I have a love/hate relationship with travel days.
Travel days mean saying goodbye to a country and ministry that I have fallen in love with. But travel days also mean getting to meet and fall in love with a new country and ministry.
Travel days mean I get to be reunited with my whole squad after a month apart. But travel days also mean I have to say goodbye to my squadmates for another month.
Travel days are long, confusing, and exhausting. But they are also exhilarating and full of adventure.
That is what today was.
After a long day of traveling from Leon, Nicaragua to Tegucigalpa, Honduras yesterday, we had another full day of travel to our ministry location in Santa Rosa de Copan, on the north-western boarder of Honduras. Our entire squad stayed at an AIM base just outside of Tegucigalpa last night, and we left there this morning with a vague plan for how we were going to get to Santa Rosa. Our ministry contact this month had given us two options for getting there. One was a up-scale charter bus, which was out of our price-range for our travel budget. The other option was a string of school buses that we’d have to figure out connections along the way. When we were packing up to leave this morning one of the Honduran AIM workers told us about another bus company that has a bus that goes directly to Santa Rosa from Tegucigalpa. We were a little suspicious, because our ministry hosts didn’t mention that bus company when they gave us their recommendations for reaching them. But we decided to give it a try.
So the six of us piled into the back seat of Joe’s SUV (three on the seat and three on their laps) and he dropped us and our packs at the bottom of the mountain. There we met the men of our squad and we all hopped on a school bus to head into Tegucigalpa. When the bus dropped us off, we said bye to the guys, grabbed two taxis, loaded them up, and made them wait while Megan and I ran across the street to look for Honduran SIM cards for our phones (no luck). So we told the taxi drivers to head to the Sultana bus station and off we went. We were a little nervous being split up between two taxis, not knowing what we would find at the Sultana station or the bus schedule, not having working cell phones to communicate, and having to trust that our drivers really knew where they were going. On that taxi drive I prayed two simple prayers: “Jesus, please let there be a bus to Santa Rosa” and “Holy Spirit, lead both taxis to the right place.”
Shortly after those little prayers, our taxi driver turned a corner, stopped abruptly in the middle of the street next to a charter bus and started taking our bags out of the trunk. We all scrambled out, with a bunch of random Honduran men yelling at us to get in their taxi, to board the bus, to move the taxi out of the road, and to marry them. Trying to orient myself, I realized that this was the bus we needed, and that it must be leaving soon because we were being so rushed. So I said, “But we’re waiting for our other three friends.” Then a man pointed out that their taxi was a few cars in front of us and my teammates were already throwing their packs on the bottom of the bus. So I quickly reached in my purse to find cash for the taxi driver, grabbed my guitar and my pack, and ran to the ticket window with Megan to buy bus tickets. We succeeded in purchasing the tickets, and jumped on the bus a few minutes before it pulled out. Turns out it is the correct bus, it does go directly to Santa Rosa de Copan, it was about a third of the price as the other bus we considered, and we caught it just in time. Thank you Jesus! He heard those two little prayers I had prayed just minutes before, not knowing how perfectly He would answer them. 🙂
I thoroughly enjoyed the 7 hour bus ride up, down, and around the windy mountain roads. I forgot to mention that there was a guy that came onto the bus at the bus station selling Dramamine to passengers. But as soon as we got out of the city and into the mountains, I knew why. I was not expecting Honduras to be so mountainous, but apparently it is the most mountainous country in the world. Who knew? I felt like we were driving through the Smokey Mountains. They even have pine and maple trees. It’s very different from the rest of Central America.
We had two 15 minute restroom breaks along the way. The second one was at the bus terminal in San Pedro de Sula. (Side note: Apparently San Pedro de Sula is the city with the highest murder rate in the world. Thankfully we’ll be staying away from there for the rest of the month.) I stayed on the bus to watch our bags, while Megan and Jenna ran to find SIM cards for our phones and Lindsey, Megan, and Britteny went to the bathroom and to buy “lunch” for us. After praying another prayer that everyone would be safe and make it back on time, Lindsey, Megan and Britt came back, and then Megan and Jenna hopped on just before the bus pulled out again.
Now that Megan had her SIM card, she could contact Matt and Marianne (our ministry hosts for this month) to let them know where we were and when we would arrive. But after sending a few texts, she ran out of minutes (story of our lives). So we had to ask a sweet lady sitting next to us on the bus if we could borrow her phone to call our friends.
In the midst of nightfall and a sudden rainfall, we managed to get off at the right stop and found Matt waiting for us at the bus station. He and Marianne helped us load up our bags and drove us to our home for the month.
I’m super excited for our ministry this month. Matt and Marianne run Legacy of Hope, one of the only foster homes in Honduras that accepts babies. So we’ll be spending the month helping out single mothers, and taking care of the 6 babies, 1 toddler, and 5 kids that encompass their beautiful family. It’s going to be a great month, I can’t wait to get started!
