On July 31st our team of 16 people from St. Steven’s Church flew out of Baltimore, Maryland into Atlanta where we met the rest of our team who were joining us from North Carolina. From Atlanta we flew into Roatan, a city on the mainland of Honduras. The airport was so tiny that the customs line of 250 people stretched out the door and back around the side of the airport, so it took around 2 hours for our team to make it through. Going through customs in a foreign country is totally different than in America. They're extremely relaxed about letting you through. I was very nervous because I was worried they would be weird about letting me in and being on a missions team, but they just asked my name and where I was staying, and they let me through. Fortunately, there was no travel ban on Americans in Honduras at the time.

Sunrise over Atlanta, Georgia  

From the airport we traveled by van to meet the boat that would take us to the island of Helene where we would be staying and working for the week. During the boat ride we were over the coral reefs where the water was a bright aqua color. Most of the islands we passed were privately owned by multimillionaire Americans with extravagant vacation homes built on them. However, some of the islands were uninhabited due to crocodiles that lived on the islands or in the water surrounding them. When we arrived at the mission an hour later, we were taken on a tour and given the chance to unpack before meeting on the deck. Our rooms were decently big with 4 sets of bunk beds and one single bed. We were all given a very small fan that we could use at night when the generator was on.

Larry and Sheila Benson are the full-time missionaries there, and one of the first things they told us was that due to the drought the island was experiencing there would not be enough water for us all to get showers. Until we got some rain we would be allowed to have 32 ounces of water in a Nalgene bottle to shower with. They told us that they were praying for rain, but little did we know that later in the week we would get a hurricane! They also told us that each night before bed we needed to shake out our sheets to check for scorpions and to check our shoes in the morning as well.

Local Dock 

We woke up every day around 6am to have breakfast as a team on the deck and to have our daily devotionals. After this we usually split into groups and would go with an islander to see the island and to pray with the native people. The island is small enough that we could walk completely around it in about three hours.

The people were so welcoming! They would invite us into their homes, and they loved to share things with us about their families and daily lives. They also loved to be prayed for and loved to pray for us also. It was so humbling to have these people we had never met before be so welcoming and giving.

The mission we stayed at hosted the English school, where all of the teachers are islanders and are paid by the missionaries. We stayed in the classrooms as helpers where they would ask us to read the children stories or help them to write their letters and numbers. School in Honduras only lasts around two hours and most children go to the public schools in the morning. The public schools on the island are extremely different than our public schools. There is no air conditioning, and the kids come and go whenever they want. Most of their teachers have gone through basic training but do not have a college degree. The island is so tiny that you walk everywhere; there are no cars. So the children walked in the heat of the day from all over the island to come to school. Most days it was around 90 degrees outside with 100% humidity. The children from the island who did not attend the English school or the island's public schools took a 40-minute boat ride to the mainland for school. During school I helped with the large kindergarten class, and I would stay after and help tutor a child in math.  

After lunchtime the kids from the island would come to the mission where we were staying and beg us to play games with them on the deck. They loved to play ‘island checkers,’ which is basically like American checkers except they make up their own rules as you go so that it's impossible for you to win. The kids were my favorite part because they were so adorable and loving. One girl really attached herself to me throughout the whole week. Her name was Kyeesha, and she was only four. She was also in the classroom I helped teach in during the week.

Me and Kyeesha 

After playing with the kids, we all would eat supper together on the deck and talk about our day. Sometimes for supper we had American food like spaghetti and burgers, but we also had island food like Baliatas. A Baliata is a tortilla filled with ground beef and cheese with lettuce, tomato, and a white sauce called crema. With every meal we would have fresh cut fruit like pineapples that were grown on the island.

While the women on the team walked around the island and taught in the schools, the men helped build a new trades school for the islanders. This school is to help the men of the island find jobs relating to construction as most people on the island don't have jobs or have very small stores in the bottoms of their houses.

Men building the frame of the trades school 

The main thing I learned from my experience was that even though the islanders have so little, they are the happiest people that you will ever meet. On a daily basis they live with no water, electricity, and sometimes no food, but they would literally hand you the shirt off their backs if you asked for it. It was one of the greatest and most humbling experiences of my life.