As you may know, I’ve just returned from a week-long trip to Trujillo, Honduras. Many people have asked me for more info about the trip. (Who did you go with? How did you find out about it? Etc.) So, here are the details! I joined a team from Christ the King Parish in Little Rock, Arkansas. This is their 16th year to do mission work in Trujillo, and most of them have been making this trip for many years! There are also people from South Dakota, California, Colorado, Washington, Florida, Oklahoma and Texas who were with us. (And probably others who I can’t remember off hand.) The team consisted of around 95 - 100 people. I must be honest and say that I never actually counted so I am just going on what I’ve been told. There were doctors, nurses, teenagers, pharmacists, teachers, audiologists, moms, dads and college students among us.
The group broke out into teams every day, including the hearing team, the eye clinic, the hospital/surgery team, the evangelization team, the school team, the Santa Fe Clinic, the Marañones Clinic, the Los Leones Clinic, the technology team, the construction team, and the dental clinic! Needless to say, after breakfast as a group we all scattered like birds in different directions from our hotel in Trujillo. Most of the clinics were within a 20-30 minute drive from the hotel. We took buses, trucks, and vans to get where we needed to go. We have a slew of “locals” who work with us to transport us, translate for us, and keep us going in the right direction. I was one of the lucky ones who got to visit every clinic site during the week. Because the hearing team travels to many different villages, we found ourselves near every clinic at least once during the week. Being a first timer, it was neat to see all the clinics in action. One of the people on the trip told me that she’s been going for 9 years and still has never seen the other clinics because she goes to the same one each time!
The flight from Houston to San Pedro Sula is only 3 hours but the drive from San Pedro to Trujillo is 5 or 6 depending on the time of day. Because our team is so large we travel in 3 different groups – early week, Friday and Saturday group. I was in the Saturday group and the day we traveled down there I did not know one of the people traveling with me. However, on the way back I knew all of them! Even though the hearing team has only 2 people, we had plenty of time at meals and at the swimming pool to get to know the other teams pretty well. I thought they did a great job balancing “work” and “play” time during this trip. Instead of working us into the ground each day, they closed the clinics down at a reasonable time so that everyone could get back to the hotel an hour or so before dinner. Of course there were a few exceptions here and there but overall I was grateful that they made sure to have us in at a decent hour. Not to mention the sun sets about 6:30 down there and I don’t think they wanted us out after dark!
Some things that amazed me on this trip were how many horses and cows we saw, as well as chickens, pigs, and ducks. Also, how many people we saw walking around in the towns and villages wearing our mission t-shirt! We have a specific shirt we had to wear every day and we give those to our “locals” as well and to various people who help out or need clothes, etc. So you could be driving down any road and pass somebody wearing the mission shirt… so funny! I could tell you many more things about the Finca, Banana Beach, Tesla, our wonderful hotel, and all the great food we had but I think this is an information overload already so we’ll have to save that conversation for another time. The pictures tell some of the story and I put captions on most of them. Those are the Cliff’s Notes!
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