Did I like Honduras?
I honestly felt like I was back in East Tennessee, where I used to visit when I was a child. This land has a special place in my heart, because this is where I came from. Us mountain folk call this place a holler, or for some of you city folk it’s a valley in the mountains with a spring trickling down the mountain. Growing up and visiting this lovely gift that God created has been used to instill great values within me. Such as; hard work, a sense of pride in the ability to work with my hands, the ability to poop outside, taking cold showers, learning how to wash clothes by hand, how to cook over a fire, the resourcefulness to get a job done with or without the proper tools, determination, and the innate ability to look at God’s creation and see His glory.
So did I like Honduras? Yes, I did. I liked it because the country and the work that my team and I did were like flashbacks to my past. To the place that I came from and all of the many lessons that I learned there. As we were working hard to dig up rocks to use for a rock wall I remembered a mother’s day when I, by myself as a 14 year old boy, had to tear apart a rock wall for my mom and make a walkway using those very rocks. Another week my team was at the poop farm, and while we were there we had to dig giant rocks out of the side of the mountain to build a dam with. As we were battling rock after rock I couldn’t help but remember a different mother’s day when my mom wanted a tree planted as her gift. So as I was digging and digging I came upon a huge rock that I just couldn’t get out! I was so mad that I was crying, but when my mom figured out what was going on all she said was, “Just keep on digging because in life your going to come across ‘rocks’ that you have to work hard to get through, and this is just practice for that.”
Overall my experience was great in Honduras. We stayed at a place called Zion’s Gate, which is a ministry that is ran by a man named Tony, and his wife Nidia. Their ministry was to take in boys from the streets and the dump and provide them with a family, an education, and the love of God and a “father” through affection, discipline, and as much time as they required. Being apart of this ministry for the month of January was incredible, and it put a smile on my face multiple times every single day.
