Mission for me is normally very uneventful. The most that will happen is that I get sick because I believed I was immune to the water due to living in Honduras, or I tried something that I wasn’t supposed to eat, or I feel like I am dying trying to climb a mountain while a grandma passes me without breaking a sweat. This mission however was different. It started with us having to take a detour due to a teacher protest (their version of Red for Ed) blocking the road. We promptly got stuck in the mud on the side of a mountain and had to dismount and hike in the mud. The mission ended with us trying to get the team to the airport and out of the country before boarders shut down.
We had two college groups come down from the states--one from Texas A&M and one from Christendom College--as well as 4 priests and several seminarians from various seminaries. There were 58 participants in total, so it was one of the biggest teams we have had.
The team arrived Saturday for a weekend jammed with orientation and preparation. On Sunday, we were broken into our teams for the various Aldea (Mountain village) assignments. I was assigned to the one of two teams covering 5 Aldeas. Which means, when I originally wrote this blog post it was over 11 pages long due to just how much we did. After reviewing, I have decided to focus on house visits because this was my favorite part this mission.
Going into Mission I was super nervous. It was a lot of firsts for me. First time not being in one Aldea for the whole week. Due to trying to cover the 5, we would do one a day. Questions raced my mind—would we connect with the people? Would we make an impact? Would we have the energy, the capacity? My first time working with a Mobile team (Driver, Priest, translator and nurse/medical personal) and trying to organize their schedule with ours. Also, my first time officially leading a team, translating, leading house visits, and orchestrating two teams together.
Looking back . . . Wow, God is so good. I was stretched and challenged. Every time I felt so useless/helpless/incapable/inexperienced/dead exhausted, He poured SO much grace into my little doubting soul. We went into mission with Plan A, Plan B and Plan C because we weren’t sure what to expect and, well, none worked. We ended up with Plan God and it was beautiful.
My co-leader was Nazareth! I was so excited (see more about her in my last blog post). We were assigned Charlie, Aspen, Teresa and Jacob from Texas A&M. Nazareth and I both feel so blessed to have had the four of them for our team. Each one brought their own unique stories and their burning desires to serve Christ and the poor and to truly immerse themselves into the lives of all they met. Because of this, leading them was a gift. We both feel that we learned more from their selfless example than they probably took away from us. The other team’s leaders were Maribel (my Honduran partner-in-crime) and Michelle Galvin (Momma Michelle!) so needless to say we were excited to have our two teams working together. Our Priest Mobile Team was with Father Casey and Seminarian/translator/driver/peacekeeper Joe Kauflin.
After two days full of orientation, drama skit practices, team meetings, planning sessions, and lots of laughter, we were as a ready as we could be and headed out.
Monday, we had the craziness of trying to get to Santiago where we would stay the nights, unpacking and then heading out to our first Aldea, Hornitos. Tuesday (went to Huertas), Wednesday (went to San Antonio) and Thursday (went to Lleno de la Cruz) had a very similar schedule.
AM
6:30—Wakeup/shower/personal morning prayer
7:30—leave from Santiago for the Aldea
8—breakfast with one of the families in the Aldea
9-12pm House Visits
PM
12-1—Lunch with a different family and regroup/plan for the afternoon
1-4 (Father Casey heard Confessions) We did programs for the Kids, Teens, and Adults
4—Mass
5:30—Dinner with a different family
6:30—head back to Santiago where we would break into our two teams and share Highs, Lows and God Moments of the day and make our plans for the following day before splitting up for our sleeping areas.
And then Friday, we did a Youth Retreat in the morning and headed back to Comayagua in the afternoon.
At the Kid Program in Huertas, instead of Simon Says, we played, "Charlie Says" and Charlie proved Language isn't a barrier and used every verb in Spanish he knew.
As mentioned before, I want to focus on the House visit part in this blurb post. I was so worried about not being able to enter into lives of the Hondurans in the villages because we would only be there for a day each. But God granted us the incredible grace to enter in and become part of their village, their family, and their lives just by listening to them and serving alongside of them.
What are House Visits? Good question. We often get mistaken for Mormons; Catholics aren’t really known for going door to door. In mission, one of the most important forms of evangelization that we do is House Visits. They are normally structured by introductions, small talk/building trust, sharing of the daily Gospel and then doing a group reflection on it, then asking if the family has prayer intentions so we can carry them in prayer, then you close with a prayer, and invite them to the programs for the afternoon.
The Visits can be anywhere from 15 mins to 2 hours. You honestly never know what will happen. It’s the beauty of people who are very human. You never know if you will encounter a little 85yr old Grandmother with eyes that are just pools of a joyful and painful life who just wants to squeeze your hand and tell you that you are loved by God and you're like, "Who is the missionary here?" Or maybe you will encounter a whole family or maybe an 8 year old girl “being” the mom for her little siblings while her parents work. You may be invited in for coffee or maybe sit on the "porch" and whether they are Catholic, Cristian, non-practicing, you are there to be the hands and feet of Christ and to love them. Listen to them. Let them know they are not alone or forgotten and they are someone worthy of love. The house visit portion is my favorite part but is the most challenging, because it can be uncomfortable and so unpredictable. I mean, you are knocking on someone’s door (or rather, yelling “Buenos Dias!” into their yard) and then entering their lives while truly surrendering to the Holy Spirit to guide you on what to say or do. So many doubts, questions and insecurities can rush into your mind in the split second of opening your mouth to say that “Buenos Dias”. But I have learned time and time again, if I truly surrender to God, let Him guide the visit, and not lean on my own experience, He can do anything.
This mission was my first time leading House Visits on my own without a Honduran Missioner. To say I was nervous is an understatement. Nazareth and I split our team in half because it is easier to do House visits with groups of 2-3 people. Teresa went with Nazareth and Jacob to translate for Jacob and Charlie and Aspen went with me. Wowza, I could not have asked for a better team. Every time I asked them if they wanted to share, read the gospel, pray, or answer a question, they always said yes and either attempted Spanish or had me translate. For the families, to see these two try so hard to communicate/share God’s love/learn their story, their witness and example broke down all barriers. We had so many visits start out has just small talk and gospel and then enter into sharing life experiences, daily struggles and joys and making connections. The language of love is universal.
I felt that the house visits this mission were so special. Each and every one had a different story, different impact, and I am so grateful that I was able to overcome my fear and truly enter into them. In Huertas we received the opportunity to visit several mothers and hear their stories. Wednesday, we climbed/sloshed/slipped in ankle deep mud (see photos below) and visited a community that was incredibly broken by feuds and were able to be part of the healing of the families and the community there. Thursday, we visited with families who were the poorest out of the 5 Aldeas we visited, but were received with such an out pouring of generosity that you couldn’t help but feel that you were the one who was poor, poor in faith.
There were two visits though that really impacted me. The first was on Thursday in Lleno de la Cruz. We visited an older couple, in their 70s-80s. They had 11 kids, 6 boys and 5 girls (same as my family!!!) who have all by this point moved and live all over Honduras. We were getting ready to sit down and share the gospel, when I noticed in the kitchen, the abuelita was in the process of grinding the corn down for tortillas. I knew my team had never seen the process so I asked if we could try. She seemed so bewildered that we would want to but said yes. Next thing you know, we are grinding the corn, then putting it through the refining process and making the balls, smooshing them in the tortilla press and cooking them on the flat top. All talking, laughing, freaking out it in excitement when we got the hang of it. The whole time she was just watching us like we were crazy. Charlie, Aspen and the others with us were asking her questions, watching every movement and trying to copy her. And then she laughed. She started laughing and joining in on the excitement. Her Husband this whole time was chatting with us but watching her, and when she started laughing, he just beamed. He pulled Charlie and I aside and said, “Thank you for bringing joy into our home. Thank you for bringing joy into our daily routine. I never thought I would see my wife laughing and having fun making tortillas”. After, we all tried our fresh made tortillas and prayed with them and then headed off to where we were having lunch. We all agreed it was one of our favorite house visits of the week. We had the opportunity to enter the daily life of this couple and minister in a different way. I felt we received the chance to live the gospel and see it in action.
The second one was on Friday. During the retreat, Michelle, Aspen and I went with a few of the church leaders there to visit the sick because Father was not being able to. The last house we went to was an older couple. The wife was 87 years old and the husband was 90 years old. And I won’t lie, I was not in the best of the moods at this point. We had wanted to visit mothers who were struggling, and I felt like we were being forced to visit the sick. Also when we got there, I tried to lead the visit and one of the leaders was being pushy due to time and making us change rooms and not helping the couple in the gentlest of ways, therefore taking away from the visit, etc, etc. I was struggling to smile and be pleasant at this point. I crouched down next to the Woman and she took my hand and before I could introduce myself, she gives me the biggest smile and says, “Isn’t it beautiful how we start out as children and end as children, but now we are so much closer to Christ in our childlikeness than when we were children?”. I just stared at her, lost in her eyes that were brimming with a joy I have never seen before. Pure joy. It was the shortest house visit of the week, due to being rushed by the leaders to be back at the church, but the closest I felt to heaven on earth, simply due to the pure testimony of this couple.
Thank you to everyone for your prayers for this Mission. I received so much affirmation in how much I have grown in these past two years. Not only in my Spanish but in being able to continually surrender to Christ and let him use me to reach others.
Cheers to week two of quarantine! We are praying for you all.
Thank you for reading. Till next time!
