Paz, mi hija

Wow! During almost every weekend that has come around over the past three months, I have thought to myself - THIS weekend, I am going to write my blog. And lo and behold, that hasn’t happened till now. My goal of writing a blog monthly can start in April! The past three months of been filled with an insane amount of joy and growth. There are days when I feel like I’m finally getting a hang of this missionary-thing. And then other days(most days) when I feel like I forgot to attach my head to my body that morning. It’s a learning curve.

Since I could probably write a book over everything I’ve learned and experienced in the past three months, I instead wrote a speed-round summary of what I’ve been up to and threw in a lot of pictures.

January

• Dengue: I rang in the new year by getting a cold(womp womp) then a few days later starting to feel a high fever and body aches(bigger womp womp). Since I already had a cold, it took me a few days to realize I was sick with dengue, a disease spread through mosquitos. Fortunately, we have a very intelligent and caring medical team at the Finca including my roommate, Rachel! Rachel continues to show me every day how incredible a nurse she is. They filled me with fluids, and I was better in no time! I learned applying repellant everyday is worth it to avoid that again!

  
  

• January Missionary Retreat: The week after having dengue, we had our January Missionary Retreat(yay!!). The four missionaries stayed for a week in a beautiful house in Pico Bonito National Park. Highlights included hiking to a stunning waterfall and playing board games while drinking tea or wine each night as a missionary family. This retreat was an incredible reset for me and has been a huge turning point in my time at the Finca. Before the retreat, I had been struggling a lot to remain joyful in the mission and to fully invest. I thought about home a lot and was hesitant to form relationships with many of the people in and around the Finca community. But the Lord provided me with so much hope during this time of rest and allowed me to fully rest in His loving heart, right in the middle of His beautiful creation.

  
  
  

  

  

  
  
  

• La Virgen de Suyapa: La Virgen de Suyapa is the patron saint of Honduras. You can learn more about the details of her story here. At the Finca, we celebrated this national holiday by praying a novena together as a family the nine days leading up to her feast day. The actual Virgen herself, a small miraculous statue made of wood, pilgrimed around cities in the country, starting with Trujillo! Going to this mass and seeing the Virgen wasn’t only incredible because we saw a real Marian Apparition(and that was insanely incredible) but I also loved seeing the reactions of the community and our kids, especially our older girls, seeing their Patroness and icon of their country. The older girls and I were standing on the side of the road, waiting for the Virgen to be driven by, and they were giddy with anticipation. When she finally did arrive and they were able to see her for the first time in their lives, they jumped and shouted with joy – the energy was electric! I had never seen them so energized for something like they were to see the Virgen de Suyapa.

  
  
  

  
  
  

• Week of teacher meetings: The last two weeks of January was filled with prep for the new school year. This included finishing the library and going to teacher training meetings with all the Honduran teachers!

February

• First week of school (week later than I thought it would be): I showed up to the first day of school on February third nervous but ready! I quickly learned, though, that English classes had been canceled the first week and wouldn’t start until the following Monday – a very Honduran first day of school.

  I knew teaching would be hard, especially since I have no training as a teacher. But despite knowing that, the first few weeks were HARD! I had no control of my classrooms, completely changed my lesson plans halfway through each week, and felt incredibly discouraged and overwhelmed. However, I have an incredible network of support at the Finca, starting with Nate, the service coordinator. Throughout the first few weeks of teaching, I frequently came to Nate with doubts and questions, and he always had great ideas and encouragement to offer.

  My other great support comes from Erin, my US based teaching mentor. Erin was a Summer Volunteer at the Finca this past year and is a full-time teacher in the US. She is FULL to the BRIM of creative ideas and encouragement. I have been able to reach out to her repeatedly for questions about lesson plans, ideas of how to handle behavior, and general questions on how to be a teacher. She even helped me completely redo my year long lesson plans for second grade when it became obvious my first one was not working.

  I’m so incredibly grateful for the support I have as a teacher at the Finca. And I’m truly starting to love teaching more and more every day. The kids are eager to learn and, even more so, eager to be loved. I hope as a teacher, I can show them their value is not in their intelligence, but inherent to their identity. More than teaching them English, I want to show them unconditioned love each and every day.  

  
  
  

  

  

  

  

  
  
  

• Science club with the kids: I also started a Science Club with the kids at the Finca! I have so many ideas for what we can do and how the kids can learn, but the kids continue to teach me each week that not everyone learns how I learn or nerds out how I nerd out. I need to have patience with them and slow down to see things from different perspectives.  

  
  
  

  

  
  
  

• Superbowl Sunday (rip Chiefs and Nate(KC native)): not much to say about the Superbowl expect the baleadas were incredible. The game…not so much…

  
  
  
  
  

• Las Torres (The towers): The missionaries finally climbed Las Torres, which is a mountain in Trujillo. It’s named for the military radio towers that are on top and visible no matter how far away you are. We climbed with 3 of the Finca boys, two security guards, a Franciscan sister, the physcolgist, and the social worker, along with all four missionaries. I’d heard that you could see as far as La Ceiba (a city 3 hours away) from the top, but when we arrived, the sky was covered in clouds. However, after waiting about an hour, the clouds cleared away, and we ate a lunch of baleadas and chips while enjoying the magnificent view of all of Trujillo and the Finca! I can’t wait to climb again!

• Visit from Jefa Sara and Molly: Sara, the Executive Director of Farm of the Child USA, came for a visit along with Molly, a new Farm of the Child employee who wanted to get to know the mission. During their time here, Sara and Molly cared for us missionaries so well were so intentional in getting to know us personally. Especially from Sara, who was a missionary at the Finca years ago, it was amazing to hear her perspective and wisdom of the Finca and I felt so encouraged after talking with her to find new ways to love the person in front of me and serve the community here, while also caring for myself and the missionary community. As they left at the end of their trip, I was already asking when their next visit would be!

Photo taken by Sara!

March

GO GO GO Month

• SHARE Delegation: Teddy and I went for delegation around Honduras learning about activism and oppression in the country, specifically environmental activism and corruption. This delegation was so incredibly interesting and eye-opening and I’m sure I’ll be processing it for a long time. There were a few things that struck me more than the rest during our time in the delegation. For one, music, and joyful music at that, was constantly found throughout the delegation. Despite frustration and suffering in the people we encountered, there was consistent joyful music at our gatherings. Joyful music is a form of strength and a form of resistance. It tells the powerful oppressors in the country, “You can take and poison the land, you can take lives, but you can not take joy and strength”.

  I was also struck by our time in the Bajo Aguan, which is a region very close to Trujillo. There is currently a lot of political unrest there, marked specifically by the assassination of a man named Juan Lopez in September, just a few weeks before Teddy, Rachel and I arrived at the Finca. I won’t go into all the details from the part now, but I will share a reflection I wrote for the delegation to share. I wrote specifically on my time and reaction in the Bajo Aguan.

  
  

  I have been serving for the past five months as a Catholic missionary at a children's home in Trujillo, Honduras. Trujillo is just one hour east of Tocoa, where Juan López was assassinated. They are also in the same Diocese of Catholic churches - the Diocese of Trujillo. Since Juan's death, each church in the Diocese has had a banner of Juan placed at the front of the church in remembrance and in a constant call for justice. I'd sit in mass every Sunday and see this picture of Juan; I'd pray for him and for his cause and for his family. I knew bits of his story and the history of the Guapinol; I only had a few pieces of a puzzle, and never expected to see the whole picture so personally and completely.

  
  

  In the Bajo Agaun, in Tocoa, we visited Thelma - the wife of Juan López- in her home. We sat on the couches he'd have sat on, in the space where he shared life with his family. We met his best friends and coworkers and visited his office where he organized and worked. And probably most touching of all, we visited his tomb and celebrated his life in a small way, through poetry and song. We sang "Santa Maria del Camino", which happens to be one of my favorite Marian hymns we sing at the children's home.

  
  

  Saying it was an honor to visit these places can't describe the feeling well enough. To see the places he loved and fought for, and especially to meet the people he loved and continues to love was humbling as I realized the sheer strength and love of this community. My mind and heart was opened to their lives and their struggles.

  
  

  As I sat after encountering this community and family, after hearing the incredible stories, the terrible fights, and the inspiring hope, one question went through my mind.

  
  

  What can I do?

  
  

  I live very sheltered at the children's home and have limited abilities to leave, especially to go outside of the community. What could I possibly do that could be of any help? I think this is a question many people on the delegation have, especially as they prepare to go back to the US.

  
  

  I asked Jose, and he gave me the paraphrased wise words of Oscar Romero - you have to do something.

  
  

  That did not give me much guidance on what to do, but was the kind of straight-to-the-point wisdom I needed. My goal isn't to have some grand impact, my goal is only to help.

  
  

  I looked up the quote later and what Oscar Romero said in total was, “We cannot do everything, and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that. This enables us to do something, and to do it very well”. 

  
  

  It's so easy to hear, feel, then forget. But I can't do that. We can't do that. We have to experience and be impacted and then act in whatever capacity we can. We cannot permit a moment like this to be an isolated event in our lives. It is a privilege to do that, to forget. A privilege that our brothers and sisters in Bajo Aguan do not have. And because they are our brothers and sisters, we share their pain and have a responsibility to them and their struggles. Therefore, forgetting is not a privilege we have either.

  
  

  So, I'm left pondering and discerning - what can I do? I'm resolved to do something, and do it to the best of my abilities within the mission I serve. I can't do everything, but if I do a part and someone else does their part and someone else, their's, pretty soon, we'll have everything done - together, as a community.

Some of these pictures I took, but the majority were taken by SHARE delegation photographers Mark Coplan and Peg Hunter. They did a beautiful job capturing the week on film!

• Two weeks of immersion groups: The two weeks following the week Teddy and I were on the delegation trip, we had immersion groups from the US. The Finca does mission trips differently than other places. Instead of inviting groups to come to a small project for just a week, we invite those who are thinking about or discerning mission at the Finca to come experience a week in the life of a Finca Missionary. They do everything we missionaries do during the week to further their discernment process. My favorite part of immersion groups is seeing the participants reactions to the Finca – they bring so much joy and are always in awe of what we have here. It’s easy, after 6 months here, for the many things at the Finca to have lost their novelty, to seem regular, and even at times frustrating. But seeing others experience the Finca for the first time reminds me of how truly special this place is.

  Also, we had two AMAZING groups for these two weeks and it showed me what life in the missionary house could, and hopefully will, be like with a bigger community. I love my missionary family so much and I love the connection we have with each other. But a larger group brought a different energy, and it was so fun to experience for the two weeks they were here.

• Father Tom!!! A priest from the Order of the Holy Cross that came and stayed for the two weeks the groups were here. He was so full of love and wisdom and jokes, and he felt so much a part of the community, even for such a short time. He already has said he wants to come back to visit, and I’m so looking forward to that day when he can!

• Translating for Mountain Medics: During our second week of immersion groups, Teddy, Rachel, and I left the Finca and headed up the mountain to translate for a US-based medical brigade called Mountain Medics. I’m going to be honest; I wasn’t looking forward to translating because I felt I knew no medical Spanish and that translating would be exhausting work. But the Lord, once again, upended and exceeded my expectation. During the three days, I did the intake of patients, translated for doctors during consults, and explained to people the instructions for their medications in the pharmacy.  Going to the mountain communities and encountering the people there was amazing, as was being able to serve and connect with them in a capacity I never have before – medically! Not to mention, God was so present in each person on the brigade. All the doctors, nurse practitioners, and brigade members were so caring and loving to everyone in the communities. It felt so special, especially the day the brigade came to the Finca, to share with them the community and people I love so much. It was also inspiring to see how they cared for perfect strangers as if they were their own family.

  Also, on our second, and last day, travelling to the mountain, it rained while we were there! The rain made the decent a little more interesting to say the least (see pictures)(sorry Mom and Dad!!).

  Overall, serving with the brigade opened my heart to a plethora of new ways to continue to serve those in my community here – SIN LIMITES!!

The hombres del pueblo (men from town) literally pushing our truck up a small hill that we needed to get over to go down the mountain. These men were so incredible - they were truly the hands and feet of God that protected us and got us safely down.

• Weekend at Nurse Fatima’s: As the last immersion group left the Finca, Rachel and I high fived and reminisced to the beginning of March. At the time, I remember thinking, “there is no way we’re getting through this crazy month”. Yet we did! The only thing left to do was rest. Nurse Fatima, with whom Rachel works very closely, invited us both to sleep over at her and her husband’s house that weekend, to have some time away where we could relax and take our mind off of work. Fatima and her husband are so caring and loving and AMAZING cooks! I might’ve eaten the best food I’ve had yet in Honduras during our time there. Fatima’s husband also started giving Rachel and I guitar lessons, which is a goal I have for my time in the Finca – learn guitar! During our weekend, we talked with Fatima about the way she loves us - she feels like a mother. She shared that she views us as daughters of hers, who she loves to care for and dote on.

  That Sunday, we all went to mass together, and turning the Sign of Peace, Fatima turned and gave me a huge hug saying, “Paz, mi hija” – Peace, my daughter.

And that really seems to have summarized the busy and wildly fun first three months of the year – half of my time at the Finca. Not every moment I’ve had at the Finca has been joyful; there’s been a lot of hard times for not just myself, but the other missionaries and Tias and kids. But the Lord has shown me there is one thing that is constant – His peace. The ebbs and flows of good and bad days in the classroom, or with a kid, or in the missionary house don’t have to disturb my peace. The Lord’s presence is constant, and He is always saying, “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you, my daughter”. Paz, mi hija.

Please continue to pray for me and everyone at the Finca as we continue on this mission as a family. And pray for my parents, who will be coming to visit me in a week! Please share with me how I can pray for you. Paz y Bien!

Incredible view from the mountain towns - I'm so blessed to live amongst such beauty.