Mis Amigas

If anyone is interested in hearing about the summer from a different perspective, here are the links to the blogs of two friends who were in Honduras with me.

http://www.yoursarethehands.wordpress.com

http://angiemartin08.blogspot.com/

Photos

Here are some photos from the summer:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2067050&id=1520295210&l=b6a8dc53e9

Llegué a mi casa ayer

Well, I’m back in the states now. It was very sad to leave the community and all the people that I have come to love. During the goodbye party everyone was crying. But there is a time for everything and it was time for those of us who came for the summer to go.

It wasn’t as much of a culture shock as I had expected. I guess I had not been gone for long enough. There are still some things though. Hondurans are, as a general rule, quite modest so after being around that for a while it was strange seeing girls in really short shorts and tank tops at the Houston airport. It was also strange to have so many choices of things to wear this morning instead of one of the seven shirts that I brought with me. Last night I tried to reach for my water bottle to brush my teeth, forgetting that I can use the tap water. I also kept trying to respond to American flight attendants with sí, buenas tardes, gracias etc. out of habit.

Carol challenged me before I left by reminding me that my time in Honduras was not just an experience to file along with my other college experiences. It is meant to change me and transform the way I see life and to help me grow. I know that I have grown a lot and the challenge now is to not settle back into complacency as I return to my comfortable life here.

I thank you for your prayers. Please, always keep the country of Honduras in your prayers. There is so much beauty there, but also so much suffering. It has been a pleasure to share my life in Honduras with everyone. I hope to post a link to some pictures within the next couple of days.

El último día

As I am preparing to leave the community here in Honduras and return home I have been reflecting on what I have learned and how I have grown. One of the common themes of this summer has been mediocrity vs. holiness. Christ says “you shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all you soul, with all you mind and with all you strength.” (Mark 12:30) In other words, with your all everything. There is no middle ground. We either live our lives totally dedicated to Christ or we don’t. It's time for us, both Catholics and all Christians, to become who we say we are: followers of Christ. That means living the Gospel message, even the hard parts about the cross, loving our enemies, etc. What will it take to shake us out of our comfortable lives and wake up to the reality of heaven, hell, infinite love, truth, sin, and mercy? We need to ask God to transform our hearts. I’m not there yet, but I hope that at the end of my life I can say I was a true follower of Christ, lived totally for Him, trusted in His mercy and His plan and did all that is asked of His followers in the Gospel. And I hope I can say that at the end of this summer I am a little closer to that calling. It takes little steps. For instance, finding somewhere I can serve when I go back to school.

The Final Week :(

This week was pretty laid back compared with the last. There were two mission teams in the mountains, but several of us stayed behind at the house. I did not do anything “exciting” this week (cooking, pulling weeds, dishes) but there were still lessons to be learned about finding God in the everyday activities. It is interesting that He had to bring me to another country in order to learn those lessons.

On a different note, I am starting to prepare to wrap up my time here. Next Thursday I will be heading home. I have mixed feelings. On one hand, I am excited to see my family, but on the other, I will be sad to leave this community. Also, negative aspects of American culture that filter into the mountain villages and our barrio (neighborhood) are frustrating enough. The remote aldeas without electricity and TV have a certain innocent joy and natural virtue. I don’t really want to face the fullness of American consumerism and individualism, but ready or not, here I come.

Christ is Found Everywhere

Sorry I have not been able to write for a while. We had the week of mountain mission that I already wrote about, a week to regroup and help with multiple parish events, and then I was gone for another week. This time I was on a team that went to Kukinka, Musula, and three other small aldeas. It was kind of crazy because I did not know that I was on the team until the last minute.

This mission was somewhat more intense than the last. We had to ride the bus to get there, there was no electricity, and we had to walk a couple of hours each day to visit nearby (and not so nearby) aldeas. Again, we had programs for kids, youth, and adults each day, sometimes multiple times in one day because we went to more than one aldea. We also visited families in the parish, especially those who were sick.

I was surprised the entire week by the many places where I found Christ. These aldeas are some of the most difficult. They are isolated and lack basic faith formation. But Christ is still there and His presence was so tangible. In a 98-year-old blind and nearly deaf grandmother, in the strength to get up the next hill, in the simplicity of a people who have never watched a TV, in the joy and generosity of a family that has suffered so much from the loss of a daughter.

All-in-all this mission was more difficult than the last, physically, spiritually, mentally, and emotionally but it turned out really well. Now we have a high school youth group here and are preparing to take them to a nearby aldea next week.

La gente es muy generosa.

Last week was spent at an aldea in the mountains called Las Majadas. Each day we put on a child, youth, and adult program for the people of the church there. In this way, it was kind of like vacation Bible school, only in Spanish.

One of the things that really amazed me was the generosity of the people. They have absolutely nothing by American standards and live with the reality that if something happens, they will loose all that they do have. For example, a little boy almost broke his leg while we were in the aldea. If he had, it would have meant that his family would have had to pay a month’s worth of wages just to get to the city to visit a doctor. The people really do have nothing, but they give their all. They fed us chicken (which pretty much only happens on Christmas). The delegate (person in charge of the parish while the priest is absent) did not work for an entire week. The delegate’s children gave up their mattresses so we had something to sleep on without prompting from their parents. I felt unworthy of such generosity.