My First Missions Trip

                I can still remember the first time I came to Honduras, it was in 2006. I went with my mom, dad, and my sister. The youngest two, my sister and brother, were left in Connecticut with some really close friends. We would only stay a week, but that one week would impact our lives.

               

This was the first time I flew in an airplane; at least that I could remember. I apparently flew in an airplane when I was two, but that doesn't count. We flew from Boston to Miami to Tegucigalpa. It took about a total of six hours. We were traveling with a missions team from my Grandpa’s church, him and my grandma came too. When we landed we got into a big bus and drove from Tegucigalpa to Danli, which was about two hours. It was so much fun on the bus because there weren't any seatbelts and my sister and I could walk back and forth. I remember there were some ladies who were scared of the sides of the mountains as we drove past as the road would have no railings so if you drove to the side too much, you would fall off the mountain. We stayed in a hotel called Grande Hotel Granada, or something like that, in room 133.

                We went everyday to Eternity’s Call Church in Danli, it was where we were working. The first thing we did was paint the church and we did some outdoor construction. My sister and I mainly played with the kids though; we shared our gringo toys with the Honduran children. One day my dad had a teacher conference for the Hondurans but since he couldn't speak Spanish he had a translator. During that day my sister and I either stayed at the hotel or we went to the church and played with the kids, I don’t really remember. Another day we had a medical brigade, my sister and I talked with the kids and helped the adults with whatever they needed. During the medical brigade, we were also able to preach the gospel. One of the men on the team brought bubbles and was playing with the kids outside. During the medical brigade I was moving the metal fan in the front of the church as it was super hot, my mom told me to stop touching the fan, but I had to touch it one more time. That time, my middle finger slipped inside and the fan cut my finger. That was the one bad thing about that day. The next day we had a VBS (Vacation Bible School), we had music, games, a puppet show, and crafts for the kids. We had a blast. Another day we helped put barbed wire around the new garden, we helped build the stage, and we shoveled dirt to fill holes. One of my favorite parts of the trip was learning and then playing Honduran hand games, they were so much fun. The girls were really nice to us, even if we didn't know what they were saying!

                The hardest part about the trip was going to the Danli garbage dump. We went to the dump because people lived there. There were houses lined up along the dirt road and then the garbage was dumped at the top of the hill. It smelled terrible, there were donkeys and vultures in the garbage, there were even people in the garbage looking for something worth something to possibly sell. We handed out toys and candy for the kids, we gave the gospel message, and we prayed with people. There were donkeys on the road used to carry wood. The houses were made out of miscellaneous items or basically whatever the people found. One house was made out of crates, the ones used to carry or hold sodas. The only cool part of that day was riding in the bed of a truck as there are neither seatbelt laws nor laws against riding in the bed. One day we went to the cigar factory to see how it worked, it was stuffy and smelled like tobacco, but it was interesting. We also went to the Danli market one day which was cool to see. Then on the last day we went to a special restaurant with the pastor of the church we were helping out. It was a fun time and the food was really good. Then we had to drive back to the airport to catch our plane back home. We got some fast food from across the street, we had only had Honduran food the whole time, it was great food but we missed “American” food.

                That trip was a blast, I was happy to come home though. Little did I know that my parents were thinking of making a permanent move to Honduras. In January of 2008, we moved to Honduras. We flew into Tegucigalpa and both my sister and I were showing our other siblings what we saw the first time we arrived in this country. That missions trip was much bigger than I could have ever imagined, it meant my home in the States would change and Honduras would be my home. As a nine or ten year old, I never would have thought of a missions trip leading to a life changing event. What would have happened had we never went on that missions trip?  

Goodbye, until next time!