Well, it has been a minute since my last post, currently, I am back in Honduras after a visit home for a few weeks where I finally had some time to reflect on this beautifully hectic summer of mission. Looking back at the past few months, it has been a blessing to see how I have grown in faith, trust, and surrender.
It all started when people filed in at the end of May. We had some seminarians, five members of a religious community, called the Servants of Christ Jesus, and a pair of summer missionaries, Charlie and Morgan. It truly was a blessing to have more men around and English speakers to share life with. However, with the added guests the community, life grew busier and I became increasingly aware of my need for silence with the Lord. At the beginning of each morning, whether it was 20 minutes or an hour with the Lord, that time in prayer renewed me and calmed the storms of my heart. The Lord gave me the grace to desire time with Him over a little extra sleep. I stuck with this habit throughout the summer even though some days my prayer did not happen.
SUMMER MISSION I
Mid-way through June, we had our first mission since March 2020. I was on a team of five, with two people that spoke only Spanish and two that spoke only English. Since I knew a little of both, I got tapped to be a translator, which, through the grace of God I was able to do. Normally, for summer missions we stay in a village in the mountains from Monday to Friday. For this particular mission, we did a local ministry such as the boys orphanage or the Becas scholarship program in the morning. In the afternoon, we went to a village just outside Comayagua (where I live). In the evening, we returned to our place in Comayagua. When my team went to our village in the afternoon, we split up into two teams to do house visits. It worked out so that I led a group with the two other English speakers. One, of who was a religious brother and the other a middle aged woman. I think God gave us this group so that we would know that it was by His power that these people experienced the Lord, not our own. Kind of like when He trimmed the army of Gideon down from 32,000 men to 300 men so that they would know that it was Lord who won the battle. "The Lord said to Gideon, 'You have too many soldiers with you for me to deliver Midian into their power, lest Israel vaunt itself against me and say, 'My own power brought me the victory’" (Judges 7:2)
On one particular house visit, we met a couple with a few children. We chatted with them a little bit and found out that they were unmarried. It became clear pretty quickly that they were not very interested in what we had to say. They were polite and listened, but we did not get anywhere in the conversation. We then proceeded to read the gospel and shared a couple reflections, but they still seemed uninterested. We asked if they had any intentions, to which they were grateful, and they said the usual "for our health and for our family". Those are all great things but we were looking to make the leap to something more personal. We asked if we could pray over them individually and they let us do so. We began to pray over the woman first and started by calling on the Holy Spirit. It soon become clear that the Lord wanted to work in her life deeply and do some deep healing. She started to open up and asked the Lord to come into her life. She still had some reservations but she clearly had an encounter in prayer with the Lord. After her, we moved on and prayed over the man. He told us that he had some sort of mental handicap that made it difficult to concentrate. We prayed for healing in him and then he began to break down in tears as we prayed for the strength to lead his family and to be an fatherly example for his children. We ended the prayer by calling on the Lord to give him the grace to live this out. It was amazing to see how the words that we said in the conversation or our gospel reflections weren't what touched their hearts but rather praying to the Living God.
That week in the village, we had a program for the young people Monday to Thursday ending with a chastity retreat on Friday. Honestly, it was a pretty difficult group, many of them did not want to participate. They seemed uninterested, especially on the retreat, but there were a few that were open to God working in their hearts. On the retreat, I had to translate the first two talks and then give the third talk to the guys in Spanish. Those guys were just really not into it. They were looking anywhere but me. Fortunately, after my talk we moved into adoration. During adoration, we gave everyone an opportunity to write a letter to Jesus and pour their hearts out to him. To ensure that no one else would read the letters, we burned them outside after adoration while saying a prayer. The Lord completely changed hearts during that adoration time. I saw everybody scribbling furiously for 15 minutes straight. I was beyond grateful to the Lord that their conversion wasn't up to me. This was just another reminder that God changes hearts and minds while I am only his humble instrument. It was a reminder that I am not saving anyone, but merely, providing an opportunity to encounter the One who saves.
FOCUS VARSITY MISSION
Right after this mission, we had a team from FOCUS (Fellowship of Catholic University Students) come down for a week. They were specifically apart of FOCUS Varsity, which ministers particularly to college athletes. Five students and three missionaries joined us for mission. The FOCUS team ran what's called a Varsity mission. This means that instead of doing a mission in the mountains, they came and taught volleyball and basketball to local kids. Specifically, they taught kids in our Becas scholarship program and at the local girls' and boys' orphanages. They quickly connected with the kids in spite of the language barrier. The short stay in the country impacted the FOCUS team in a deep way which I did not realize until their sharings on the final day. The radical culture shift for them clearly struck them in a beautiful way. I often forget how different Honduras is from the US because I have been here awhile. I have the privilege of living among the poor, I can't forget to be grateful for what they have taught me.
SUMMER MISSION II
A couple weeks later, in July, we had another team come from the US for a mission. It was a fairly bigger team than the first mission and we had people from Arizona, Minnesota and Virginia including a few old Missioners of Christ missionaries. There were more experienced translators on this mission, so I did little translating which was a nice break. Two priests were also part of this team. They spent a couple days in two or three different communities. In this community, we actually stayed the whole week from Monday to Friday. We slept in the local church part of the week and a school part of the week.
On this mission, each morning I would wake up and take a "shower". This is were you would get wet by dumping a bucket of water on yourself and likewise for rinsing off, so that was a fun experience. We then said morning prayer and had breakfast. (Side note: many people don't like some of local foods but I am a real big fan, so I often got a double plateful of food. Needless to say I was happy to serve my brothers and sisters in that capacity.) After breakfast until lunch, we visited houses in the community. Sometimes we walked up to an hour to get to certain remote houses up and down the mountain. Because of COVID, we wore the KN95 masks on all of our house visits which affected the communication with the people there. With my accent, they struggled to understand me and I struggled to understand them. Often, we laughed through the confusion.
In this community every house was a cousin, brother-in-law, aunt, nephew or some how related to our guide; people there always lived close to family. This context is where you begin to see some of the extremes of family life in Honduras. On the one hand, there are families staying super close together and on the other hand in every family there is at least somebody or several people that have left and gone to the United States to look for work. Which, whether you think they should go or stay the effects of the lack of presence of a husband or a father or a son are detrimental to the family. Yes, the money will come from the States but there is a lot that gets left behind.
Praise God in this community we saw something different than the normal single mom families. We saw more men than usual present in the home supporting their wife and kids. This was a real encouragement to us. Another problem that we came across, is that several of the couples living together were not married, so we encouraged them to do so when possible. I did come across one young family on a house visit who got married before they had their first child which is all too rare, especially for the younger generation.
After each morning of house visits, we had lunch back at the school. We then proceeded to prepare for our afternoon programs. At 3:00 we had a program for children, at 4:00 for youth & young adults and at 5:00 for the adults. We prepared a skit for each program as well as songs, talks and testimonies. During this week, I gave three different talks and a testimony. The talks were on Matrimony, The Domestic Church and Masculinity, all in Spanish. My testimony went along with the talk on Leadership & Committment. In our programs, we often give talks on what the community is struggling with and challenge people to live their faith more fully by always relating everything back to Christ the center of all things.
After the Adults program, we had dinner and then relaxed a little. We told stories about the day as well as worked on talks for the following day. At the end of the day it is always good to evaluate yourself and how you have been doing on the mission. There were days were I held back and did not go and talk with a villager, try to get to know a person on my team better, wasn´t as joyful while walking, or didn´t try hard to understand what was being said In Spanish. There were also days where I went all in and felt my myself wanting to linger in inactivity and comfort, but “love demands the maximum” as Mother Teresa says. God gave me the grace to go and love in those moments were every part of me screamed no. At the end of those days, I was always fulfilled.
On Thursday, in this community we had a priest from the States come and he was able to celebrate mass. On house visits throughout the week we invited people to this mass. And boy did they come. People came from even the most remote houses and dressed in their best clothes. They filled the church so much so that I had to stand outside with a few other people. It was beautiful to see the value that the mass has in these communities. In this community, like many others, they only have the opportunity to go to mass once every three weeks or once a month, and never on a Sunday. They also do not have a tabernacle there to keep the Holy Eucharist. So when there is mass, you can truly see the reality that the Eucharist is "the source and summit of the Christian life" lived out among God´s people in the mountains of Honduras. Oh how there is so much for us to learn. The more useless information and entertainment we fill our minds with, the harder it is to be in awe of the Almighty One.
The priest that came to our community also heard confessions for a couple hours. The line was quite long and never seemed to get any shorter. With the few priests there are to cover such a large area, confessions are a real privilege.
It is always incredible how grateful the people are in each community and how they thank us for coming. We feel like we are the ones that have been served because of all of the meals prepared for us, a place to sleep and people welcoming us into their homes every day. Simply spreading the message of Jesus Christ is valued a lot to many people.
SUMMER MISSION III
Our third mountain mission of the summer, was at the end of July and with a few Hondurans, a few seminarians and my sister Colleen. Colleen and I had been trying to find a date for her to come visit all summer and this time finally worked out. She came in, got to know my new family and immediately fit in. A couple days after she arrived, we went out on mission and were on different teams. I heard after we got back how amazing and outgoing to the people she was. She has a huge heart for those in need and it was on full show for everyone around her. She was able to give her testimony for the first time to a group of Honduran youth and then later she did the same thing for the adults. The environment in Honduras is one of simplicity and it is one where many people come to get away from the distractions of the 1st World. They come to find God and to heal.
My experience on this third mission impacted me a lot. I was with three other people. Vilma (fellow missioner of Christ), Eimy (Honduran discerning to enter the community) and David (seminarian from the US). This was a short mission only Sunday to Thursday morning, but it still was very powerful. It was a bit more remote than the other communities that we had visited. It was called Buena Vista, or Good View because it had a beautiful view of a lake and the mountains. In this community, we had to walk a far distance between houses. There were not many but it was quite a trek to each one. One morning we only visited two houses but it took the whole morning.
David and I stayed in the house of one of the delegates. The delegate and his wife had 11 kids but they had all moved to the US. All they had was their grandson of 12 years old who one of their sons had left there. Again, it makes you think about the stress it puts on a family to have a son in Honduras and to live in USA. That is, if they are trying to have a relationship with their family.
The house visits again, were my favorite part on this mission. I could understand most things, but I did not need to translate since everyone else on my team was fluent in Spanish. One day, we went up to a house that was fairly remote and there lived a gentleman that they called "Don Chico". He was 65 years old, had a cane to help him walk, had been sick, and he lived alone. Something about this man struck me deeply. I am still contemplating what happened exactly but as soon as I saw him I saw Christ in him. I could see the dignity that this man had as a Son of God, I could sense the great suffering that he had undergone and I wanted to love him as if he were Christ himself. My mind was drawn back to Matthew 25:40, "Amen, I say to you, what you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me." The reality is that Christ is all around me every day in everyone that I encounter but I fail to recognize him. God gave me the grace to recognize Christ in this man and it was something beautiful that I want to be able to see in all that I encounter, but something that I have to work for.
FAMILY MISSION & COME AND SEE
A week later, in early August, we had a Family Mission and a Come and See Mission at the same time. Three different families from the States came for local mission work and five other people came for service work. I was only on this mission for about half the week, but it was a blessing to have conversations with the team. There was a lot of wisdom to soak in. There was one couple from Vermont, that were in their 70s and were going to all the programs and doing house visits. I got to talk to the woman one breakfast and she shared with me about how they lived here 15 years ago and she worked with kids in abusive family situations. I was struck by the strength she had in those challenging situations.
Just in general, the people that came down that week had lots of reasons not to come but came anyway. On the team were two young families with two kids and four kids respectively all under 10 years old, a 70 year old couple and another couple in their late 50s, and the wife had knee problems. There is always a reason not to do mission and often they are valid reasons. However, people who go on mission still have reasons not to go. They just go despite those reasons. It goes without saying that it is something that everybody individually needs to pray about. Sometimes we are afraid to ask God those questions, because we are scared that he will tear whatever those reasons that we hold dear are.
After the summer missions in Honduras, I returned to the US for a friend´s wedding as well as my brother´s wedding. I met up with different friends, family and donors to try to communicate what God has been doing in my life here. Sometimes I communicated that well and sometimes not. I hope this blog helps with that. I also take comfort in the fact that God knows what I have experienced here. I can always share and remember the good times with Him.
Now, I am currently back in Honduras studying Spanish and discerning where he is calling me in mission over the next year. You are all in my prayers and please pray for me and our mission down here.