grade) is free, and I think the public high school also is free. But because the quality of education is often very poor (some of the teachers are people that have come out of...out of, let's say, the...the bachelor track, maybe, in a public high school and have gone to a teacher-training school for two years perhaps, and then they go back in and teach primary and the common cycle people - junior high) and so much of...much of the teaching is...is poor quality really, and so parents that want their kids to be anybody or anything try as hard as they can to get them into some kind of private institution that has a...has a reputation of...of being a quality school, etcetera.
SHUSTER: And did Virginia Sapp School have that kind of reputation?
SEYMOUR: Virginia Sapp is (especially with the bilingual secretarial program)...has been known, and not...not only that, but the other areas as well. It has distinguished itself as being a school of...of good standing and has a strong reputation for turning out students who really know what they're about in their given fields.
SHUSTER: Now was there any kind of overt Christian...[pauses, chuckles] overt Christian element in the curriculum...in the...?
SEYMOUR: Definitely, definitely. Students attend Bible class for...Bible class is part of the curriculum. It meets three times a week. The second year I was there, I taught a Bible class to some of the bilingual secretarial students, and....
SHUSTER: And what was the curriculum of that class?
SEYMOUR: It varies from year to year. I think some of the...some of the lower levels do...like Pentateuch [first five books of the Old Testament] Bible, books of the Bible type things. Others deal with different topics, but the third-year bilingual secretaries (the group I worked with), this really was the curve ball that was thrown at me that made me decide that I had to study to really help people learn how to learn. I needed to become trained as a teacher. As the school opened the second year I was there, they said, "Debbie, here are three themes. 'What will I do with Jesus Christ?' 'How will I occupy myself' (you know, like work and so forth) and 'Whom will I marry?'" As being the three types of questions that young girls are going to be asking, they said, "Here are three themes. You develop a curriculum and teach these kids." I didn't know how to make a curriculum. I...they gave a one week crash course in Spanish to help teachers. They were trying to standardize the Bible curriculums especially, but it was really a...a boggling experience and I felt really bogged down. So I made it through that year as best I could using...using Josh McDowell's More Than a Carpenter as more "What shall I do with Jesus Christ?" dealing with that...that theme, and then we didn't really get much into occupation or, like, work ethics or anything, but in the end, dealing with relationships. I found a little book called Relationships - What it Takes to be a Friend. It's a simple...put out by Multnomah Press. It's a little pamphlet book but I was translating from the materials out of that, and...and the girls just, oh, they were right on the edge of their seats and it was really, I think, a helpful experience for them. So it was more, like, from the Christian emphasis...from the Christian world view perspective, helping these girls to try to deal with some of the issues in their lives. So the Bible emphasis is very strong. We have chapel one time per week every Thursday afternoon, and the whole diverso clase [?] comes together, the diversified classes, and there are about five hundred students in the afternoon [pauses] [unclear] (I don't know how you say it in English) but the group that meets in the afternoon. And I was one of the...one of the team of chaplains at the high school or I joined the team of chaplains, and we were four chaplains, so sometimes I would help to lead in worship. I preached a couple times and I also would play, like, this little Casio organ...would be hooked up to the...to the speakers...the PA [Public Address] system in the...in the auditorium, and for singing choruses and so forth, I would play the...the organ.
SHUSTER: When you preached...
SEYMOUR: Uh-huh.
SHUSTER: ...or when other people preached, what kind of themes do you think brought the most response?
SEYMOUR: [Pauses] I'm thinking specifically of...of a North American who came in as a singer (very, very good), but he speaks...speaks Spanish like a native Spanish speaker, and he's written some of his own music and he goes by the name Diego (which is James) and.... His music was a real challenge to examine one's own life and also the...the importance of allegiance to Christ, of a relationship with Christ. And...and he would...he interspersed the songs with some pretty powerful messages...short or, you know, illustrations and a...a final appeal that was very much to the point of challenging people to do something with their life, to be somebody who would count in terms of...terms of spiritual realities, you know, not just to go along with the flow or just try to be part of the...the crowd, some of the similar, I think, things that...that young people.... You know, you're...you're looking for something to commit your life to, and I think pretty much anywhere in the world that you go, that is, maybe you might be able to characterize in terms of...of a developmental task that teenagers are facing universally. What am I going to really be, how am I going to find myself, who am I going to align myself with and this type of thing. And so the message that...that brought the response was one that would...would bring them face to face with these issues and them to...to think maybe in clearer terms at that point.
SHUSTER: Well, what...what social class or economic class were most of these kids...
SEYMOUR: Most...
SHUSTER: ...be coming from?
SEYMOUR: ...of the kids.... You know, it's funny, I...I...I...I really don't know how to...how to characterize them in terms of...of.... I'm beginning to get the feeling that to characterize people in terms of economics.... Although no, in Latin society, the economic strata has everything to do with a person's status, but to say...to say "middle class" which is what for Honduras would be middle class, is nothing, not...not really very comparable to middle class in North America necessarily. You...probably middle class people have a concrete house, made out of concrete blocks, concrete floor. They have inside toilet facilities, have running water and electricity. They probably have a nice TV and a stereo. They eat well, vegetables as well as rice and meat.
SHUSTER: And that was the class of your students?
SEYMOUR: Yeah, the majority. Although there were some who maybe were...were really from poor families out in the outlying areas, but they had a brother or sister or some relative in the city that would, you know, take care of them, or having to live with maybe for some kind of small fee from the family. But it was usually the whole idea of everybody helping to get the...to get the resources together and bring one young person from the family into the city and get them into a good school...that type of thing. The tuition at Virginia Sapp Christian High School is thirty-five dollars a month US, seventy lempiras, and that is steep.
SHUSTER: Before you said your maid was fifty dollars a month.
SEYMOUR: Uh-huh. Uh-huh. For some...for some people, and so the families would kind of go together and help each other...aunts, uncles make contributions as well, and with the idea that the person will get out of school, find a job, and be able to then turn around and help the family. And so some of my students, however, would...would have to, like, work in the mornings. I think of one girl...she worked as a maid in the morning in somebody's house and came to school in the afternoon and only had the night to do her studies, and it was a really heavy load, but it was something I didn't even know about until after...well, I...I...she became one of my students the year after then, she had...she was able to quit working as a maid. Her brother was able to help her more, and so she then had the mornings to study as well, but she, you know, under great duress had come in and...and with hardship, had...you know, (girl fourteen, fifteen years old) and having to take some big responsibilities like that if she was going to make something out of her life. So there's a...I think, a pretty broad spectrum. You know, there were even some...one girl I remember that was from a really well-to-do family that lived at the...the north exit, one of the major arteries going out into another part of Honduras, and I never visited her home but I heard that they had a...a swimming pool in, you know, the backyard, and it was really up and well-to-do. And then when she got out of school, she came to St. Mary's of the Woods College in the United States and studied for about a year, and I forget where that...that is, but, you know, it's a well...I think a pretty well reputed Catholic school here in the Midwest.
SHUSTER: When would the school day end?
SEYMOUR: The school day ended at ten after six so people would go for fifty minute periods and we had...how many in the afternoon? Well, from one...1:15 till ten after six or something like that, and then a break at around 3:30, and everybody would go out around the halls and go to the candy at the snack...the snack shop and get sweets and munchies and cokes and just talk a lot.
SHUSTER: Did you do any one-on-one personal counseling?
SEYMOUR: A good bit.
SHUSTER: What kind of concerns, questions, problems did they have?
SEYMOUR: A lot of the problems were, I think, mainly interpersonal relationships, problems with...with family. Some of the people that were in that situation who...come in to the city to live with relatives and problems encountered in maybe, you know, an aunt, or the uncle's wife didn't really want you around, you know, or it's a complaining about what a burden you are on the family. Other times, problems in...in the family...one girl who lived with her mother's sister, and actually her mother's sister's son was the one who sustained the family. He was a lawyer and had a wonderful job, had provided a beautiful home for them, and he spoke, I think...I think he spoke English, but he was...he was quite well-off. He was this girl's cousin, but he was making advances toward her and, you know, trying to take advantage of her, and her struggle to...to maintain integrity at the same...while all the time being beholden to him. I mean, if it weren't for his good graces, she wouldn't even be in school, and so that was...that was just a bad scene to deal with. Others [pauses], the father beating...beating a daughter up at home, you know. I met a girl whose...whose father was just [sighs] apparently, you know, just a...just a real macho-type man who...who was...had many mistresses around the city and a...a cousin lived in with this girl, with their family and...and her mother had...had, I guess, on different occasions, had had to protect this niece, you know, from the advances of this...this father, and another girl, whose father was a taxi driver, with a lot of potential. She would look at her father and say, "You know, he's...he's a really...a man that everybody likes," but just another...another case of a macho man that was [sauses]...had women friends all over the city, and...and at the same time, demanding respect in his own household, and...and there saying to me, "Debbie, I...I think my mother will...will get divorced from him in a couple years, but right now, she has to...has to still be his wife because she couldn't maintain our family as a...as a, you know...without...apart from his support."
SHUSTER: Sure seems like a lot of these students have had this trouble with a kind of a macho man in their family.
SEYMOUR: That's...that very....
SHUSTER: How did it effect them?
SEYMOUR: Oh, [sighs] it was very devastating because women in Latin America are taught to honor and revere men from the time...from the time [chuckles] little boys are very tiny, their mothers will say...call them "my king," "my," you know...this, you know, "my lord...master almost." And...and while girls are socialized for responsibilities, obedience, submission, the boys are pushed out to become macho-men. From...I...I have heard it said, although I don't know this, you know, from personal experience, but someone has told me, "Debbie, this happened to me," but I've heard it said that often fathers will take the son in fifth or sixth grade and take him to a...to a bordello and say, "Here, find out what life's all about," and so this...this...this cultural emphasis on...on proving oneself as manly through sexual prowess, then...it begets a whole set of problems. You've...you've got kids all over, you know. A man may have a nuclear family...wife and children at home and everything's very fine, but he also have a number of mistresses in different parts of the country. They have two or three children with them, and I remember several of my students who don't even know their fathers. And one girl who...whose mother was...well, the girl who lived with her...her aunt and her aunt's son and he was trying to take advantage of her, she had been out of school, she had to drop out when she was eighteen. She was now twenty-two when she was finishing her senior year of the bilingual secretarial program. Her mother was an alcoholic. Her mother had three children. She...this girl had two brothers. Her two brothers had different fathers from the father she had, and she didn't know her father. She knew that he lived in a city on the north coast, and she had met him, I think, one time, and she would tell me, "Debbie, sometimes I just dream that my father will come and he'll take me, maybe take me out to eat or do something special with me, and I'll know he really loves me," and he never came, and [pauses] and.... When we know that someone...that...that we matter or...or our life has importance because people attend to us. They make a point to be there for us. They take care of our needs, then we know that...that we are esteemed and we have value, but in the absence of that, so many of my students said, "My life is a big zero. I am worth nothing." And...and out of a context like this and maybe being children of unwed mothers and so on, the option...and...and I was reading in a Reader's Digest to...just yesterday about right here in the United States that children of unwed mothers...daughters of unwed mothers many times are unwed mothers themselves, because they're looking for some kind of meaning in their lives and the ways that they have seen, you know, meaning is to be someone's mother, and so they choose that route and find esteem and value by having someone who needs them, a child. And so many of the girls just had no self-esteem.
SHUSTER: So how did you counsel her?
SEYMOUR: [Coughs] With this particular girl that I last mentioned, she would say, "Debbie, how can God love me? I have suffered all my life. Martha [?], my mother, would come in from drinking and she would beat me, or she wouldn't come home until I would go out to look for her. I'd walk down the street and I overhear people...I see my mother up ahead and overhear people say, 'Oh, there goes the crazy woman,'" you know. And I think apparently from talking with her mother a couple times, you know, she exhibited sort of bizarre behaviors, and it...it seemed apparent that her...her touch with reality was somewhat loose....
SHUSTER: Her mother?
SEYMOUR: Yeah, and whatever...whatever events in her life had unfolded...because she...her mother came from a well-to-do family, and a...and a family of good standing, but...and so when she ended up living...this girl ended up living with her aunt.... Her aunt had lived in San Francisco for a number of years. Her aunt spoke English, and then her uncle...this man was the lawyer and everything, so she had good connections. And I'm really thankful this girl ended up...she did her practicum at a...at a English-speaking Christian high school in Tegucigalpa, and there she met a...a fellow who had come down from Canada to teach math and she married him and they're living in British Columbia now, and I just certainly hope that...that, you know, life is going much better for her. But you know, she would say, "Debbie, how can God love me?" I...so obviously what I was saying to her by...by taking time, spending time with her, listening to her, talking with her, and showing love to her, you know, whether it was having her come over to my house and we make food together or I would go visit and stay overnight with her (I did that on, I think, a couple of occasions), went to her graduation party, went to her wedding with her...to her uncle's wedding. He did get married to a lovely girl and so that was much...a lot pressure off of her. [Pauses] Her strong desire for life was so thwarted. You know, it's like Eric Fromm [popular psychologist author] says that to a degree, a person's life-force is...is thwarted and kept down and...and deprived or whatever, to that extent, a person's force to live can be turned inward and become a force to self-destruct. And she had a very definite death-wish. She would say, "I...I...so why should I even live?" And in trying to help her to understand and...and by showing her love more than anything I guess is all I can say...you know, praying with her, praying for her, showing her that in least in my eyes, she had great value, and she was a worthy person. She was enjoyable to be with. She was...she was worth listening to. She had a contribution to make, you know, those types...and she did...she really did. So many of my students did. Those were the types of things, by actions as well as words, that kind of counseling. And that many times it was just listening and trying to help, you know, sort of in a Rogerian [Carl Rogers, psychologist who developed the nondirective approach to psychotherapy] way. "Oh, so this is what you are thinking, this is what you're feeling, huh?" "Well, yeah, that is," you know, those types of things as well, and maybe with what else, maybe sort of brain-storming, "What other options do you see open?" you know. "What does God's Word maybe...does it address this specific issue in any given way?" those kinds of things.
SHUSTER: We can move on to talking about the church in Honduras.
SEYMOUR: Okay.
SHUSTER: How...how can you describe it from your experience?
SEYMOUR: The church in Honduras is characterized, number one, by the same vital...vitality, aliveness as the culture is and it stands to reason because if a people is a certain way, then the way they express themselves in relation to God is going to be in, at least, in some degree similar. And so maybe starting from the specifics of a...of a worship service. Their...Latin time is...is Latin time. If services were to start at seven o'clock, well, people will be coming from anywhere a couple minutes to seven to about seven-thirty, quarter of eight, and you just, when you get there, then you join them. And a lot of the singing is choruses and praying is (in the Evangelical and Protestant church) is a extemporaneous, spontaneous, as opposed to the more ritualistic Catholic mode of reciting the rosary or saying the prayers...having the priest say the prayers in the Mass. There's also usually a sermon of some sort and some people who've studied different...different cultures and I would consider that Latin culture falls into this...this same type of mode of presentation in terms of preaching. A man from the Mission Intern (MI) Mission Internship [Missionary Internship], Dr. Duane Elmer, talks about the type of thinking...contextual thinking, contextual presentation, so it doesn't really matter what [unclear], it's...it's the...usually it's one theme, excuse me, and then the speaker will approach that one theme from all...many, many different angles and avenues, and it's not some kind of linear presentation that starts with point A and moves to point B to point C, and if you get there in the middle of point B and you're lost because you missed point A. No, but rather, here's the main theme that comes and [smacks hand for emphasis] it is brought home, you know, from all different angles.
SHUSTER: Can you think of an example?
SEYMOUR: [Pauses] Right off the top of my head, no, and basically what in making a reference to Duane Elmer, I'm thinking that...that he has persuaded me that this is, in fact, true.
SHUSTER: In your own experience?
SEYMOUR: But...in my own experience, I know that for...for...for one, that the pastor of my home church in Honduras is a man of...of some years, he's trained in Western-type settings, and so he tends more toward a logical presentation; however, (or not...not that the other is illogical...I'm trying to say a linear-type presentation) I...now it's coming back to me. In the one...one of the churches that is in a part of the denomination there in Honduras with which I'm affiliated...it's called the Church in Transformation, and it's...the name evokes an image of...of renewing and change, and some of the people have kind of been considered Marxist in their...in their thinking, and yet their....
SHUSTER: By who?
SEYMOUR: By...been sort of branded that way by missionaries and by other Latin Americans, but from a Latin perspective. Anybody who rocks the boat a little bit is...is being socially deviant, you know, in terms of...of going outside the structure and starting a new one, etcetera, etcetera. But this church, however, in...yeah. Some of the worship services...the messages are that way, a more contextual approach, picking one theme and...and I can't think now, like, the specific Scripture but just the awareness that...that it's brought home in a myriad of ways. And...and I think that that would hold true and it's perhaps more...more typical, more in keeping with the Latin approach to living, and...and....
SHUSTER: How do you mean that?
SEYMOUR: In...in...in the sense of...of they live contextually. They don't live in a linear fashion. Everything is...is in relationship to other people to...to the structures...the social structures, to the hierarchy, to the people in the shops. You...if you want something done, you get to know a person who is...who is in a position to do something for you in a...in a shop or some kind of service center, and then you go to them and appeal to them. And so it's in...in...in terms of relationship, not in terms of who comes first and gets in line first is the one who gets served first as we would, I think, in North America, and would have much more [pauses] line-up or a linear way of living.
SHUSTER: In other words they tend not to the formal organizational structure than to the informal?
SEYMOUR: Yeah, they...they relate both to the...to the formal, but the...the informal structure is below...is maybe even stronger, and it is really what...what supports the...the formal structure, I guess. Or gives it...gives it the oomph that it has. The...it's not...it's not what you know but who you know very definitely in Latin America. In...in Honduras specifically, you...you can see that.
SHUSTER: Coming back to the church, you talked a little about the worship service on Sunday?
SEYMOUR: Uh-huh, uh-huh.
SHUSTER: What are some of the other ways that a church week in Honduras would be different from a church week in Illinois?
SEYMOUR: A church week in Honduras for your given group is many times, in the Evangelical churches, there's something going every night. Monday night is Bible study. Tuesday night is this. Wednesday night is prayer meeting. Thursday night is calling in the community. Friday night is a special service. Saturday is the youth meetings. Sunday are the worship services and....
SHUSTER: And how...what percentage of the congregation would attend?
SEYMOUR: Well, it depends on how strong, number one, your leader is, because since...since in Latin America authority is from the top-down, in the church, it's that way, too. And so if you have a very strong, authoritarian leader, then pretty much a...a good portion of the congregation is going to be there, maybe even half or more. However, now, I think, that the...the thinking that is now...in more vogue now is that...or...or at least I should say, it's kind of in the question, "Is it really right, you know, to have something in the church every night?"
SHUSTER: You mean the question in Honduras?
SEYMOUR: Yeah. I think Honduran Christians, at least, some of the Christian Hondurans I know, are saying, "When will I have time to really spend, you know, quality moments with my family? When I am going to do this and this? When am I going to reach out to people around me. You know, I work from eight to five every day, and then to go to church every night, where I, you know, take the bus system there and back." It's...it's just, you know, your whole life is then related to the church, so some people.... I mean not that being your whole life being related to the church is wrong, but to have your whole life activities revolve around, you know, being in church every night is something that I...I think Evangelical Christians are beginning to become aware that maybe there are other valid ways of...of expressing faith in Jesus Christ and being nurtured in one's spiritual walk other than simply going to culto, culto, culto, you know, "worship, worship, worship" as they say. [Pauses] So after the preaching, there's also...and it...it depends on the church. If the church is more run by people who were "churched-up" through western missionaries, North American missionaries, it's gonna follow from that very similar to worship service here in the States. For people who are experimenting with new ways of doing things...trying to contextualize and make more compatible with their own culture expression the worship services, then they take a different format.
SHUSTER: What might that format be?
SEYMOUR: Like much more...much more singing, much more testifying, times for people to share what's been going on. Also, (I've been thinking of the Transformation Church that I mentioned earlier) they...they are working a lot with house churches and churches in small communities...satellite churches all over the city, and so once a month they will have a communion service, and all of the church will come together. All the little churches will come in and join with the main church and they'll have communion, but the service will go for maybe three hours, excuse me, and they'll...they'll have a lot of singing. Then different people share in what's been happening in the small satellite churches. Different ones have...have been converted to the Lord, and somebody who is working on the pastoral team there will share about that or the person himself will be present and say a few words, and then, you know, have a special group. There...there's a...a group that has formed a band in this church and they...different ones will write the music and they perform the music there, and then more singing by the congregation. And then a...a message or maybe a couple of people speaking, I think, even at times. Perhaps it's mainly just one person...one of the pastors 'cause there are several pastors who are on the team besides the...the pastoral groups out in the satellite churches. And then they'll have the communion where everyone at this point will sort of form a line in the middle...down the middle aisle of the church, and the two people who are in charge of bringing the...the juice and...and the bread will bring that and set it up in the...on a table right at the front...in front of the altar, and they will serve communion to each other, and then stand by the table to supply the...the...the elements as they're needed. And one of them will break off the bread and give it to the first person in line and then give them the cup. As...as...as the person drinks from it, take it back and set it down, and then they'll step back and that person will turn around and give...serve communion to the person behind him and then that person will turn around and serve the next person. And so it's...it's a really sort of a ministering body idea rather than where in North American churches, everybody goes up to the altar, and where (depending on how high church or...or low church you are) either the...the pastor or the priest in some of the Episcopal churches that I have visited, you know, while being here in Wheaton, they give you the bread and the wine sort of one by one. And...and other churches that I'm familiar with here in the States, everybody goes forward and kneels at the altar and...and is served sort of together, but this...this approach...it seems I...it's really...it's a very special time. I've participated in several of those communion services, and it's a...a high day, it's an event which is something that...that Latin American people.... Any excuse to make an event is...is a good one [laughs]. And so especially in terms of...of worship, too, which is so important. Anthropologists like Marvin [Keene] Mayers and Eugene Nida say about how much [pauses]...how event-oriented Latin American people are, and so often in...in the preaching of the gospel and then superimposing our western sorts of values.... For instance, like it's stated that...that the Latin vibrancy that...that spills over into the way they celebrate and have parties will often, when they come to the Lord and...and have a personal faith in Jesus Christ and then told that parties are wrong and so they don't have parties anymore....
SHUSTER: Who tells them that?
SEYMOUR: Oh, it's been missionaries in the past. Now it's...it's people who learn that from the missionaries. Or parties in the sense of...of, you know, dancing and...and so forth, and although some of them still do folklore dancing and which is really...really beautiful to my understanding. I've seen it sort of done impromptu and it's really neat. But according to these anthropologists, they...they will celebrate in order to transcend themselves, and because...because...and I think that many times the way that the vibrancy and the drama of life the...the verve that is put into the way they live, is enough to transcend the mundaneness of the...of the lot that they have.
SHUSTER: Transcend themselves in the sense that they're becoming more a community?
SEYMOUR: Transcend in the sense of not being...not being becoming dominated or...or cowed by "X" circumstance that would...has the potential of...of leaving them devoid of joy, but that...that somehow the...I think, the...the attitude that...that I would feel overall is that, "This may be my lot in life and...." And it's basically you...you don't...you don't...if...if you are born a street sweeper or if you are born in the class of a maid, you don't ever expect much to be beyond that. But within that limited sphere of status that you have, then you live in such a way to transcend that, to have...to have joy even though you may be a lowly person. Because anyone who...who rises in status, whether it's through education or marrying into money which are about the two ways you can rise in status in Latin America [laughs], or marry into a foreign family-type thing [pauses], other than that.... What am I trying to say? Help me.
SHUSTER: Well, that other than that, you're talking about this way...it's the only way that you can transcend...
SEYMOUR: Okay, okay.
SHUSTER: ...society and the other way is [unclear].
SEYMOUR: Right, right. So, to.... Oh, land. I'm losing my train of thought. But just getting, you know, getting beyond these types of things. Oh, it's the idea of limited good. While in North America we would approach life (and this is what Mayers says) we would approach life and say, "Its unlimited good. You just put a little effort behind...behind what you do, you can make it good. And you can be somebody and you can this and that."
SHUSTER: Dale Carnegie [exponent of the power of positive thinking], kind of.
SEYMOUR: Yeah. And they believe that there is limited good and your rise inevitably means someone else's fall. And so the idea is not to....
SHUSTER: More ecological.
SEYMOUR: How do you mean that?
SHUSTER: Well, ecological in the sense of....
SEYMOUR: So what you do then is to, within the limitations that you have, then you live and get all the joy you can and give all the joy you can. And so many times any excuse to celebrate is an excuse to transcend that and...and somehow I think that, maybe in the party atmosphere, these...these limitations can be forgotten for...for a time.
SHUSTER: You've mentioned some of the critiques that missionaries or mission-trained church leaders have made of this spirit. Can you observe a marked difference between Evangelicals and other Hondurans?
SEYMOUR: In terms of?
SHUSTER: In terms of....
SEYMOUR: Whether of not they have the celebrative...
SHUSTER: Or maybe in the larger context of their life.
SEYMOUR: ...spirit?
SHUSTER: Do they appear to be markedly different from their countrymen?
SEYMOUR: Especially in terms of the social...the whole machismo thing. Evangelical Christians by and large (although there are some people who end up being wolves in sheep's clothing very sadly, even church leaders)...but the...the new Evangelical in Latin America (and by saying the new Evangelical, the younger generations who are increasingly educated and are thinking), their approach to living is very different. It's like the call...maybe it takes a long time to bring about cultural change and I think the gospel helps people to begin to...to think in new frameworks.
SHUSTER: We should stop here for a second.
SEYMOUR: Okay.
SHUSTER: This tape is almost out, so I'll get another one with about fifteen more minutes on it...
SEYMOUR: Okay.
SHUSTER: ...we can...
SEYMOUR: Okay.
SHUSTER: ...complete this thought.
SEYMOUR: Okay.
END OF TAPE