After having spent a week in Puerto Lempira, a small city on the Mosquito Coast in Honduras,
our mission team landed safely in the capital city, Tegucigalpa. All 15 of us were tired and were looking forward to getting back up the mountain to the mission camp where we had stayed for 2 nights at the beginning of our trip. At least there we would have electricity available both night and day, and they had hot water. I was longing for a hot shower. Even though it was still early in the day, a nap was in the forecast, I was quite sure.
We stuffed ourselves like sardines, into a few vehicles. I was hoping and praying that they had gotten the brakes repaired on the van, as traveling up a mountain a few miles, with a vehicle that was over-burdened with people and suitcases could be a bit precarious!
After making it successfully, yet one more time, up the mountain, all of us dispersed to tend to our various duties. In due time, one by one, we came outside to walk around the well groomed grounds of the dormitory building, which was used by many mission teams as they come in and out of the country. Diana, one of the young Hondurans, who came on our trip as an interpreter, came up to me and we both began to chat. It's then that she asked me a question, that I thought was really one of the strangest questions to ask me, in light of the trip we had just been on together. She asked, " So, Cathy, do you think that you will ever come back on another mission trip to our country again?" I looked at her like she had two heads and she stared at me, innocently waiting for my reponse. She was even smiling, as if she thought that I would be answering her enthusiastically
with a "yes",absolutely!"...but no! Instead I responded by saying," Are you serious?"
"Yes, will you?"
I stammered in unbelief and in a half second, I was having so many flashbacks of that first, memorable trip. Yes, the country is beautiful. I enjoyed the warm balmy breezes, multiple varieties of palm trees and all the tropical plants in all their splendor carpeting the mountainsides. I loved the sights, the sounds, the architecture, the history, and the food. The people are so warm and friendly. Yes, yes, I loved all that, but right then and there all I could think about was the black, fuzzy, tarantula in the bathroom on the second morning of the trip. (We were told that the mountainside was crawling with them.) Wasn't Diana there to see how afraid I was of that spider and the multitude of bugs that invaded our bedrooms, day and night, but mostly in the night?
I remember she was with me the day that my heart broke for the little orphans when I sat with my friend Gale as we recorded the history of each child for the case files. My eyes were filling up with tears, not just from the smoke coming from the rigged up stove they had inside the orphanage, but because I saw the tears in the eyes of the children when we asked questions that made them remember why they were there. Mama Tara, at that time in her 70's, who is the lady that started the orphanage and takes care of all the kids, saw me wiping my eyes, she thought I was getting overwhelmed by the smoke. Finally, I could take the pain no longer. I excused myself and stumbled out the door, and ran back to the hotel, crying all the way. How could Diana have forgotten my pain so quickly? Why would I want to come back to witness such anguish in the eyes of little, helpless, children? Why would I want to subject myself to battling the heat, the lack of electricity, the bugs, the language barrier, the health issues that I have struggled with, not to mention my fear of flying. Oh, I thought, how brave of me to do this for one time, but surely you jest, to think that I would do this again. I wanted to ask Diana, "Are you crazy?" Finally, I realized the girl was completely and innocently sincere, and expected a simple answer. I simply said, "No, that was a one time trip. Now I can say I've been on a missionary trip to a foreign country and have seen how others live, but I will not be coming back."
A few days later, back in the states, I had gotten my photos developed. I had only taken about 50 photos. Why had I not taken more? I began to ask the others who had gone on the trip to send me some of their photos. I found that I kept thinking more and more about Mama Tara, the kids, the horrible, run down building that they were living in, which was on pilings over the water of a lagoon,
and really needed to be condemned. It was a few months later that I realized that , that trip changed my life and that I was never going to be the same. I knew that I was going to go back. Yes, I was still afraid of flying, I still had a few health issues, which made it difficult to sleep and even eat some of the food, I was still hating the bug situation, but when I would look into the faces of the children that nobody wanted, I knew I was going to do all that I could to help them. This was the beginning of my journey of getting involved with "Mama Tara Miskito Orphanage, Inc." . That was in June of 2003.
I have been back once a year since then and I now sit on the Board of Directors of the organization as a Director of the Sponsorship Program. Oh, what a blessed adventure this has been and oh,
what I might have missed had I let my fears and creature comforts influence my decisions!
