How Mission Trip Changed My Life

Mother Teresa said “let us always meet each other with a smile, for the smile is the beginning of love.” Many times in life the only way we can extend love to others is through a smile and an embrace. A great example of those times is on a mission trip to a place that speaks a different language. I have experienced just how true this is firsthand. This trip truly changed my life, completely affecting my outlook on my daily life as well as the “big picture” plan for my life. I now appreciate things I once took for granted, luxuries that we have come to expect in our sheltered lives that we live here in America. In my life, I have never experienced extreme poverty for myself, but this trip gave me just a glimpse into what life is like for those who are not so pampered as our country.
One Sunday early in 2011 as I strolled into my church, a table caught my eye. There are often different tables advertising events and mission trips in the entry way of my church, but this table seemed to draw me in somehow. I excitedly told my parents about it, and they came to look too. The vibrantly colored table was advertising a mission trip to

Honduras later that summer. I implored my parents to at least consider taking me on the trip, so they put our names down to at least come to a meeting. When we attended the first informational meeting about the trip, we learned the cost. Our family was probably not going to be able to afford the high price tag associated with the trip, but I pleaded with them to try. When we had paid exactly half of what was required, someone anonymously covered the other half of the cost. For our family, this was a sign from God that we needed to go on this trip, which would be the beginning of unending blessing.
The real story starts on one Saturday in July when we woke up before the sun to get to the airport. We met up with our group, travelled through security, and got on the plane to head down to Latin America. We were met at the airport in San Pedro Sula, Honduras, by the pastor of the church we would be partnering with for the week. Then we loaded up into several stinky, hot white vans to ride for about 4 hours to La Ceiba, the hometown of the pastor, and the location of our hotel. On Sunday we attended the church who we partner with in Honduras. All of the members of the church were very excited to see us, greeting us with hugs, kisses, and lots of fast Spanish! The only response that my overwhelmed mind could conjure was a smile and simple “gracias”. We stayed for the normal church service, which was to say the least interesting. I could usually tell what song they were singing, but trying to sing along in English is much more difficult than I would have thought. Thankfully, they had a translator for the sermon; otherwise I would have been utterly confused!
Monday morning we once again loaded up in the smelly vans and commuted about 30 minutes to another small church where we would do most of our work for the week. They were working on building a church, so the men and a few women worked on the new church building, while all the others, including myself, spent the morning putting on a vacation Bible school for the local kids. As soon as our vans would pull up, kids would be grabbing our hands and babbling away in Spanish, somehow unaware that we couldn’t understand them. We could hear some of the kids call us the “gringos”, meaning white people! The place allotted for us to do VBS was another church not too far from the one they were building. Churches in Honduras consist of concrete walls, often painted bright colors, windows – no glass, just a square cut out in the wall with bars over them, and some wooden pews. We would separate the kids into a couple of groups by putting colored arm bands on them, to help with rotations of activities later.
First all the kids got to color for about 15-20 minutes.

I was amazed to see that even teenage boys like to color there, while most guys here wouldn’t be caught dead with some crayons and a coloring sheet. Then the children would move through 3 different rotations: a craft, outdoor time, and a Bible lesson taught by two women from Texas who speaks Spanish. Because of the language barrier, our communications were reduced to many gestures and a whole lot of pointing. We had a few translators along on the trip, but they were often helping others, so I would just continue to smile and motion with my hands to try to talk to the children. Those little kids would run up to me and just start to prattle off in Spanish, and when I would tell them I didn’t understand, they would just repeat themselves, as if I could understand if they said it

again.
Each afternoon, we walked down to a soccer field and played all kinds of games outside with the older kids and teenagers. Teenagers in Honduras get really excited about playing soccer, or as they call it “futbol”. So we would play soccer with them, and sometimes do a craft with any girls that wanted to, then we would gather them all up and have a bible study. On the last day we worked with the youth, we asked them how many of them had a Bible at home, and were able to hand out Spanish Bibles to all of those who didn’t already have one. While we got to leave soccer balls and craft supplies, it was really special to get to leave something that would make such a lasting impact on their lives.
On our final day of VBS with the kids, we all brought small trinkets that we had brought from home and they got to go “trick or treating”. A local dentist had donated some tooth brushes and toothpaste that we got to give out to the kids. The pure joy on their faces was like Christmas morning! After the party, we had to say goodbye, which was extremely difficult due to the close relationship we had established with the kids throughout the week.
Saturday we got to pick what we wanted to do, and I went on a ziplining trip through the rainforest. Nearly flying through the jungle with a view of the inviting blue ocean at the same time is an experience I will not soon forget! We drove back to the airport early Sunday morning. The airport held lots of goodbyes for us to our translators and Honduran friends who we had bonded with throughout the trip. As soon as we boarded the plane, I was out like a light and slept the whole 2+ hour flight!
This trip has helped me realize just how blessed I really am by my family, friends, lovely home, church, and all of the things that I take for granted daily. Things like even air-conditioning and health are not always accessible to people in countries not far from us, yet we are hardly thankful for them. I now live my life with much more of an appreciation for even the little things that I am blessed by daily. Going to Honduras also showed me what it means to express love in ways when spoken word alone cannot reach. The little children we were working with appreciate physical signs of love: hugs, holding hands, piggy back rides, or even just a smile across the room. One last major thing that this trip has affected in my life is my love for mission work. I have always had a heart for those in poorer countries but after experiencing this trip for myself, I realized that this is something I want to devote my life to.