A Personalized Picture of a Far-Away Land

For two weeks in April of 2004, four veterans and four rookies —- brought together by our leader, Mark Ebert, took part in a mission experience in Ahuas, Honduras. I was part of that team, and here are some of the things I lived through and learned.

For starters, there was the language challenge. Thinking I should be able to speak a bit of Miskitu, I arrived equipped with several phrases. “Hello, how are you” (naksa, nahki sma), “my name is Donna” (yang nini lika Donna), “what is your name” (man ninam dia), “God bless you” (dawan yamni mai munbia), “thank you” (tengki pali), and “good-bye” (aisabe). Beyond those phrases I was pretty much helpless, and that’s why I was at first terrified when I heard they wanted me to teach English to adults. Word got around, and each afternoon learners showed up. The more we tried, the more we laughed WITH each other, as we all tried to improve our vocabulary skills. Knowing so little of either Miskitu or Spanish, I depended heavily on dictionaries —- and two 7-year old children who could speak all three of the tongues we were stumbling through. I vacillated between feeling like an idiot, to thoroughly enjoying ‘class;’ we were never quite clear on who was teaching whom.

Often I left the clinic compound to cruise the village of Ahuas or the next village of Paptalaya. Sometimes I helped one of the nurses, as she visited the elementary school to give dental lessons or as she went from house to house weighing the babies. On a day that I was out being sociable, accompanied by Weldon Harris (our Northern Province guy from Emmaus, Pennsylvania) and Kevin Frack (our speaker-of-all-languages guy), we struck up a conversation with an elderly gentleman. I was very confidently speaking as much Miskitu as I could think of —- with Kevin of course filling in the gaps —- and the man was doing his best to understand. He was so patient with me, and smiled a lot, until for some unknown reason I felt called upon to reach out and give him a hug. Kevin quickly and gently corrected my action, explaining that in their culture, women hug men only when they know them very well. Actually the surprised fellow accepted my gesture most graciously, considering we’d known each other only ten minutes!

Other things I noticed about life in the village. Homes (and I was invited into several) are usually built on stilts and have one or two rooms covered by a thatched roof. In most cases, water for drinking and household purposes comes from a well; if electricity is available at all, it comes from a generator, which runs certain hours of the day. Animals roam freely everywhere —- cows, horses, pigs, goats, dogs, cats, chickens, roosters. And the rule for roosters, by the way, seems to be different there than in America; they crow all night long. Transportation is simple… people walk or ride a bicycle on the dirt paths.

Children attend school from 7:00 am until noon, youth from noon to 6:00 pm —unless there is a funeral which happened one day. Then school begins at 5:30 am and dismisses early for those who wish to mourn with the family.

Each morning Dr. Norvelle Goff-Rudy took Diane Bowman (the other woman on our team) and me to the clinic for staff devotions, report-in from the night nurses, and rounds with the patients. During our two weeks, several babies were born to mothers who already had large families and needed some name ideas; we assisted with three names from our team. Construction of a small building with four patient rooms was already underway, so Richard Redding (the artist on our team who sketched pictures of the whole clinic compound) and our other fellows pitched in to help. Randy Kiger (our recently retired guy) and Mark spent days making beautiful shutters for the windows, while Matt Haley (our young mechanic) was drafted to fix all the broken machines —- from hospital equipment to lawn mowers to airplanes!

And yes, we did attend church services. Sunday morning worship lasted a wonderful two hours with several hundred people there to sing and pray and hear the word; our group had even been asked to offer a song, which we did mixing English with Spanish. Sunday School classes met before worship, with each age group under a different tree in the yard, since the church consists of one large sanctuary room only. But, they were making plans for their version of a yard sale no less, to raise money toward a new church.

As I prepared myself to join this mission team, my hopes were to go share life with the people, love them, and learn from them. Until this trip, Ahuas and our medical clinic was a fuzzy image in my mind… a place I had only heard about; but now I can close my eyes and see much clearer, for the picture has been personalized. And I am blessed to have been a part of it.