And Now for Something Completely Different...

Saturday, June 21, 2014

It's 3:00 am and I have just arrived  at Newark Liberty Airport. I am about to embark on my first mission trip. Nine members from Church of the Saviour in Denville, NJ are traveling to Tegucigalpa, Honduras to spend a week at El Hogar de Amor y Esperanza, The Home of Love and Hope. It is one of four centers of El Hogar Projects. The mission of El Hogar is to transform and empower abandoned and hopelessly poor children in Honduras by providing a loving home and education. The goal is for them to fulfill their ultimate potential as productive, caring and independent Honduran citizens. You can read more about El Hogar here.

This trip has been 18 months of planning and fundraising. Today it comes to fruition.

When I first started telling my friends and family of my intentions to do this, the reaction was very mixed. From, "Oh, it's really hot down their," (really, I had no clue it would be hot near the equator!) to "that's really great, I would like to do something like that." My co-workers are convinced that I am not coming back. They were trying to scare me all week by sending me photos of Honduras snakes. The fact of the matter is, I almost didn't get to go due to an emergency appendectomy three weeks prior to the trip. But here I am.

I have no clue what to expect. I know I will be out of my comfort zone. I know some of things will be trying. Will it be worth it? Absolutely! It is necessary to challenge ourselves. How will we ever grow if we don't?

Our trip to the airport was uneventful. We had a pickup truck pack to the gills with 20 plus suitcases.

2:30 am at the church, packing up the truck.

The nine of us plus an extra driver were packed into one car and the pickup truck. Our 5:45 am flight was on time. We connected in Houston where our flight was delayed a bit. I was fortunate enough to get an upgrade to economy plus, those four extra inches of legroom do make quite a difference. We were not the only service team headed down to Honduras. There were no less than three other teams on our plane. We knew because they all had matching t-shirts. The one gentleman I chatted with was from Illinois and headed down to help build an orphanage. This was his eighth trip down. After ten long hours of traveling, we landed in Tegucigalpa, Honduras.

We had to go through immigration and customs to get out of the airport. We were greeted by members of the El Hogar team, Jimmy and Eduardo. They did an incredible job of loading up the van and we were whisked away.

Loading the van. We fit 19 suitcases, 1 guitar, 9 carry on bags and 11 people in here.

My first impressions of Honduras?

Apparently we had just landed at the third most dangerous airstrip in the world. It has an extremely short runway between two mountains.

There were armed military guards at the entrance to the airport.

There was a mall, movie theater and assorted fast food restaurants in the area.

There was evidence of extreme poverty on the short drive to the orphanage. While Jimmy and Eduardo were loading up the car we were accosted by a beggar who had been deported from Miami that very day (yes, that very day!) and needed money to get back.

It was about a 20 minute drive to El Hogar. With a series of car honks, the sliding gate was opened and we were safely on the property. A note here, the property was secured with a 24-hour guard and barbed wire fencing.

The entrance to El Hogar.

Our accommodations? We were staying in the volunteer house. It was the place we would call home for the next week. It is a four bedroom, four bathroom house with a kitchen and a nice screened in porch. Sounds nice, right? Hmmm, think more like a camping bunkhouse. There were bunk beds and everything was pretty old. It was relatively clean.

Outside the Volunteer House.

We went right out to get the nickel tour of the facilities. The compound consists of classrooms, dormitories, a computer lab, an amphitheater and cafeteria. The tour was led by Raul Castro who is the Director of Capital Projects and Service Team Host. Don't let his modesty fool you. He is a Fulbright Scholar and has met President George Bush Sr.

Raul Castro

The children were all out and about playing in the courtyard. I think we all immediately fell in love with these kids. One could feel the warmth emanating from them. They came right up to us with greetings of "hola" and "como te llamas". They weren't shy. They posed for photo after photo and wanted to see the results on the camera. Their names were Nancy, Angie, Maurie and Juan. They were all here to get off the streets of Honduras, get out of poverty and get an education.

Dinner was served promptly at 5:30. It was simple, some sort of egg dish, beans, cheese and tortillas. Not exactly my type of food, but it was filling.

After dinner, we had time to relax and settle in. I took my first shower. I actually had  hot water and water pressure (this would become an issue the next day). We were all pretty exhausted. There really wasn't much to do at night. I climbed into my top bunk at 8:00 pm. I had been up since 2:00 am. I fell asleep and managed to sleep through the night.

Sunday I awoke at 6:00 am. What will the day bring?