Tuesday morning arrived and again I looked over at my little cherub. Sammey, after starting out on the tile floor the evening before had crawled into bed with Moriah and she was sleeping curled up in a little ball and Moriah’s feet in her face. I cannot believe the way kids can sleep. They are like a pile of puppies.


When we got up and had breakfast, we decided that it was hot enough that we’d like to go swimming. It was only 9:00 in the morning and it was already blistering hot. I think Tuesday may have been the hottest day Moriah and I experienced while in Honduras. We got ready and drove down through the gate house, out onto the road and then Trish turned into the Children’s Center and started driving out through the farm. We reached the gate dividing the farm from the Enchanted Forest and had to stop to go through the gate. Trish asked Sammey to get out and open the gate. I leaned out the window and asked Moriah to go help her and told her to do it like she does at Grandpa and Grandma’s house. We let the girls struggle with it a bit and then got out and showed them how to use their shoulder to open it easier. The gate was not a simple metal one like you find in a pasture in the states. It was made from barbed wire wrapped around tree limbs. My family has used this kind of gate on the property I grew up on and I remember the frustration of trying to get it opened and closed. My Dad and I had many go arounds about those gates until I finally learned how to use my leverage to get the things opened and closed.

When we got it open we drove through the enchanted forest to the beach where we found a Honduran man and his young son building a small out building right next to the beach. Trish and he conversed in Spanish for a few minutes and then we headed to the water. Apparently, he had talked to Brad the day before (Moriah and I had seen him the previous day while touring the farm) about a possible job on the farm. He was anxious to show Trish his hard work. They offered us water and bent over backward to be friendly and accommodating which was little odd considering the fact that we were not at their home but on a beach getting ready to play in the water.

A little bit about the beach we were on: This beach happens to be one that has outlying coral reefs close so we saw lots of huge pieces of coral embedded in the sand as well beautiful, twisted pieces of drift wood all over the place as well as tiny sea shells. Trish and I took off walking down the beach while Moriah and Sammey played in the surf. We talked about everything while enjoying the sun and water. No, I’m not going to tell you all the details of what we talked about. I’ll just tell you some of the topics...  I think maybe this was the first time we had been able to just let everything go and catch up completely on our friendship. We talked about being missionaries, marriage, old friends, scrapbooking and raising kids. It was such a wonderful time and I just felt joy overflowing from hanging out with Trish.

We went quite a ways down the beach and turned around to go the other direction. We walked as far as the point talking and laughing as we went. Every once in a while we would glance over our shoulder to see Moriah and Sammey either running down the beach or heads bobbing in the surf.
For those of you who are worrying about us letting our girls wander farther than 5 feet from us, I would say a couple of things. The first is that the surf is not like what we have here in Oregon. It is gentle rolling surf just a little bigger than you would find at a lake and second both of our girls have a lot of common sense and familiarity with oceans and water. We really weren’t that far from them and they were having the time of their lives especially not having their mothers hovering over them.

Trish and I started to really feel the heat of the sun and decided it was time to do a little swimming our selves. We floated in the waves and continued our girl talk for a while longer when we looked down the beach at our girls. They were jumping up and down and shouting at us about some treasure they had found. We made our way to them and come to find out, they had found a bed of sand dollars buried just beneath the surface of the sand. I couldn’t help but think of my mother-in-law and all the sand dollars we find in Seaside. It was so fun to pull them up and look at them. They are more delicate than the ones we have on the Oregon Coast and their shape is a bit more oblong from side to side. We could have pulled up hundreds of them. It was fun to look at the sand dollars and talk about the different parts and what they do. It was one of those moments in time that felt perfect. The four of us picking sand dollars out of the surf, laughing and smiling is captured in my memory. So much joy in a simple thing. I didn’t want it to end and I never wanted to leave. I felt like the weight of life that I had been carrying was just floating away with each lap of the waves.

Unfortunately, it did need to come to an end because we had other things that needed our attention. Trish needed to get some more propane so we got in the truck, went through the gate and drove to the village of Lucinda. Moriah and Sammey sat in the back of the pickup grinning and giggling the whole time while Trish and I enjoyed a little air conditioning. Have I mentioned yet that it was really hot and humid, in ordinarily so.

The village of Lucinda is a tiny little town with a very small store and a river. All along the road are small houses made out of brightly colored stucco or huts with roofs made from palm fronds. The flowers grow in riots of color all over. We drove about half way through town and stopped at the store to exchange a propane tank. While we were there we bought some Honduran popsicles made from Tamarind juice. The popsicles are funny because they come in what looks like a sandwich bag tied in a knot that has frozen juice. You bite the corner off and suck on it. I was astounded at how refreshing it was. The amazing thing was that it cost about ten cents US.
Once we were done at the store, we all hopped back in the truck and Trish took us for a ride across the river, Rio Lucinda.


In rural Honduras, you generally don’t find a lot of bridges so you drive through the river. Rio Lucinda was about a foot deep but Trish said that during the rainy season, the rivers water is so high sometimes that they cannot pass through. Rio Lucinda was such peaceful looking river at the time but I can imagine how it must rage when the rain hits the jungle mountains and roars into the rivers.

We spent a lot of time Tuesday morning and early afternoon just laughing and having a fun time. After we were done in Lucinda we headed back to the Ward’s house for lunch. One of the animals on my list to see while in Honduras was a toucan. Today was the day I got to check it off my list. Toucans are noisy creatures and nothing like Toucan Sam on the cereal box. In fact, I didn’t actually see one up close because they were in flight constantly so my glimpse of them was of a flash of black and a colored bill.

Shortly after lunch, we packed up our art supplies to go down to the children’s center. Trish found some mugs in the staff housing that were undecorated and had the idea of having the children paint them and then sell them in the gift cabinet. I found paint at Michaels here in the states that could be used on porcelain and ceramic and then cured in a regular oven.

Our class consisted of kids that ranged in age from about 5 years old to 9 or 10 years old. Trish got everyone’s attention and translated for me as I quickly showed the kids some different ideas to paint the mugs using their fingers. I didn’t have to show them much before they were ready to go. One of the things I had them do to clean their fingers was to wipe the paint on my apron. They thought that was so funny and now I have a memento of colorful little fingerprints all over my art apron.


We decided that we needed two projects and to split the class in half. One half painted mugs while the other used colorful tissue paper, crayons and the like to decorate a face I would be drawing on a piece of paper. The only problem was that the faces needed to be drawn. I took a couple of minutes and quickly drew 12 face pictures. Some of the faces were a little wonky with different sized eyes and ears that but the kids didn’t seem to mind.

It was hilarious watching the kids and staff using colored paint, crayons and tissue paper. Everyone was having a wonderful time and there was lots of chatter and laughter especially as the kids wiped their painted fingers all over my apron. Moriah and I walked around saying “bonita” and “bonito” hoping to express our delight in the results.

Moriah was my photographer and one of my helpers. The children loved hanging around her so they were excited for her to either take their picture or help them with their art projects. For the first little while, she took my camera and shot photos of everyone working on mugs. Then as the mug painting wound down, she helped the little kids by showing them how to stick tissue paper on their pictures by wrapping it around the eraser end of a pencil, dipping it in glue and sticking it on their picture. The girls especially loved doing that and Moriah had fun trying to communicate with them. She even learned the Spanish word for glue.


Toward the end of the class I paused to look around the balcony area and was struck with the joyful spirit that seemed to be surrounding this place. There were scraps of tissue paper in every color you could imagine floating around and blowing in the breeze as well as smiling kids running around playing with some toys we had brought from home to give to them. It is another moment framed in my mind.

When the kids were done decorating their face pictures each one took it to their bedroom and posted it on the wall above their beds. Trish was kind enough to grab my camera and take pictures of everyone with the picture they decorated while Moriah helped with the last art projects and I worked on cleaning up.

Once we were done cleaning up at the big house, we headed down to Ian’s house with the plan of getting Orlin’s footprint on a few mugs. He was sound asleep in his crib so we very carefully went in and painted his little foot with blue paint and pressed it onto the mugs. Trish’s plan was to get a couple of them painted to give to Ian and his wife. About half way through the second mug, Orlin woke up and didn’t much appreciate what we were doing so we worked quickly to finish up and get his little foot cleaned up.

Ian had to run an errand really quick so Trish and I hung out with Orlin. We stood on either side of his crib quietly talking to him and loving on him as he cried. We discovered that he really loves the base of his toes rubbed. It seemed to sooth him and he fell back into a light sleep.

We visited with Ian for a couple more minutes and then it was time to leave. Honestly, I really didn’t want to leave the children’s center. There is something about those little ones and the people who care for them that made me want to stay for a very long time. There joy knows no bounds and it flows over to everyone who is around them.

It was time to say good bye to the kids and go back to the Ward’s house. On the way, we decided to go to a different beach and go for a swim. We spent a half hour or an hour body surfing and floating in the ocean. It was so refreshing after the hot day. Again, it was a sweet time with my friend Trish where we talked and shared. She is such an encourager and her wisdom runs deep.

When we were done swimming, we took the “long” way home and went into another little village to check out a soccer field and look around a little. We decided to get a little adventurous and drove down a small road that lead us down to another river. We decided not to cross it so we turned around. Moriah and I got a close up look at some typical Honduran houses that are made from branches and palm fronds. They are really beautiful and simple in the way they are constructed.

After dinner, the Ward’s neighbor knocked on our door and told us he had a baby boa constrictor for us to look at. It was only about 10 inches long and definitely a boa. I don’t know what came over me in Honduras but every time someone yelled that there was a new critter to look at I came running, even if it was a spider which we did get a good look at a rather large spider running across the Ward’s kitchen floor. I didn’t get very close to that but was curious enough to take try and get a picture of it. It moved really fast so I made sure to stay a safe distance away.

This was the evening that Trish and I walked a bunch of souvenir items over to staff housing for the gift cabinet. One of the projects she had for me to do while in Honduras was to help her arrange the gift cabinet so it looked inviting for people. We took everything out cleaned it up and went through it.
One of the reason’s Trish and I get along so well is that she is incredibly organized and able to think through tasks, break them down into bite sized pieces and delegate how they need to get done. I, on the other hand am extremely creative and able to think outside the box to problem solve however I am not good at breaking tasks down into bite sized pieces, organize the people to do the job or delegate the tasks well. In other words, I really need Trish to organize me and my ideas so that the job can get done well.

She had several different ladies who had made jewelry as well as some beautiful Linka pottery, some purses that were handmade, key chains, a couple of preserved frogs, yes I said frogs and I did buy one for Caleb so if you ever want to see it just ask, machetes and some really great t-shirts.

We spent a couple of hours talking with young women who are living in the staff housing while I re-arranged the cabinet. You can imagine the evening with us in an open air living room type place, a hammock swinging in the breeze, chatter among friends and a couple of chirping geckos running across the walls snacking on flying insects for an evening meal.

As I was listening in on the conversations that night, my respect for the life people who are serving in other countries continued to grow. Being a foreigner and visiting for the first time for 1 week, I could have romanticized the life these people lead. Honduras is beautiful with hot weather, palm trees and a beautiful blue green ocean. The missionaries at Hospital Loma de Luz live in a pretty tight knit community depending on each other. It’s almost like having built in friends however, I began to get my first glimpse of the hardship of being a missionary. They are living so close and working so close with a small group of expats. Everyone knows everyone else’s business which can be good and really bad. Privacy is hard and if there is a personal problem between people it must be difficult because you can’t just ignore it or up and leave. I would think it has to be worked out because you see all these people multiple times each day. In addition to that, they are living in a country that despite its beauty is extremely poor, a bit dangerous on many different levels, and is a world of different away from American or European life.

One small example of the blessing and struggle of life at Hospital Loma de Luz is a rather ingenious system used to communicate between the missionaries. They use a ham radio system so when anyone uses it, they all know it and know which station the people talking are going to in order to communicate. It was fun to listen to people calling on the radio but I can see how frustrating it would be because it is not a private way of communicating. A side note, they don’t have telephones to call each other and cell phones don’t work well in the rural area they are in.

I think up until Tuesday I was existing in Honduras with a very sunshiny view of life. I know that being a missionary is difficult and have never thought any differently but my experiences so far were far and away the best experience I had had in a foreign country. As I lay in my bed, sweating and listening to my iPod, I mentally recounted the details of our trip so far and tried to let it all soak in. There is so much to say and yet the words I come up with seem so inadequate to express the duel perspective I was getting. I think one of the best ways to put it is that I was an American in a 3rd world country for one week, ready to serve in any way I was asked, for one week, knowing that I had the hope of a date I had to get on an airplane to fly home. I think on Tuesday night I began to see that the Wards didn’t have the hope of a deadline to leave, this is their home. Yes it is a wonderful place but there are perils and poverty that are intense and by the grace of God Moriah and I weren’t going to have to look those in the face for very long. What the Ward family is doing is so beneficial and they do it with joy in their hearts and good humor knowing they are right where they are supposed to be. Again, I reiterate my statement above by expressing my respect for the heart of these missionaries and what they are accomplishing in health care, education and relationships.