By Thea Jarvis

Sister Jane Paris looks more like one of the teenagers she used to assist on diocesan retreat weekends than a Central American missionary.

But the freckle-faced, smiling Atlantan is no stranger to foreign soil, and has experienced first-hand the hardness of life in Honduras, where she has been stationed for the past two years.

During a May "home leave" granted by her community, the Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary in Monroe, Michigan, Sister Jane took time to give local Catholics an update on the Church and the people of Honduras.

An informal presentation at her former parish, Holy Cross Church in Chamblee, where her parents, Bob and Nancy Paris, are still members, allowed Jane to share slides and stories of "the most mountainous country in Central America," which reminded her so much of North Georgia.

What Sister Jane found in the rural villages where she and a fellow religious, through a grant from Maryknoll and the invitation of an Honduran bishop, acted as "pastors" -- a priest visits the people just once a year -- was a population that struggles daily with the harsh realities of an underdeveloped country. Poverty, malnutrition, political extremism and a limited presence of Church outside major metropolitan areas are some of the hardships endured by the Honduran people.

"When you talk about the Church in Honduras," Sister Jane said simply, "the people are the Church."

Because priests and bishops are basically unavailable to the people of the Honduran mountain communities, a non-sacramental Church has evolved. "Delegados de la Palabra" -- delegates of the Word -- celebrate scripture services in rural areas, nurturing the "communidades de base" (base communities) we in the States have heard so much about.

Such celebrations are held in rustic surroundings and are "not neat or orderly," sister Jane said with affection. "There is a warm, familial atmosphere" with lots of children usually playing on a dirt floor.

Although the living conditions of the people are rough and unsophisticated, "their attitude of prayer is something we (in the States) don’t know enough about," she claimed.

In addition to training, and encouraging the "delegados," whose status is similar to that of the diaconate in U.S. churches, Sister Jane disseminated information on nutrition, hygiene and diet. She also helped to procure funds from relief agencies for the poorest villages.

One of the most remote of the many villages the sisters pastored was one hour by car -- and three-and-a-half hours by mule!

At the end of one of her journeys, Sister Jane found 21-month-old Rosie awaiting her. The smaller of a set of twins, Rosie weighed only 11 pounds as she approached the end of her second year. She was so weak that she couldn't cry," Jane recalled. Rosie was taken down the mountain to the sisters' home, a local goat provided milk rich in butterfat, and the child thrived.

Sister Jane reacted "like a proud mother" when Rosie's progress was assured and she could be returned to her family.

This interest in grass-roots ministry eventually led Jane Paris to the Honduran border, where thousands of Salvadorans fleeing the violence of their homeland were housed in crudely assembled refugee camps.

Most refugees had escaped their country by night, living in caves, going without food for weeks on end before reaching the border. Refugee Catholic catechists told tales of torture "just because they were catechists," Sister Jane related. "They" - who had escaped with their lives -- "were the lucky ones."

But once across the border, she explained, safety was not guaranteed. People were taken from the camps in military raids, returned to El Salvador, and shot, frequently with the complicity of the military government of Honduras.

"When Fort Benning trains Salvadoran soldiers, this is what we're talking about," she pointed out.

In addition, "disappearances" abound, Sister Jane said. "These people are in the process of getting lost" -- moved around from camp to camp.

"I found the bureaucracy (at the camps) astounding, the organization atrocious and most of the personnel uncooperative, unhelpful and indifferent," Jane had written in a newspaper account of her brief tenure at the refugee sites. "There were great power games going on among agencies at the expense of people's lives. Concern for the refugee was lost in the camp."

During her stay in Honduras, Jane Paris did not feel herself in personal danger, although she was only five miles from the place where the Oklahoman missionary, Father Stan Rother, was killed.

She is, however, concerned for her missionary friends across the Honduran borders -- in El Salvador, Guatemala and Nicaragua -- and has strong feelings about American involvement in Central America and the human rights violations that prevail there.

"We can't keep supporting regimes that are treating people the way they are," she stated emphatically. "We can't talk about Russia or Poland when we're doing worse -- it's blindness and hypocrisy."

Our strongest weapon in the struggle against the contradictions and inequities that form the backdrop of Central American life is "keeping informed," Sister Jane Paris feels.

She's doing her part -- can we do ours?