Honduras

Be prepared folks, there is going to be a lot of talk in the upcoming blog entries about my experiences on my Mission trip to Honduras....

In late 2011, my aunt and uncle approached me to help them with a small website for a local non-profit their dear friends were setting up to help a mission church in Honduras. I would do anything for this aunt and uncle as they have shown time and time again that they will always be there for me, so in December I started working on their website. 

This past summer, after volunteering for a couple of years, they asked me if there was anything they could so to pay me since I had taken no money for the website. If there is anything from DBT I learned, it never hurts to ask - the worst answer is only a "no". So, I asked if I could get a discount on one of their upcoming mission trips since the cost was quite a bit for me. They upped it to one better and gave me a full scholarship to join them on this trip. 

Prior to this trip, I would have never imagined myself going to a third world country. My concern before  leaving was seeing such devastating poverty and not being able to do anything about it. I was worried about seeing the suffering and not being able to deal with it. I voiced these concerns during our orientation and was told just to process it as it came. Did that and I have to admit, the people there made me appreciate the human race. I saw little children caring for their younger siblings. They would come to the activity tables and always let the little ones go first. Or they would make something for the little ones and give it to them without the expectation of getting to have on of their own. They truly made the very best of a rather tragic situation. I was happy to be able to participate in the ways that I could. I know that their suffering is now going to end because of our trip. I do know, however, that the church in the neighboring city is intervening all the time. That makes my heart ache a little less.

This trip was an 11th step trip for me: "Sought through prayer and mediation to improve our conscious contact with God (as we understood Him) , praying only for the knowledge of His Will for us and the power to carry that out." I prayed more that week and did more Bible study than I have done since leaving High school. We prayed several times a day, before each meal, had daily devotions in the morning. While I attempt to do this at home with my 24 hour a day book and praying each night as I go to bed, there is something about praying in the midst of fellowship. I full heartedly believe that I saw God intervening several times a day in many different ways. There was a point in my recovery in which I felt the presence of my God in my life. It calmed and soothed me. I was going to be able to stay sober. That feeling was back throughout this trip as I watched others experience this feeling as prayers and concerns were turned over to a higher power. I had hoped that I would improve my conscious contact with God. I have to admit that it didn't feel as powerful as I thought it was going to be, but maybe it doesn't need to be. I like Big and Bold....my God seems to err on the side of subtle. 

Throughout our orientation process for this trip, we were advised that we, as a group, needed to maintain a level of flexibility. No matter how much we plan for anything, it all might change at the drop of a hat. I had hoped to be able to reach out to the community about addiction and maybe provide some education or even an AA meeting if that were possible (highly unlikely, but it never hurts to hope...). At the last minute the nurses who were going to do the blood pressures at the Heath Fair did not show and I was moved over to that station to help. After seeing the situation down there, I realized my time was much better spent doing that than trying to drum up some interest in AA or addiction education. So, I listened to God and he put me where he sees fit. It made me realize that maybe down the line, I would love to go on a medical mission trip and be able to reach out to communities in that fashion. Addiction is just a hard topic to talk about and there is such shame and hopelessness about it. If I were to consider something like this again, I would really have to think about how to reach out to my fellow addicts to get them to talk about the solutions available to them. 

Anyway, I will be posting much more over the next several weeks. I did not take any technology with me (I will be blogging about that for sure). I spend most of the time writing my thoughts by hand. I am looking forward to transferring this data over to my blog. Stay tuned....

J

---