So one time we went to Honduras...
Okay friends, Honduras. I'm ready to talk about it. I think. For the few unfortunate people that saw me on Friday, I kind of word vomited random Honduras experiences at them. I think I have a better grasp on the week now so you're safe. In general, I felt like Honduras was a constant clash of extremes. The setting was unbelievable. I kept saying everything was beautiful because I couldn't think of the right words to cover it. Everything was also rough. There was a raw edge to the place that we simply don't have here, at least not that I've ever seen. It made my slice of the world seem very sanitized. Don't get me wrong. I like sanitized, but I liked seeing a world not quite as manicured as the one I live in. Both are beautiful in their own way. Anyway, enough of that. Here are the details.
First, let's get some things out of the way. Honduras is different from South Carolina. Yes, there are people riding horses for transportation. Most of the roads outside of Tegucigalpa are not paved, and holes are filled with mud and large rocks. This became important to me as I struggled with carsickness for the first time ever. Clean water has to be purchased in bottles. Guards and guns are everywhere. Grass is cut with weed eaters or machetes instead of lawn mowers. Outside of the city, most of the men had machetes (for the grass cutting and crop harvesting). Cows will block the roads from time to time. Driving across rivers is not a big deal. I also think that Hondurans and Parisians have the same driving style: Point your car, go, and hope for the best.
What were the most unexpected things we saw? I have two things that totally caught me off guard. First, we were driving through the city and stopped at an intersection when I saw what I thought was a man crossing the street with a drink bottle and a lit candle. Actually, I guess it really was a drink bottle and a lit candle. The strange part was when I saw a plume of fire rise up above the cars in front of us. I lost my cool a little bit and we'd only been in Honduras for five minutes. The man was blowing fire for tips. So there's that. The second totally unexpected thing were the two MORMAN MISSIONARIES riding their bikes down our friends' very unpaved and rocky road. Seriously. They had on their black pants, white shirts, black ties, and their backpacks. I applaud their perseverance because I don't think I could ride a bike on that road. I could barely sit in a car on that road.
I still can't figure out how to categorize our trip. It wasn't a vacation in the traditional sense. It wasn't a mission trip either. It was a friend visit. The friends just happened to live a few countries away. =) We basically got to tag along with them for the week. We did some touristy things like El Picachu and rock jumping. We also ran errands, went shopping, helped with a graduation, visited the Bible Institute, made some home visits, and went to church. Whatever we did, the views were stunning. If we were in the valley, everything was green and we were surrounded by these huge mountains on all sides. When we went up in the mountains, the air was cool, and the views were spectacular. It looked like Jurassic Park without the velociraptors. Not even kidding.
All of the houses have a pila basin for washing clothes. I should have taken a picture, but basically, it's a concrete basin with a washboard on one side. Most of the homes we visited had small kitchens attached to the outside of the house, and they were heated by fire. Some homes were made from adobe bricks, some were concrete. The homes I visited all had concrete floors, but dirt floors are certainly not uncommon. Houses would have beautiful, tropical flowers planted around their homes. I think the best way I heard it described was the hundred dollar house with a million dollar view.
Pulperias were everywhere. They're basically convenience stores, and you go to whichever one owned by the person you know the best. There were also more restaurants than I expected. They're a people after my own heart. =) Pollolandia was a favorite. Yes, it means Chicken Land, and they sold friend chicken. Really good fried chicken. I think my guys would go back to Honduras just to visit Pollolandia again. We also went for pupusas one day. They're kind of like our grilled cheese, but with a corn tortilla mixture instead of bread. A traditional Honduran meal was grilled meats, rice, refried red beans, plantains, pickled vegetables, and slaw. The ice cream was super delicious, probably because the cows graze in fields all day. The milk might have been raw. I'm not sure. I don't really care. It made my heart happy to eat it, and that's enough. Obviously the coffee was delicious because it too was grown and processed there.
Speaking of coffee, we got a chance to help out with processing it. Our friends own a small coffee farm in Honduras. We spent one evening and morning weighing, grinding, and packaging the coffee for a mission team's order. It was fun for us because it was a novelty. I can imagine it would get old if I had to do it every day. I definitely won't look at coffee the same way again.
On Sunday, we went to Iglesia de Valle, Church in the Valley. It's a church plant in the area. While North Americans are involved in the planting, it is definitely a Honduran church with local pastors. We sang songs in Spanish. I could read it well enough to generally know the meaning, and the English translation was underneath in case I had trouble. It made my heart so happy to be there. It was simple, exactly like church should be. Jesus was preached, and God was moving. I still wonder how many people would show up at our US churches if we stripped the production away from our services. I can say that this Honduran church was full of people eager to worship and learn about Jesus.
Okay, finally, there was another side to our trip that I've decided to leave out. We definitely saw some hard things and met people living through circumstances that I can't imagine walking through myself. At the moment, I can't think of a single good reason to share it beyond the shock value, and that's not good enough for me. I don't want you to forget all the good things I've shared because of one horrific story. Our trip and that country is not defined by the worst examples I could share. I want people to know that our experience in Honduras showed us a kind of beauty and simplicity that we don't see as often here. Does Honduras have problems? Absolutely. And if you're interested in knowing more of that side of our trip out of a motivation to truly learn or even discover a way to help, I will tell it all.
I will say this much. If you truly care about stopping illegal immigration; if you want a practical solution, one part of that solution is to help aid organizations on the ground in countries like Honduras. If you want Hondurans to stay in Honduras, great. Give money and resources to people and organizations in Honduras that are working to make it a better, safer place. It makes a real, tangible, quantifiable difference when resources are given to reputable organizations that are on the ground, doing the work. They are bringing electricity, water, better roads, and education to people, and they are changing those communities for the better! I've seen it. In fact, you can message me about the school supply drive I'm running right now for a school in Honduras. They have real needs that we can so easily and inexpensively meet.
Okay, that's enough of that. I was going to add pictures, but I put them all on facebook already. If you missed some, feel free to look back through my Honduras album. I've been asked by more than one person if we want to go back or if we feel called to go there to serve long term. As far as serving there, I felt completely confirmed that Honduras is not for us right now. I don't think we have anything to offer that they need/don't already have, and we'd be more of a hindrance than a help. We don't speak Spanish. That is a huge roadblock. If we decided right now that we wanted to move to Honduras, it would take us at least 3 years to get there. We'd have to raise support first, and then we'd have to spend two years in language school. I could go for a short-term mission trip, but honestly, I think more would get done if I sent the $1000+ dollars to pay for someone to work with the kids all summer instead of for me to go for a week. If I believed I had something to offer that was needed in Honduras, then I'd be there in a second. As it is, I can do much more here at this time in my life. With that said, would I go back to visit my friends? Absolutely. I'd go today if I could and spend an extra week! I was very glad to be home, but I can absolutely see us going back again one day if only to enjoy more time with our friends in their absolutely beautiful country.
The rest of this month is pretty slow and I am soooo excited for slow. Before I know it, we'll be back to work with school so we're going to get as much use as we can out of our waterpark passes. I'm even hoping to squeeze in another Biltmore trip with the kids. We're going to be all in with summer for the rest of July!
First, let's get some things out of the way. Honduras is different from South Carolina. Yes, there are people riding horses for transportation. Most of the roads outside of Tegucigalpa are not paved, and holes are filled with mud and large rocks. This became important to me as I struggled with carsickness for the first time ever. Clean water has to be purchased in bottles. Guards and guns are everywhere. Grass is cut with weed eaters or machetes instead of lawn mowers. Outside of the city, most of the men had machetes (for the grass cutting and crop harvesting). Cows will block the roads from time to time. Driving across rivers is not a big deal. I also think that Hondurans and Parisians have the same driving style: Point your car, go, and hope for the best.
What were the most unexpected things we saw? I have two things that totally caught me off guard. First, we were driving through the city and stopped at an intersection when I saw what I thought was a man crossing the street with a drink bottle and a lit candle. Actually, I guess it really was a drink bottle and a lit candle. The strange part was when I saw a plume of fire rise up above the cars in front of us. I lost my cool a little bit and we'd only been in Honduras for five minutes. The man was blowing fire for tips. So there's that. The second totally unexpected thing were the two MORMAN MISSIONARIES riding their bikes down our friends' very unpaved and rocky road. Seriously. They had on their black pants, white shirts, black ties, and their backpacks. I applaud their perseverance because I don't think I could ride a bike on that road. I could barely sit in a car on that road.
I still can't figure out how to categorize our trip. It wasn't a vacation in the traditional sense. It wasn't a mission trip either. It was a friend visit. The friends just happened to live a few countries away. =) We basically got to tag along with them for the week. We did some touristy things like El Picachu and rock jumping. We also ran errands, went shopping, helped with a graduation, visited the Bible Institute, made some home visits, and went to church. Whatever we did, the views were stunning. If we were in the valley, everything was green and we were surrounded by these huge mountains on all sides. When we went up in the mountains, the air was cool, and the views were spectacular. It looked like Jurassic Park without the velociraptors. Not even kidding.
All of the houses have a pila basin for washing clothes. I should have taken a picture, but basically, it's a concrete basin with a washboard on one side. Most of the homes we visited had small kitchens attached to the outside of the house, and they were heated by fire. Some homes were made from adobe bricks, some were concrete. The homes I visited all had concrete floors, but dirt floors are certainly not uncommon. Houses would have beautiful, tropical flowers planted around their homes. I think the best way I heard it described was the hundred dollar house with a million dollar view.
Pulperias were everywhere. They're basically convenience stores, and you go to whichever one owned by the person you know the best. There were also more restaurants than I expected. They're a people after my own heart. =) Pollolandia was a favorite. Yes, it means Chicken Land, and they sold friend chicken. Really good fried chicken. I think my guys would go back to Honduras just to visit Pollolandia again. We also went for pupusas one day. They're kind of like our grilled cheese, but with a corn tortilla mixture instead of bread. A traditional Honduran meal was grilled meats, rice, refried red beans, plantains, pickled vegetables, and slaw. The ice cream was super delicious, probably because the cows graze in fields all day. The milk might have been raw. I'm not sure. I don't really care. It made my heart happy to eat it, and that's enough. Obviously the coffee was delicious because it too was grown and processed there.
Speaking of coffee, we got a chance to help out with processing it. Our friends own a small coffee farm in Honduras. We spent one evening and morning weighing, grinding, and packaging the coffee for a mission team's order. It was fun for us because it was a novelty. I can imagine it would get old if I had to do it every day. I definitely won't look at coffee the same way again.
On Sunday, we went to Iglesia de Valle, Church in the Valley. It's a church plant in the area. While North Americans are involved in the planting, it is definitely a Honduran church with local pastors. We sang songs in Spanish. I could read it well enough to generally know the meaning, and the English translation was underneath in case I had trouble. It made my heart so happy to be there. It was simple, exactly like church should be. Jesus was preached, and God was moving. I still wonder how many people would show up at our US churches if we stripped the production away from our services. I can say that this Honduran church was full of people eager to worship and learn about Jesus.
Okay, finally, there was another side to our trip that I've decided to leave out. We definitely saw some hard things and met people living through circumstances that I can't imagine walking through myself. At the moment, I can't think of a single good reason to share it beyond the shock value, and that's not good enough for me. I don't want you to forget all the good things I've shared because of one horrific story. Our trip and that country is not defined by the worst examples I could share. I want people to know that our experience in Honduras showed us a kind of beauty and simplicity that we don't see as often here. Does Honduras have problems? Absolutely. And if you're interested in knowing more of that side of our trip out of a motivation to truly learn or even discover a way to help, I will tell it all.
I will say this much. If you truly care about stopping illegal immigration; if you want a practical solution, one part of that solution is to help aid organizations on the ground in countries like Honduras. If you want Hondurans to stay in Honduras, great. Give money and resources to people and organizations in Honduras that are working to make it a better, safer place. It makes a real, tangible, quantifiable difference when resources are given to reputable organizations that are on the ground, doing the work. They are bringing electricity, water, better roads, and education to people, and they are changing those communities for the better! I've seen it. In fact, you can message me about the school supply drive I'm running right now for a school in Honduras. They have real needs that we can so easily and inexpensively meet.
Okay, that's enough of that. I was going to add pictures, but I put them all on facebook already. If you missed some, feel free to look back through my Honduras album. I've been asked by more than one person if we want to go back or if we feel called to go there to serve long term. As far as serving there, I felt completely confirmed that Honduras is not for us right now. I don't think we have anything to offer that they need/don't already have, and we'd be more of a hindrance than a help. We don't speak Spanish. That is a huge roadblock. If we decided right now that we wanted to move to Honduras, it would take us at least 3 years to get there. We'd have to raise support first, and then we'd have to spend two years in language school. I could go for a short-term mission trip, but honestly, I think more would get done if I sent the $1000+ dollars to pay for someone to work with the kids all summer instead of for me to go for a week. If I believed I had something to offer that was needed in Honduras, then I'd be there in a second. As it is, I can do much more here at this time in my life. With that said, would I go back to visit my friends? Absolutely. I'd go today if I could and spend an extra week! I was very glad to be home, but I can absolutely see us going back again one day if only to enjoy more time with our friends in their absolutely beautiful country.
The rest of this month is pretty slow and I am soooo excited for slow. Before I know it, we'll be back to work with school so we're going to get as much use as we can out of our waterpark passes. I'm even hoping to squeeze in another Biltmore trip with the kids. We're going to be all in with summer for the rest of July!
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