~ HONDURAS ~ part one ~

Originally, my plan was to follow up my last post with the decisions and the changes I went through after Honduras.  Although I left you all with a cliff hanger and I know you're itching to know what was supposed to come next, sorry, it'll be a little while before I get to that.  For now, I need to talk about Honduras itself. For weeks I've been debating how to approach this post and I have finally decided that Honduras was so full of significant details and experiences that there is no way I could contain it into one post; I cannot even divide it into halves.  So I'm going to undertake this narrative painstakingly slow and describe it in the most extreme detail.  I will walk you through it just as it happened to me; one day at a time . . .

 

                                                     

Check. Double check. Triple check. Finally, when I was satisfied that I had everything, I brought my suitcase downstairs, bouncing along behind me, and took it out to the garage where I set it carefully into the trunk of the car. I ran through everything in my head again and was finally content that I was as prepared as I could be.  But even though I was thorough and confident in my packing abilities, I still was walking around in a state of surrealism. As much as I thought about it, I could not get myself to believe that in slightly over 24 hours, I would be in an entirely different country, and a third world country at that. There was nothing I could do to prepare myself mentally, and I had no idea what to expect.  I was eager to get there and actually see this mysterious new world I'd been planning for all summer.  My mom was definitely not as excited as I was though and she kept looking at me with a funny expression as if she were about to cry. I told her jokingly not to.  But I understood what she was feeling; it was bad enough that I was going to a third world country, let alone that I would have only one day at home upon my return and then it would be off to college for me.  To me though, college still seemed like weeks away and at the moment I couldn't even get myself to believe I was going to Honduras, let alone college; I couldn't be going to college yet, the summer hadn't been nearly long enough.

Even though I had told mom not to cry when she dropped me off at True North; she did.  Eventually, everyone from the True North team showed up (Nathan Barber, Carol Bell, Rick Barton, Vince Bjorlin, Diana Baker, Taylor, Logan and Scott Jimmerson, and myself) and Chuck came to pray with us for the safety and for God's plan and His works to be done during our trip.  During prayer though, I couldn't help but think that I really didn't mind if things didn't go exactly to plan, if anything, I hoped they wouldn't.  Not in a bad way, I just kinda had a feeling that maybe we were going into this with too much of our own plan and not enough flexibility to go wherever it was that God needed us, I hoped that once we got there that we'd be going by His plan only.  I was hoping for an experience that would completely shake the foundations of who I was, whether it was a good experience or a bad one, safe or not; that was up to God.  I wanted to make a difference in the people's lives down there, but I wanted them to completely change mine as well. That was my prayer.

After a few pictures and the goodbyes, we loaded into the cars.  I still couldn't believe it.  The drive to Medical Lake seemed completely ordinary and I had to continually remind myself that we were going to gather with the rest of our team and then we'd be on our way out of the country.  This was actually happening! All that work and worry over the summer had suddenly become reality.  In a way, I always wondered in the back of my mind if it would even happen; if I would be able to make the payments, if I would be allowed to, if we'd make enough during the fundraising, if something came up that would make it so I couldn't go, if, if, if; too many "ifs."  But it all worked out, months later, here I was, ready to go on the greatest adventure of my life thus far!!

At Medical Lake we waited for a while until the Richland part of the team showed up (Todd Thomas our team leader, Hasan Bytyqi, Tim Stevens, Lindsay Hageman Cortina, Kay and Kathy Koglin).  Though I had not been able to meet them before this, I instantly took a liking to them all.  I wondered a bit how long it would take me to get to know them; mostly because I have always been rather shy and reserved when it comes to meeting new people, a concept which has always frightened me.  But during the time that we were loading everything into their van, I decided within myself that I would try my hardest to get to know them and not spend time worrying about it.  I wanted to share a strong connection with the team so that maybe God could work through us in ways that none of us dreamed possible, and that none of us certainly could have done alone.

The van ride to Seattle was surprisingly comfortable.  I attempted to sleep once or twice but never really could stay asleep for more than a few minutes and soon gave up on the idea. My attention eventually turned to those in the van, we spent most of the ride looking out the windows or getting to know each other.  There were random conversations and also a game designed by the Richland congregation as a device for getting familiar with one another, which we had some fun playing.

Driving through Seattle I encountered something that I did not expect on this trip.  As we made our way to Sea-Tac and the lights of the city and the brief Seattle skyline came into view, the thought struck me; in approximately eleven days, I would be living there.  I thought about my mom's tears as I left and understood them, I thought about home and I looked at Nathan out of the corner of my eye and suddenly realized that meant I would be leaving him as well. This was our last adventure before we went our separate ways for college and I was struck by fear and the pain of what was to come.  I couldn't help crying silently to myself a little bit as I looked out the window. At the same time that I was most excited for anything I have ever been before; I was also terrified.

      We finally reached Sea-Tac, thankful to be out of the van and that the longest leg of our journey was over. But we were not long in realizing that we had three more "legs" to go and that our day was just beginning.  After check in and all that fun airport "stuff" and then waiting for a couple hours, we boarded our first plane bound for O'Hare, Chicago at 11:59 pm.  All was quiet on the dark plane and it seemed as if most, if not all the passengers were sleeping or trying to sleep. I even surprised myself by falling asleep for an hour or two, something that rarely happens on planes.  As we began our decent, the sun was rising in the distance ahead of us and was reflecting red off of a lake to the left.  We dove into the clouds and landed in a rainy, foggy Chicago at dawn.  There was only a whiff of humidity as we transferred from the pressurized airplane into the air-conditioned O'Hare. We grabbed breakfast and Starbucks and settled down to keeping ourselves entertained for the four hour layover.  Nathan and I alternated between sleeping a little, reading, writing and exploring the vast airport.  I couldn't help thinking about my Left Behind books as we explored, since the first book pretty much begins at O'Hare.  I allowed myself to feel a little nerdy and entertained myself by looking for people in the airport who could have been the characters in my book.  At one point during our expedition  we happened to stop by the bathrooms, as I was standing before the mirror, it seemed, at first, like any normal mirror but suddenly, it came alive.  Though one could still see oneself in it, it was also doubling as a sort of TV screen, playing only advertisements. I watched it for a minute and couldn't believe that any country could stoop so low as to make even bathroom mirrors not only a place for fussing over our own appearance, but also now apparently a field for brainless advertising as well.  I felt grateful at that moment that I was leaving the country. I wanted to escape America all together and I prayed that upon my return from a third world country, my eyes would be forever opened and that I would never fall for tricks like these.

Eventually, we found ourselves on a plane again, this time bound for Miami.  I saw the Atlantic Ocean for the first time in my life as we flew along the Florida coast toward Miami International!  I enjoyed the light blue water and the circle we did over the everglades as we came in for final decent.  Though there was sun over the rest of Florida, Miami was wrapped in a rainstorm.  Another whiff of humidity as we exited the plane and another four hour layover; then, we began our flight to Honduras!!

We took off over the Gulf of Mexico. Both the sky and the water were so blue that you couldn't even tell where one ended and the other began.  We flew over a Cuba that was mostly concealed by clouds, but the long beaches and some of the thickly treed shorelines were visible, also many atolls and various small islands.  About an hour or two into our flight, the sky turned pink and we were soon flying through clouds that were aflame with the bright pink color of the setting sun, out of the windows facing East one could even see the shadows of the clouds stretch for miles horizontally behind them.  As the sun disappeared and darkness began to settle, the clouds went from pink to iron grey and lightning flashed ahead of us.  Soon we found ourselves right in the middle of a nasty thunderstorm. Lightning tore apart the sky and the plane bounced along on the turbulence. Soon, it was pitch black and aside from the bolts of jagged, white electricity, all was dark.  It wasn't until we were below the clouds and could see small lights here and there along a river that we realized we were over land.  The lights seemed far dimmer and the mysterious landscape that we couldn't see made them seem wild and untamed.  I couldn't help thinking, while coming in for landing, that, at one time San Pedro Sula was home to the world's second most dangerous airport, a statistic that is currently outdated but still causes one to be a little nervous.  Though the runway has been lengthened and modern technology is far better, i still had a pretty good grip on the arm rest of my seat as we approached the runway.  Decent is unusually quick, and when you're landing in the middle of a severe thunderstorm, in the pitch black of night it definitely raises your heart rate.  Apparently everyone else was thinking the same thing that I was for as soon as the wheels made contact with the ground; everyone on the plane cheered.

Though we'd been traveling for over twenty-four hours, I was wide awake.  I was in a foreign country and was straining to see any hint of my surroundings.  It was slightly frustrating arriving at night, I desperately wanted to see the landscape, but that would have to wait 'til morning.  For now, we had to get through customs and find Amy and Tom Hanes, our trip coordinators.  Nathan and I were the first ones through customs and it didn't take us too long to find Amy, Tom and Efrain (the pastor of the church we would later be working at).  While we were waiting I helped Amy find the rest of our team while Nathan chatted with Efrain in Spanish. It took a while, but eventually the rest of the group caught up with us and we made our way outside to the cars.  The humidity literally punched us in the face.  Even late at night, it was hot and the air was sticky.

The van quickly filled up so they needed two people to ride with Efrain in the big moving van that was being used to transport our luggage; Nathan and I immediately voulunteered.  Sitting between Nathan and Efrain in the van was a bit awkward at first; I could only understand a few of the Spanish phrases, and when it seemed like they had said something interesting, I had to ask for a translation from Nathan. At one point I could understand that Nathan had made a comment to Efrain about how hot it was; Efrian laughed in response. But most of the time I didn't even bother and simply entertained myself by trying to make out what I could see in the darkness, which wasn't much.

On the way to the compound, Efrain decided to try and fill the gas tank so he pulled into a station.  The line was too long though so he changed his mind and as we pulled out of the parking lot we drove by the store owner who was standing in the middle of the parking lot with a shot gun; standing guard over his store and ensuring that no theft took place.  We pulled out of the station and the van slid a bit on the gravel toward the ditch.  For a second I thought we might slide off, but Efrain got the van under control and we continued along the highway, pulled a U-turn and headed toward the compound.  One of the things one soon finds out about Honduras is that there are few driving laws that are actually followed, in fact, most of them are regarded simply as suggestions.  As we were driving toward the compound we drove by an accident where a car had hit two bicyclists.  The two men were lying in the road.  A few others had gathered around them, attempting to help, but there were no ambulances.  One moved his arm as we went by so I wondered if he would be alright. But as we drove by Efrain gravely stated, "muertos."  We saw in the newspaper the next day that both the men had died.



Lindsay and my bunk beds



Eventually we turned off the highway onto a severely rutted dirt road that lead to the compound, in the middle of a giant sugar cane field.  We met in the dining area and Amy and Tom filled us in on some things we needed to know while we ate dinner.  Frustratingly, I wasn't able to pay much attention to what was being said because I suddenly didn't feel real well (probably from traveling all day and all the junk food I had when we were on the road).  We all went to bed shortly after though so it was alright.  Lindsay and I shared a room and I claimed one of the top bunks of the two bunk beds in the small dorm room; I was trying to get as close to the fan as I could.  Despite the heat, I slept well that night.  And the next morning I awoke to my first Sunday in Honduras . . .

 Oh yea, and this henious crime was caught in the act by Todd at the Sea-Tac airport.  Rick didn't want to pay to have his phone charged to he decided to simply plug it behind the machine...