By ALAN MOCK
My eyes were unable to leave the action, down to the final second.
It was the most amazing ball game I’d ever watched, a game to go down in the annals of sports history. You know what I mean – the kind of game you’ll dissect around the water cooler the next morning; the kind of game that becomes a marker in your life, because you know you were one of an elite few who were there as it went down.
So, can you then imagine being called upon to actually play in it?
I deftly caught the Spiderman ball and stepped into square No. 1, beaming as seven boys ranging in age from 4 to 14 looked upon me with a unique mix of interest and impatience ... and at this early stage, already a modicum of affection. I bounced the ball into square No. 2 and this epic battle of four-square continued with me at quarterback, so to speak. Truly an honor I will not soon forget.
Why was this game so special?
For one, it was being played on the breathtakingly beautiful bay island of Roatan, Honduras. For another, the seven boys with whom I played were all residents of a private, nonprofit home for abused, neglected, abandoned and orphaned Honduran children. And most importantly, playing this game, sharing this love, represented the entire reason why my fiancee, Kimberly, and I traveled more than 2,600 miles from the ice-covered January mountains of western Pennsylvania to the lush tropical rainforest mountains of exotic Central America.
As our game of four-square continued in the concrete yard so brightly decorated with a myriad of colorful chalk scrawlings, Kim was inside the home, enveloped by a group of excited young girls and the comforting sound of their delighted giggles. Making each other understood through a mix of broken “Spanglish” and nonverbal communication, they were easily transcending the language barrier as together they learned to play the game Trouble (yep – that good ol’ classic board game), just one of a slew of items we’d transported from the United States.
This was our first humanitarian mission trip. This was Greenfield Children’s Home of Sandy Bay Lighthouse Ministries.
And this was an experience full of emotion and learning, of understanding and unexpected moments.
Death squads to dollars
When you think of poverty and plight in our hemisphere, chances are you think first of the Republic of Haiti, particularly of late. It’s true what is often said: You never remember who comes in second. Honduras is the second-poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere, beaten in this sad distinction only by Haiti. It seems in keeping therefore that no one remembers Honduras.
No stranger to instability and unrest, Honduras has once again been in the grip of political turmoil. After 27 stable years of constitutionally elected governments, a strange series of moves by then-President Manuel Zelaya ended in June 2009, when the political leader was ousted by the military after he ignored Honduran Supreme Court rulings to cease maneuvers to stay in power for an additional, unconstitutional term.
Zelaya, an ally of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, was seized by his own soldiers at the presidential palace and forced into exile in Costa Rica.
The interim government, wary of a threatening uprising, swiftly quelled public protest by initiating policies via emergency decree that removed the right of public assembly and other civil liberties, including closing two pro-Zelaya media outlets. With tempers flaring and loyalties clashing on both sides of the fence, accounts of politically motivated murders began to surface.
The most public of these were the murder last month of the pregnant daughter of controversial journalist Karol Cabrera, who works for a state-run television station that changed administration after the military coup d’état, and the shooting deaths of five youths purported to be members of a resistance party to the interim government. The latter event happened on a Sunday evening in the Villaneuva district of Tegucigalpa, when unknown men in a white car without license plates opened fire on youths near a traffic circle in the city. Media headlines across Latin America quickly proclaimed: “DEATH SQUADS ARE BACK.”
With many international governments, including the United States, refusing to recognize the interim Honduran government or the subsequent November 2009 elections, and the State Department issuing an official traveler’s advisory for U.S. citizens, there is little doubt the Honduran political climate has impacted both tourism and the economy of this country, which can scarcely afford to lose a single dollar.
Faced with this mounting international pressure, the civil liberties policies of the interim government were rescinded in October as Hondurans prepared to take to the polling booths to determine their new, constitutionally elected leader. And now with new President Porfirio “Pepe” Lobo taking office Wednesday, things seem at last to be settling into calm after six long months of turmoil in Honduras.
“Our friend is an American dentist who comes here a month or two at a time to volunteer his services in the community,” said one of our fellow cruise passengers in Roatan. “He was told to go home last month because things were really heating up.”
From one world into another
On the island of Roatan, I can honestly say that we saw little to no sign of the political intensity that most plausibly would have occurred on the mainland and around the capital, Tegucigalpa. That’s not to say that a certain respect for keeping a lower profile wasn’t in the back of our minds as we gently glided across pure blue Caribbean waters to our remote destination.
Any apprehension melted away as we awoke on the morning of our arrival, pulled open the curtains and were immersed in a view of the most beautiful tropical island I could ever hope to see.
Imagine “Robinson Crusoe” meets “Pirates of the Caribbean” and you’ll be pretty close. From one side of the bay, lush, tropical rainforests covered rolling mountains all the way down to the water’s edge, where hidden coves of white sandy beaches dotted the horizon. On the other side, the colorful Mahogany Bay port terminal – built by Carnival Cruise Lines – glistened in its $70 million newness. On each side of the bay, the skeletal remains of two separate shipwrecks served as romantic reminders that these waters are a foreign mistress to be respected.
The entire scene was so perfect to me in its completeness of what a tropical paradise should be that if I weren’t there in person, I might have thought it set up by the people at Disney.
I had made thorough and comprehensive arrangements for our mission trip prior to departure. These included primarily a number of e-mails with both John Kleppinger, the administrator of Sandy Bay Lighthouse Ministries, which runs Greenfield Children’s Home, and Orsy Cruz, the house father of the home who, together with his wife, Banesa, lives with and cares for the children on a purely voluntary basis.
Consider that for a moment: You and your spouse giving up your home and moving into a dwelling for neglected and abused children, growing your family overnight from four people to 19. And doing it all for free.
We were to meet Orsy at the port terminal. Earning his income as proprietor of his own island tour company, TransTours, Orsy kindly offered to serve as driver for the day as Kim and I would briefly explore the island, go to the local marketplace to purchase as much food as our dollars could muster and then finally make our way to Greenfield Home, where we would get to visit at last with the children themselves.
The massive duffle bags we’d brought – full of diapers and toys, baby wipes and Bibles; the food we would buy – rice and beans and fresh fruit and meats, were important. But to share a moment of love with the children, to hope to make a brief impression – and know that the impression the children would make upon us would be a permanent one
– was the single most important reason for our nine-day journey.
Having received word from the ship’s liaison that our list of supplies to be donated had been cleared by Honduran customs, Kim and I made our way down to Deck A, dressed in safari shorts and hiking boots, each of us rolling a huge duffle bag behind, as the final stragglers of bikini-clad passengers in flip-flops made their way before us to the shops and beaches of Mahogany Bay port.
At the disembarkation point, just before stepping off the ship and onto Honduran soil (or sand, I should say), the customs officers asked one more time to look in our bags.
“Ah, yes. Cabin 8211,” one of two officers said as he visually inspected us.
By the look on his face, I couldn’t help but wonder if in fact he was wondering why on earth someone had come all this way, paid all this money to be here, taken such rare time away from work and everyday life, made such effort … and was then going to pass on the white-sand resort that was the reason the other 2,300 cruise passengers were here.
Another woman in shorts, bikini top and beach bag passed by us, presented her “Sail and Sign” card and was waved through by the officers.
“The orphanage,” the second officer said, turning back to me. “Diapers and supplies, yes? We look, OK?”
They motioned me to open the bags and let them see that this really was for real. Considering our understanding that something like this occurs on the cruise ship about every week or so, it was unexpected that the Honduran Customs seemed so unexpecting. Perhaps they thought we would be much older, or look much wealthier, or appear much holier. I’m glad I was able to surprise them as the apparent antithesis on all three counts.
I unzipped each bag. Doing so revealed row after row of comfy white diapers interlaced with a myriad of items one wouldn’t typically see together: A soccer-sized Spiderman ball; an illustrated children’s Bible stories hardback in Spanish; a classic board game; a bilingual interactive Disney storybook that allows you to type a word in English – it pronouncing the letters as you type – and then speaking the Spanish equivalent and meaning (just $7 from Ollies!); a bag of snack-sized candy; a Tom and Jerry cartoon DVD; Walt Disney puzzles; a Nerf football; and more.
The officers peered in. Nodded.
Then said quietly and so very earnestly to Kim in Latin timbre: “You have a good hearts.”
The real Roatan
It was a thousand degrees in Honduras that day. OK, maybe not. But it sure felt like it as we made our way
– bags in tow – through Mahogany Bay, out the gate, up the hill (which I’m sure normally wouldn’t feel as big as it did for us today) and past the second security point to where a throng of native Roatans and their tour vans of various ages and conditions awaited.
One of them was to be Cesar, who I was guessing worked for Orsy, our host. “Just ask for Cesar,” the e-mail from Orsy a week earlier had instructed. “He will bring you to me and then we go to market.”
We asked first one, and then another, for Cesar.
Nobody knew Cesar.
But they could all take us to the Children’s Home for the right price.
I declined, knowing that our success and well-being was determined by the fact that we meet Orsy.
Still no Cesar.
Then suddenly, a man appeared from seemingly nowhere and said without introduction, “Mock?” And then with a hurried motion, “I take to Orsy.”
In minutes, we were in a new van, air conditioning purring. Our gracious host, Orsy Cruz, was welcoming and smiling. In his early 30s and a native of Roatan, Orsy spoke English that was impeccable, putting our Spanish to shame.
He told us of the island and its people, of himself and the Children’s Home, as he drove away from the tourist area, and we quickly were immersed in the real Roatan. Here streets were small and narrow, lined with old cars and dogs basking beneath their bumpers. Sidewalks were lined with an odd mix of both well-built and ramshackle structures which served as stores and banks and homes. Men with weather-beaten faces ambled the street or sat idly in the morning sun.
For some reason the image of two older men in wheelchairs is burned in my memory, each with a leg cast and bandaged, sitting stationary outside the grocer’s, while energetic children on their winter break played outside it or worked inside. Few women were in sight, and I wish now that I’d asked why. Next time I will.
“Ten dollars a day,” Orsy answered my question on the average Roatan income. And with food prices here being roughly twice what you and I pay (nearly everything has to be imported), that’s the equivalent of about two gallons of milk. Imagine your pay being that. For a day’s work.
That’s also why the sight of children as young as 7 or 8 working an eight-hour day is common. In Honduras, there is no minimum work age. Everyone in the family has to carry their weight. Tell that to your teenager the next time he complains about taking out the garbage once a week.
In the grocer’s, we followed Orsy as he walked the aisles and joyfully filled his cart with rice and beans and canned goods. The money that had been apportioned for this part of the mission suddenly seemed grossly insufficient, and we were filled with sadness and disappointment that our church failed to come through with the additional funds we had anticipated for this aspect of the mission. Kim and I stepped aside for a moment, opened our travel pack and quietly counted our own remaining dollars.
We had little to start with, and this was the end of our trip. We took out what was left, leaving $50 in there to give to Orsy at the end of the day for his gracious hospitality: He had forsaken a day of tour earnings to be with us, and at $5 per gallon of gas, his costs were mounting.
I slipped what money we had left between Orsy’s hand and the shopping cart. He accepted it reluctantly but gratefully.
“How much food will this total amount now buy … how many days for the home?” I asked.
Orsy paused, calculated around
18 Honduran lempiras per dollar, and answered, “About two or three days.”
He smiled when he said it.
Kim and I felt deflated.
We had hoped it would do so much more, but had to remind ourselves that we had also brought so many other things of importance to the home. (Remember those hefty duffle bags?) And the most important thing we could bring? Love and awareness.
Which is why your reading this story today is so very important: You are now a part of our mission, that priceless resource we brought with us to Roatan although none could see you at the time. God willing, they will see you soon, or what you feel empowered to do from afar.
From the grocer’s we drove a few minutes inland to the market, where fresh bananas, coconuts and plantains were on display beside bins of beans and pulses. In the market alleyway, we met Orsy’s cousin, a smart and affable man who owns a fresh-meat market there.
Sipping a coffee on a stool before his stand, he greeted us in English and with a shake of the hand, as Orsy perused trays of fresh beef cuts on display in two trays. Like most of the fresh food products here, the beef is displayed in the open air.
And like nearly all of their supplies, it comes in by cargo ship twice weekly from the Honduran mainland. In the event of bad storms that prohibit the ships, the food just does not come.
What do they do if it is a prolonged period of time and the current supply begins to dwindle?
“We hope. And we wait,” Orsy replied. “And it finally comes.”
The road to the lost children
As we traveled the hillside roads toward the Sandy Bay area of Roatan, patches of bright light spackled the road and homes beside it as the midday sun pierced the cool, deep green forest canopy. It produced a dreamlike sense as we followed the curves of the hills and mountains and glimpsed the teal blue Caribbean below. Orsy was quietly driving, and neither Kim nor I said much for a while – a comfortable silence as we caught our breath, considered our progress and this faraway world which we’d quickly become a part of, gently absorbed into our senses.
Like a movie, I said to myself, narrating internally the images as they passed by. A home made of pressboard and corrugated tin, little more than a shed … an exotic red flower with long white stamen … a dog wandering the road without care or concern … the brilliant coral reef mass visible just below the sea’s clean blue surface, far below the road we traveled. ...
Sitting to my left in the back of the van, I saw that Kim, too, was in a zone.
Then, as though with a snap, the trance was broken when Orsy announced pleasantly, “We are here.”
He turned and smiled, then stopped to open the gate of Greenfield Children’s Home. I was surprised at the lockable gate and high chain fences, but recalled one of their e-mailed newsletters which stated something about a recently added gate to adhere to governmental regulations.
John Kleppinger met us and helped unload the supplies. We posed with him and Orsy before going in to meet the children, and as we stood behind our bags and boxes of goods, waiting for the snap of the camera, I felt a strong but humble sense of pride at what we’d been able to accomplish already, before even meeting the kids: Our ultimate purpose. If this was as good as it got on this journey, then I would have been happy. Especially as this was our first mission trip – it was just Kim and me – and we had coordinated it all on short notice.
That special realization made all the planning, worrying, hurrying, hauling, collecting, cajoling and purchasing worthwhile, and is what I’ve heard called a “God wink,” a special little communication – a private message of sorts – solely between you and your Creator.
This one affirmed: Kiddo, you did good.
And then the kids were upon us.
Their energy flowed in electric waves, abundant smiles and excitement overtaking any introspection as they came with ready hugs and laughter and rampant childlike curiosity.
And I said to myself: It just got better!
Thirteen-year-old Samuel (pronounced Sam-well) wrapped his arms around my waist as Danny and Sharon and Shenice – even sweet and shy Erica – flocked to Kim.
People always flock to Kim.
There’s something open and giving and spiritual about her soul that shines for any who need to see its light – all you have to do is look and it is there. It’s something she was born with, a blessing. She does not know that this innate demeanor makes me envious at times, wishing I could shine the same. But it always makes me honored that she has chosen that it will be I who will flock by her side for life.
The children bounded at her waist, gently pulling at Kim’s hands to guide her to an outdoor play area as the few permanent staff of the home began to store away the newly delivered food and supplies for safekeeping. I stayed back for a short while to talk with Kleppinger and Orsy and to meet John’s wife, Melissa, and Orsy’s wife, Banesa. We spoke of Sandy Bay’s needs and mission, and John’s family – U.S. citizens who are volunteering for two years on the island and supported purely by their home church and the generous donations of the private sector.
‘We are blessed’
“The primary purpose of Sandy Bay Lighthouse Ministries is to demonstrate the love of Jesus to both the children of Greenfield and the greater Sandy Bay community,” John explained. “We are blessed to have visits from people like you, and also benefit from group missions ranging from 50 to 200 people who may come for a day or even a week or more. In these cases we utilize God’s provision in the community of Sandy Bay, the island of Roatan, as well as here in the home
… wherever the resource best fits.”
After our talk, I used what little time we had left to spend with the kids. We played ball and board games, told wondrous stories and heard them in turn. I performed amazing magic (yes, it was amazing), making a Flash memory stick seemingly disappear into my ear.
How awesome, I beamed. A new audience!
I couldn’t believe that the boys believed the poorly executed trick, their mouths agape as I at first clumsily slid the storage device in through one ear, of course feigning some level of discomfort as I did so, and then pulled it back out of my head through the other. But then, as honest as I am, I had to reveal how the sleight of hand was done. I couldn’t leave Central America knowing I’d deceived them all. (Don’t worry, it didn’t ruin it for them. They were in as much awe trying to re-create the trick as they had been when they believed their eyes as I had done it.)
As Kim returned to the gathering room and set up the board game Trouble, I moved outside, excitedly tugged upon by a half dozen boys, to play four-square in the concrete yard.
And so we come full circle, to where our journey started.
I could spend endless pages describing how we played together, laughed and kidded. I could tell you that I was determined to win at four-square, while Kim was determined to lose at Trouble. I could tell you that as we readied to depart, the hours gone as though mere seconds, there was a quiet resignation across the home that our time together was over; that as we gathered in the compound for a final group photo, there were sad faces and even tears, from both sides of the equation.
As I look upon the departure photo now, my stomach falls as I now notice for the first time that only three show the barest attempt at a smile, 11 wearing fully the honest visage of their emotions.
The image is a complete 180 from the bright, beaming faces full of joy
at our arrival. And it solidifies in me the most important thing we gave them that day.
Ourselves.
God winks at every one of us at some time or another, telling us where to go, calling us to opportunity or action, asking to share the blessings we enjoy.
Kim and I got that wink and our lives will never be the same, a new purpose revealed to us in that one simple day.
The real question is: When God winks at you, will you wink back?
Alan Mock is classified advertising manager for The Tribune-Democrat.
