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Mission Trips
Some relections on our recent
mission trips...
A
CHRISTMAS CAROL ...December 25, 2008
It was Christmas morning and my husband and I boarded a Delta flight for
Tegucigalpa, Honduras to spend our first Christmas with the children and
young people of our mission, Agua de Vida. We lugged 300 pounds of supplies
and necessities with us and carried gifts sent from North Americans.
With the state of the US economy and the knowledge that people everywhere
were hungry, we just couldn't bring ourselves to have the usual expensive
holiday party and throw Christmas presents that our family doesn't need
or want under a tinseled tree. So we headed for a holiday with our Honduran
grandchildren, for whom Christmas was a miracle that could only happen
in areas with HVACs and wall-to-wall carpet.
We arrived at the airport to the welcomed greeting of a truck full of
kids, babies, and teenagers who had ridden the rough roads from the mountain
village to the country's capital city to pick up the "missionaries". We
stepped out of the modern airport and headed through the familiar honking
of hurried tin cabs to the outskirts of the city and on to the mountain
road that wound its way to what we have come to call "home".
In the village, we were ushered to our room set up with cots and a plastic
wash bowl by the mission folks who were busy preparing the Christmas feast.
The children hollered their welcomes at our second story window from the
street, calling out "Abuela! Abuela!" until I could come to the open window
and lean out to blow a kiss or a greeting to the passersby in the street
below. The American interns and some of the older girls from the village
all spread out gifts brought in from the States and wrapped feverishly
so that every child would have something under the mission house tree.
The older youth got special gifts selected by the American interns...a
purse, a pair of shoes sized just right, a new blouse. The children had
toys and books, craft sets, back packs, sneakers, and coats. The adults
had dresses and new work shirts and a bottle of cologne here and there.
At sundown, the children, toddlers, and teens gathered with the adults
in the youth center of the mission where tables were elaborately decorated
with red cloths and Christmas tinsel and the festivities began. Roast
turkey, beans, rice, tortillas, bread loaves were served up in heaping
platefuls to all who could crowd into the mission. The youth band was
beating out its Christmas tunes and the children surprised us with a carol
or two lovingly memorized in English.
Mothers nursing babies looked on proudly as their children performed for
the Americans. Boxes of candy and treats were handed out to every child
who stood patiently in line waiting for a turn to choose something from
the Christmas box. Prayers were offered up by almost everyone who could
get to the tiny microphone.
After dinner, everyone gathered around a Christmas tree, a real novelty
in this village, and began to open their presents. Santa Claus isn't a
concept we want to introduce in the village of Reynel Funes and no child
knows or expects a visit from Old Saint Nick. There simply isn't enough
money to provide a present or even a celebration at Christmas time. December
25 usually comes and goes uneventfully without electricity, water, or
food...and certainly without American fanfare or gluttony. But, on this
December 25, we saw adults crying as they opened their gifts and we heard
stories of gratefulness. Families took leftovers home that would provide
meals days later. This was the best celebration that could have ever taken
place at the village, they told us.
Long after my husband and I had turned in for the night and nestled down
on our rickety cots upstairs, we heard the sound of laughter, guitars
and the tune of Silent Night, Holy Night making its way through the night
air. The kids were still celebrating. No one wanted to go home after all
because here, at the International Mission Connection's center on a mountainside...so
far from Rudolph-the red-nosed and a Jimmy Stewart movie... all was calm
and bright. Full stomachs. Warm hearts. A true Bethlehem moment right
here in Honduras on a night with just a star or two to light the path
of Hope.
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A
BONFIRE…..Mission Trip NOVEMBER 2008
Holly Flores, the mother of our interns, decided to join Donna Sloan on
the November trip. This was a business trip. Corporate consultants
in the USA might call this a “strategic planning” conference. Since our
September trip, the rainy season had brought destruction to homes, families
were displaced, and even more children were hungry in the streets after
their meager belongings had been washed away with the flooding and mudslides.
Time to assess what food supplies needed to be on reserve for catastrophic
events and what we needed to do to implement IMC's programs projected
for 2009. Thanks to the donations of Americans in response to the
reports of destruction, we were able to provide funds for hunger relief.
As a part of our partnership with Mission of Mercy to expand our tutorial
program, we are required to build an industrial type kitchen that can
handle the meal preparation for the children's feeding program, beginning
with 100 children and moving ahead with the goal of eventually having
500 children in the program. Purchasing this type of equipment does
not come cheap in Honduras where everything that is American-made is sold
at a premium. Additionally, IMC is charged with the responsibility of
paying the teachers' salaries for the new children's program. Mission
of Mercy provides the supervision and the training. We pay for the
labor. Another line item on a budget with competing priorities!
Planning for the November 21 youth camp required making food and supply
lists and allocating funds to purchase what would be needed to provide
a camp experience for 45 teenagers. … An annual conference put on by International
Mission Connection.
Christmas is coming and, as
always, IMC plays an integral role in bringing celebration and joy to
the faces of nearly 200 people (and more, if they can crowd in) in the
mission on Christmas night. An evening of music, drums, prayers,
and shared blessings. Each child and adult gets to open a gift.
The only gift of the season. And food is prepared. Traditional
turkeys and chickens, tortillas, rice, beans, sweet potatoes, and holiday
desserts! We spend November time planning the celebration and the
attendant costs and investigating the city's equivalent to Cosco's to
see what foods could be purchased in bulk as the holiday nears.
On Saturday night, a bonfire was planned for the children and young people.
Until the sanctuary roof is completed, the kids use the concrete
floor on the third floor of the mission center for gatherings. Looking
out over the mountains at night, with only a fire blazing, is quite an
adventure! Alejandro, a little four year old boy, arrived early and found
his seat on a concrete block as the older youth began working on starting
the fire, using scraps of old wood. I watched as he sat so patiently
waiting for the festivities to begin. Alejandro was alone, I learned,
and had wandered in off of the street because he had heard that Abuela
(the name for grandmother that the children in the village use for Donna
Sloan) was planning a Fogata (a bonfire). He stayed the whole night
and got to help roast marshmallows, a treat that none of the Hondurans
had ever experienced.
Later, as the kids were playing their guitars and leading the younger
ones in their version of parlor games around the fire, a seven year
old squeezed into a seat beside me and volunteered to be a translator
for the American interns. Very poised and oh so serious, he explained
why he was really needed by me to help out. Of course, he couldn't
speak English, but he wished to contribute what he could to make sure
that the Americans would stay.
I was touched by these two children. Each in his own way was stepping
to the front of the line. The four year old, without a chaperone
and without knowing anyone at the Fogata, had simply heard that the Americans
were planning something and he was going to make sure that he didn't miss
out on something that was bound to be good.
The seven year old, trying so hard to act grownup, was boldly pushing
his way to our attention to let me know how he could be needed. One
could almost see his outstretched hand, with his small offering of himself,
which was all he truly had.
International Mission Connection strives to give. To make a difference
by bringing about some small change in a child's life. I am continually
surprised and blessed to realize that these children make such a difference
in my own life because they give whatever they have and whoever they are
so innocently and yet so boldly. They want me to remember them.
To notice them. And to never forget.
I go to give them something and they give me so much more. I try
to plan feeding programs because they are starving and find that my own
hungry heart is nourished. I hug them because they need to be loved,
but their arms around me pacifies the loneliest of feelings. In these
final chapters of my own life, I am encouraged and inspired by the beginnings
of the lives of these children. They know so much more about giving
than a nonprofit organization can ever teach them.
They are something to celebrate … a fire that I hope will keep on burning
for years to come.
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THE RIVER IS WIDE ………. Mission Trip SEPTEMBER 2008
In September, we boarded the plane with two American girls, heading once
again for Honduras . The girls, Amber and Alisa Flores, had volunteered
to commit four months of their lives to living in a village they had never
seen … giving up conveniences, text messaging, hot water, pizza delivery
and more … to work in the mission project begun by International Mission
Connection called Agua de Vida. The Flores sisters, aged 19 and
21, both welcomed the opportunity to teach in the children's program and
assist the local Hondurans. One major drawback … neither could speak
a word of Spanish!
Nevertheless, the interns arrived in the impoverished mountain village
ready to serve!
Upon arriving at the mission, first on our “to do list” was to set up
a room on the second floor of the children's center as an apartment for
the interns. Beds were purchased. A refrigerator and kitchen
sink and cabinet were installed. The Hondurans set to work building
a shower for the girls. Our mission “apartment” will also be used
after the Flores girls return and these new sleeping quarters will be
available for the next set of interns as well. Living at the mission instead
of bunking at the Intercontinental Hotel in the country's capitol is an
eye opener. We all realized that our day was no longer a ten hour
day after which we could be conveniently dropped off at a clean modern
hotel an hour away from the village and then wake up to a scrumptious
buffet , as if we were at the Buckhead Intercontinental back in Atlanta.
Instead, we were here in a remote village away from HVACs and toilets
that flush on command. The water out of the pipes is not safe for
Americans to drink so we found ourselves brushing our teeth with bottled
water and conserving our Evian for drinking, too. The village roosters
were our alarm clocks, along with the old village bus that beeped and
honked through the wee hours of the morning, stopping at street corners
to pick up villagers who had work in the city. In past mission trips,
we had all enjoyed a hearty breakfast and often late night room service
at the hotel. Now, staying in the village of Reynel Funez with no
access to the city, we were struck by the reality of how little food the
people really consumed every day. Thinking that the people always
had ample reserves of rice and beans, we began to notice that the mission
pastor himself had nothing stored in his own kitchen. In fact, his
family and small children sometimes went an entire day with nothing more
than a small bowl of rice and a crust of bread. The young people
we had so enjoyed in trips past did not complain if they missed a day
of food altogether. But, when we made a platter of chicken and rice,
thinking it would last for days, the kids crowded into the mission, grateful
for a hot meal.
We bought fresh fruit, a delicacy that is simply not affordable at the
market for the people of the village, and made heaping bowls of fruit
salad to dispense. This was gobbled up as if it were fancy dessert!
In all of our trips, we stock the shelves of the farmacia (our small pharmacy
in the mission) with supplies brought through customs. Donated by
Americans, we take bandages, antiseptics, OTC medicines, Tylenol, diarrhea
medicine, as well as shampoos, soaps, toothpaste and toothbrushes. In
the early stages of our project, we naively thought that the people could
purchase supplies from the farmacia for a small amount of limpiras. However,
after seeing how desperately the children need their wounds cleaned and
bandaged and their infections treated, we no longer have the heart to
charge anything. Instead, the supplies are dispensed at no charge
and we are glad to restock on every trip, knowing that the people have
no other source of this kind of help in the village! In Honduras
, a simple cut on a child's finger can become a serious matter if left
untreated and an intestinal condition that just needs Maalox here in the
States can become life-threatening.
On this trip, we took one hundred pounds of educational supplies and crafts
materials for the children's programs. Colored beads and strings
would become jewelry made by the loving hands of children in our center.
Books were added to our library shelves and DVDs and flashcards
were delivered for use in our English classes. A new game of checkers
became treasured entertainment for late night “hanging out” at the mission.
On our third day, we set off for a trip to the jungle area on the Nicaraguan
border. Armed with supplies, we packed a jeep and a large van crowded
with twelve of us, including the Honduran young people, Pastor Almendares
and his wife and 5 month old baby, and our two American interns
. Planning to spend the night in the jungle region, we had our backpacks,
our water bottles, and some granola bars. A five hour trek in the
countryside led from a paved road, to a gravel road, to a muddy path through
the forest. Finally our vehicles stopped in the middle of the vegetation
and we were told that we had to hike the rest of the way in to the mountain
village in a community referred to as the Rio Grande . We soon learned,
in fact, that hiking into the village involved actually crossing the Rio
Grande itself, wading through rushing muddy water, lifting our backpacks,
supplies, and the 5 month old baby high over our heads to get across the
turbulent river.
On the other side, up a dried waterfall bed into the higher region, we
discovered a clearing with a small hut …. not a village at all. The
little house was owned by our hostess, a woman whose own son had travelled
out of the region and settled in Reynel Funez. The man came to Agua
de Vida after he saw what we were doing for his own child. This
man's mother looked up from her washing to greet us and sent the kids
into the brush in the jungle to announce to the others in the “village”
that we had arrived. Some seventy or more children soon came wandering
out of hidden paths, seemingly from nowhere, in the jungle to join us
for an afternoon of songs, skits, and passing out gifts and supplies.
These Hondurans had never seen an American. Never had a church.
Never had a market. Never seen a doctor. Never had
a teacher. Here in this region called the Rio Grande, named for
the river that divides it from the rest of the country, the people of
the mountain survive on what they can grow and make happen while the sun
is still up … without automation, without electricity, without furniture,
without books, without CNN. Their water source is the Rio Grande
.
As the sun started to set on the mountain, the storm clouds gathered almost
immediately and the rains began. It was the rainy season, we were
told, and the rainy season in Honduras is more than a sprinkle. It
brings torrents to the hard earth and results in mud slides that destroy
their huts and creates winds that blow off their clay roofs. We
were advised to get back across the river before it rose so high with
the storm that we could be trapped for days. So, we gathered our
things, said our goodbyes, and, clinging together for balance, forded
the river, now waist deep in places, to return to our parked vehicles.
Before we left, the grandmother and I shared stories about our grandchildren
and found common ground, as if we had been kindred women for a long time.
Thinking of my own grandchildren back home who will never once go hungry
or will never have to do without medical treatment if they need it, I
was wondering just how much good any of us could possibly do to really
help in the Rio Grande . How could a trek here and there and delivery
of supplies make a dent? As if reading my mind, my new friend pointed
to her own grandsons playing at her feet and said, “ We know what you've
done in Reynel Funez … we need you to come back here … it is too late
for me to get off of this mountain, but these grandchildren are my semillas
(my seeds). If even one child can receive your help, and because
of that become a doctor or a teacher or a pastor and come back to help
the others here, then my life will have been worth it.”
This little grandmother, without education and opportunity, has caught
the vision and the purpose of what we are trying to do with International
Mission Connection. When we left, she gave us what she had … three
live chickens, a gift we couldn't dare refuse. She wasn't asking
for a handout. She was only asking for hope.
Water-soaked, we got in our van and our jeep with our chickens and began
what was a nightmare of a trip out of the jungle. The rains had
increased. The steep mountain paths had turned to mud. Along the
way, we got stuck in ditches, stalled in gullies, and fishtailed as we
slipped and slid our way out of the dense growth. Finally we reached
a point where our tires were buried deeper and deeper in the mud and everyone
pushing couldn't get us out of the mud and the slime.
Bessie, Pastor Almendares' wife, sitting in the van nursing her infant,
began praying for a miracle. In the middle of the darkest weather,
she began thanking God for the Rio Grande and its children. When
her prayer ended, the green undergrowth was parted and a man from Rio
Grande led two oxen to the front of the van. With vines and hand
hewn ropes, he hooked up the oxen to our vehicles and they trudged up
the mountain (effortlessly!) pulling us out of the mud and onto a gravel
clearing up ahead.
This was during a time when the stateside news was filled with the whining
of Americans over gas prices. And here we were , left to depending
on two oxen and a man from Rio Grande who will never need a tank of gas.
The Rio Grande was wide and deep and its currents were powerful,
but the hearts of the people with whom we sat for awhile that day on the
mountain were bigger than anything we'd seen before. As we reached
the highway and lost sight of the winding river, we were soaked with rain
and wet with tears of gratitude and of peace.
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MEMOIRS OF A MISSION TRIP……AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2007
A team of six headed for Honduras on August 29, 2007 loaded with 400 pounds
of first aid supplies, pharmaceuticals, and over the counter medicines,
as well as soaps, toothbrushes, toothpastes, and other products for personal
hygiene care.
The group consisted of volunteers from various walks of life who wanted
to lend a hand and an extra muscle or two to continue the construction
of a children’s center, youth project, church and mission center
in a village on the outskirts of Honduras’ capital city, Tegucigalpa.
The group included Donna Sloan ( IMC’s founder) along with Joe Crosby
(a writer and editor from Los Angeles), Scott Myer (a contractor from
Nashville,Tennessee) , Georgia realtor Jennifer Prunera, Stacy Bearden
(marketing assistant for The Sloan Group), and Loganville, Georgia high
school student and veteran mission worker Elizabeth Hendrix.
Scott Myer came prepared to work, lugging his construction tools with
him, which he subsequently donated to the project while he was there.
Scott pitched in, laying ceramic tiles and finishing cementing walls of
the first pharmacy and first aid center for the village of 5000 Hondurans.
Joe Crosby, laid aside his journalism skills for the week, and set to
work digging and shoveling sand for the cement work and worked on the
third level of the three story mission center that is intended to encompass
a youth center, a children’s center, a library, a first aid center,
a computer room, and a roof top sanctuary.
When they weren’t sifting sand by hand with crude screens for the
tile work, Elizabeth Hendrix, Jennifer Prunera, and Stacy Bearden along
with onlookers from the village were busy at work on the second floor
hall way, patching and applying sheetrock mud and plaster surfaces to
complete the “stucco” look.
The team learned first hand how much is involved in merely shopping for
construction supplies in Honduras as they selected bathrooms fixtures,
flooring, windows, paint, and miscellaneous items that are costly and
difficult to find in Honduras. How they wished for a Home Depot!
Time off on Friday night for a meal with children and mission friends
at El Patio in Tegucigalpa, complete with enough tortillas, queso, black
beans, and rice for everyone. Loading up a pickup truck full of children
and youth from the village for a ride in to the city is a treat that can’t
be missed when a mission team comes.
After working on the construction site on Saturday morning, the team joined
about seventy kids from the Agua de Vida youth group on a bus ride further
up into the mountains to a Drug Rehabilitation Center where men are incarcerated
in a retreat facility while they work on finding freedom from their addictions.
The youth group staged an afternoon of games, relays, and soccer while
the music team set up the sound equipment and prepared for a full evening
of praise music, mime, drama, and prayer.
The inmates flocked around as the young people took charge of the evening
program. One of the Agua de Vida youth gave his personal testimony of
his deliverance from drugs and a street life style when he became involved
in Agua de Vida and, through the ministry of International Mission Connection,
found purpose and meaning in the Lord. At the end of the program, some
twenty five inmates came forward for prayer and commitment, most of whom
stood arm in arm, crying and praying aloud as Donna Sloan, Pastor Macklin
Almendares, his wife and members of the youth group prayed for and with
the men.
On Sunday, the young people again took charge of the Sunday service with
Gabriela, a fifteen year old girl whose participation in the Agua de Vida
youth group has changed her life, leading the Bible study and prayer focus
for the services. Donna Sloan preached the sermon in Spanish while Jennifer
Prunera translated the words into English for the American visitors. During
praise and worship time, children even as young as two year olds were
raising their hands in praise… and young and old alike were clapping
and singing their praises in the first floor sanctuary which doubles as
a youth center until the roof top sanctuary is completed.
On Sunday afternoon, the mission team was led on foot through the village
to Luis’s house where villagers had been at work over the outdoor
open fire making pots of chicken and rice,” arroz con pollo”.
In Luis’ tiny three room hut, the mission team rolled up their sleeves
and helped prepare plates of tortillas, arroz con pollo, and bags of juice
to take to the afternoon’s ministry project in the city.
Loading a van with one hundred plates of food, the mission team and various
members of the youth group headed for the worst zone in Tegucigalpa where
tourists don’t dare to go! There, within a small city block are
young girls working as prostitutes and living in literally hole-in-the-wall
shelters, if not on the street itself. Men addicted to drugs and alcohol
and many of whom are visibly ridden with disease are sprawled on the curb
and against the walls. The meals were soon handed out with folks standing
in line for more. Beggars and street people were using drugs, holding
on to jars of glue and toxic materials that they used to get high. Many
of the prostitutes were pregnant, barefooted, and had drugs stashed in
their bosoms while the team prayed for them and their unborn babes. One
girl… only fourteen with a protruding belly, and hardly any flesh
on her bones…said she had lived in the brothel district on the streets
since she was three years old.
A man whose bare feet were crippled with disease and his stubble of beard
was dirty with day-old vomit, took off his shirt to show his skin infection
and disease. Helpless, we couldn’t do anything for him but give
him a meal, a hug, and a prayer.
As the team and young people piled into the van to return to the mountain
village, we left behind the dark and sad eyes of the handicapped, the
diseased, and the drugged and a young pregnant prostitute who asked “Will
you come back?”
On the last day, Hurricaine Felix sent its category five threat across
the news channels as the team boarded the last American Airlines flight
out of Tegucigalpa before the closing down of the airport. Back in the
comfort of the CNN news room, the word was that the hurricaine could devastate
Honduras, flooding the lowlands, and blowing down existing structures.
By the time the mission team reached the solid ground of the USA, the
hurricaine winds had subsided and CNN along with the civilized world forgot
about Honduras, but the mission team cannot forget that somewhere in the
streets of Tegucigalpa there is a fragile mom-to-be who is struggling
for her existence, with little hope of sunshine.
“Will you come back?” she pleaded. Yes, we absolutely will.
We cannot forget the children in the village who walk barefooted because
they have no shoes, whose eyes look gaunt and strained because of basic
malnutrition. We cannot forget the street people who need food and medicine.
We cannot forget the drug addicts in the mountains who need help in finding
a positive direction. We cannot forget the pregnant girls who are living
in the streets and who will give birth to babies that will be the next
generation of the hungry and the desperate.
We cannot forget our promise that we WILL come back…and bring what
we can….help in whatever way we can….and hope that, when each
team leaves, we will have left behind a whole lot of hope.
NOVEMBER 2009
We are now raising funds to complete the mission center in our November
2009 trip.
Can you help by sending us a one time or a monthly tax deductible donation
made payable to: INTERNATIONAL MISSION CONNECTION
MISSION TRIPS 2009 and 2010
We are also scheduling mission trips for 2009 and 2010. Do you want to
join us? Do you have a church or civic group or scout troop that is interested
in putting together a team? Contact us now and we’ll help you plan
a mission trip that is suited to your needs and interests!
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