Honduras Mission Journal
Art Utley
FOBF Team #1 2005 Trinity UMC, Richmond, VA
Greetings from Trinity Team 1 from El Cajon, Honduras. It's a gorgeous evening in Santa Cruz where members of the team are in an internet cafe. An ice cream shop is just down the street. The weather has been sunny and hot since we left from Los Glorias Sunday. Good fortune since we are traveling across a lake to the villages we are serving. The lake is the result of the El Cajon dam. The trip from Richmond went smoothly, although when we got to the Richmond airport one of the Continental employees recognized the group because of the black duffel bags and he remarked how our groups give him a fit. Pray for him because we're not going to stop coming. After we arrived and cleared customs in San Pedro Sula, we met our new bus driver, Elmer, who has been hired to follow Alfredo, who died in December. Alfredo was the first employee of the Friends of Barnabas in Honduras. We visited with Mrs. Vasquez and her two daughters and Don Pierce presented them with a scrapbook of photos of Alfredo at work and a photo portrait of Alfredo. The scrapbook and portrait came from the memorial service for Alfredo in Richmond. Jennie Hart acknowledged the sacrifices Mrs. Vasquez and the daughters had made in their time with Alfredo, who gave so much of his time to Friends of Barnabas. Tears were shed. From there we went to Barnabas House to organize meds and prepare for our visits to the villages. We spent the first night in Las Glorias, the Honduran equivalent of The Homestead. The team from Trinity stayed there the entire week last year. Rough duty. We had a big lunch at a favorite restaurant of Don's, the Agua Azul. The showers/rain that had been falling since we left the airport finally quit. We met the new FOB doctor, Dr. Marco Antonio, and hooked up with Pascuala, who reunited with team members from a year ago. We are staying in quarters at the hydroelectric plant in El Cajon. Trinity's first team stayed there in 2003. The rooms are functional, but they aren't Los Glorias. Sunday night was the first in which we received mail from home. The Trinity gang of repeaters knew it was coming. Some newcomers did, too. But it was a surprise to Anna Helms and the Hensleys, Dr. Hugh and daughter Kaitlin. Dr. Hugh said he'd never seen anything like it on the mission trips he's taken in the past. First mail was special for me
because Don (with an OK from Peggy Hart) recycled a card Nancy had sent to him on his first mission trip to Honduras. Nancy is definitely here in spirit. Monday we made our first venture across the lake to a home Trinity's first team had visited in 2003. The house has a spectacular view of the lake and would command more than a million dollars in Richmond. The well to do family was willing to open its doors to strangers (us and the neighboring Hondurans). We saw 392 people. We won't see as many people as Trinity's team last year because of the remoteness of the "villages." Our lake jaunt took about an hour each way. Tuesday and Wednesday we went to the same site, a first for Trinity teams. The boat trip took more than 90 minutes each way. We served 324 Tuesday and 178 today (from a different village. a second village was supposed to come but it was coffee harvest day). Anna Helms has been the hit of each day. After administering the vitamin A medicine to the children and adults, she brings out her magic and also makes balloon animals. As soon as she made the first one, she was surrounded by children. Elmer and Kaitlyn have learned how to make the balloon animals just by watching Anna. They are a big help. Roger Hart, who is on his first Honduran trip, had a holy moment Tuesday working in the eye clinic. The clinic was able to outfit a 22 year old mother who is blind in one eye with glasses that help her see better in her good eye. She walked an hour to get to the clinic, and now she can take care of her 7 month old daughter better. Today, Jason outfitted a man with a pair that allowed him to see clearly for the first time in 15 years. Other members of the team are making internet calls home while I'm sending this out. We have worked hard doing God's work. We have more work to do the next two days. The path is made clear with God's light (and I think Nancy is doing some directing, too).
Grace and peace. Arthur Utley for Don Pierce, Roger and Jennie Hart, Dr. Hugh and Kaitlyn Hensley, Anna Helms, Susie Hildebrand, Marsha Shuler, Virginia Rhines, Dick Burch, Will Andrews, Jason Powell and Julie Peters.
Greetings from the Microtel in San Pedro Sula. I have a feeling the email I sent from an internet cafe in Santa Cruz Wednesday night didn't get out because I don't have a copy among my hundreds of emails at The Times-Dispatch. The Microtel has internet explorer access so I've accessed by work email and am sending this through that. Trinity's third medical mission team is on the way home after a successful week in remote villages along the shores of the lake below the El Cajon dam. The straight up
numbers are that we saw 1,633 children and adults in sick clinics, the eye clinic (a larger supply of reading glasses was very effective) and the deworming/Vitam in A station. Out of that we have five referrals for specialists/surgeons. Not huge numbers when compared to last year for the Trinity team, but the remoteness of the sites and the fact that we had a 1-hour to 2-hour boat ride each way for four days were contributing factors. It does show Friends of Barnabas reaches out to even the remotest locations. We were blessed with tremendous weather -- warm and sunny -- for all five days of mission work. We have been blessed to work with a caring, compassionate on-site FOB staff. We met the new doctor, Marco Antonio, and have spent the week breaking in new bus driver, Elmer, who has been hired to fill big shoes left by the death of Alfredo. The Trinity team is unanimous in its belief that Elmer is a great hire. Melvin had to spend time with his other duties earlier in the week, but he joined us for our Thursday and Friday visits to El Mango and our only road trip, a village area high on one of the mountains overlooking the lake. Thursday's visit to El Mango was to a site Trinity's first team covered in 2003. This was our busiest day of the week. Friday's visit to what seemed to be the mountain top was the smoothest day. While we were packing up Friday afternoon and doing a preliminary inventory of the medical supplies, we got hit by rain for the first time since midday last Sunday. We left the hydroelectric plant this morning in the rain and finished our inventory at Barnabas House. On the way to San Pedro Sula, we detoured to the San Francisco De Yojoa to see the location of the Gloria Project, the genesis of FOB. Team leader Don Pierce pointed out where he had stayed on his first mission trip to Honduras in 2000 and where Nancy Utley and Julie Griffith had come before him. Because of the weather, it was "a look out the bus window" experience. From there we headed to San Pedro Sula. Team members are already talking in earnest about next year. As always, those of us who have come to serve have been served just as much by the families of Honduras. Grace and peace, Arthur Utley for Don Pierce, Julie Peters, Roger and Jennie Hart, Marsha Shuler, Susie Hildebrand, Dr. Dick Burch, Virginia Rhines, Anna Helms, Jason Powell, Will Andrews, Dr. Hugh Hemsley and Kaitlyn Hemsley