Written By: Graceann T
No words can truly sum up an experience of a mission trip, but I would like to give you an account of my journey to Honduras last summer with the hope that you can recognize your own special calling from Christ to go and make disciples of all nations.
Honduras is a country suffering deeply from abandonment. Last year as I was walking through the streets of an aldea (a village) with a teenage girl, I asked her about her family. She told me that she lives with her grandmother and seventeen other cousins and siblings because her mother didn’t want her. The most heartbreaking part about her story is how common it is. The children of Honduras are not only isolated from their families, but also from attending church. Something I took for granted before the trip is how lucky we are to have Mass not just on Sundays, but also on Thursdays at school. The people in Honduras get to attend Mass maybe three times a year. This is partly due to the fact that there is only about one priest for every 50,000 people, but another factor is how dispersed the people are throughout the mountains. I remember a little girl named Claudia; she was seven years old and walked eight miles barefoot, to and from her home, just to attend the Mass that our mission team was offering. Now, every time I take the short drive to Mass on Sundays with my family in our air conditioned car and shoes on my feet, I think of how fortunate I am to have the opportunity to be in front of the Eucharist so often.
As Missioners of Christ, our purpose is to bring the Gospel into our villages. We do not simply go, build a house, and leave. We are tasked with connecting with the people on a personal level: listening to their stories, praying with them, and teaching them to know God as we do. Each day we might walk anywhere from three to ten miles just in the morning to visit the sick and those who live so far up in the mountains, they rarely leave their homes. In the afternoons, we offer programs which include talks, testimonies, games, and skits for the kids, teens, and adults of a village to expose them to the message of Christ.
Even though our days in Honduras are packed with activities, we still spend a great amount of time in prayer. Every day our mission group goes to Mass and adoration, and we join together throughout the day to pray with one another. This alone began to put my soul in a place of love and openness. The beauty of nature that surrounded us was incredible. I came across so many amazing sights while out and about, and I could not stop thanking God for every one of them. I could really see His hand in every person, place, and thing I experienced.
Our mission team stays at Casa Guadalupe, a compound run by the Franciscan Friars of Renewal located in Comayagua. The Friars are amazing; they are the most joyful and funny people I have ever met. Most of them have grown up in the surrounding areas of Comayagua, so as children and teens they were exposed to poverty on a daily basis. The most beautiful part about their stories is that they are able to take that suffering and offer it to Christ. The fact that they can come from such a hard upbringing and become ministers to those in their own community is truly inspiring.
You learn a lot about yourself while on the trip—that’s one of my favorite things about it. The people of Honduras offer a mirror almost for who we really are and what’s important to us, a fuller picture of where we stand in terms of our own virtue. The trip was truly a blessing. I discovered so many things about life, purpose, humility, selflessness, and truly being the person God calls me to be. If you feel the same calling I did, to serve Christ among the poorest of the poor, I encourage you to pursue it.