Greetings from Honduras!
Today was day 3 of our trip. We are just now getting the time to post an update, so I’ll just summarize the whole first three days. Day 1 was mostly a travel day. We all met at church at 4 A.M. and left from there via church bus to the airport for a 6:10 A.M. flight. The flight and connection were uneventful and put us in Tegucigalpa in the early afternoon. Everybody had a little time to settle in and get organized for the rest of the week.
Day 2 took us to a remote mountain village called Acaguaque about 2 1/2 hours away from Tegucigalpa. The drive was very arduous, with about half of the trip being over bumpy dirt roads and up a motion-sickness-inducing mountainside road (imagine taking the Blue Ridge Parkway by minibus, but if it was made of dirt and gravel, with potholes and/or livestock to dodge every 100 yards or so). But the trip was well worth it, as we were blessed with the opportunity to bring medical and dental care to over 200 very needy adults and children. This village is very remote, and is unreachable during much of the year because rain washes out the roads. Because of this, they have very little opportunity to receive visits from medical teams and do not otherwise have access to medical care, so they were very grateful for our being there.
Today we were in an area called Los Jobos, somewhat near Talanga, about 90 minutes out of Tegucigalpa. We served about 200 people in somewhat similar circumstances to the people yesterday. Again, everyone was grateful for our presence and we enjoyed connecting with this community. One woman had a heart murmur and may have been having a heart attack, so we had somebody drive her to the main road and gave her some money to catch a bus to the nearest hospital for further help.
We have been pleased to be able to help so many people in such dire circumstances, but the depth of poverty and dysfunction here can be overwhelming. Many aspects of daily life are difficult for average Hondurans, and especially so for both the rural and urban poor here. The people here are poorly served by their leaders, as all levels of government are plagued by corruption, waste, and incompetence. Those reading this in the US may sometimes complain about their leaders, and with good reason. But so many of the things we take for granted about our political and economic life are but a dream for anyone living in Honduras.
Here is a link to some early photos.
More tomorrow, following the first of two days in a community called Fuerzas Unidas, on the outskirts of Tegucigalpa.
