Tulane missionaries create rest stop for the weary

Having already built a medical clinic from the ground up in the remote mountain village of La Fortuna, Honduras, the student-missionaries from the Catholic

Center at Tulane University could easily have rested on their laurels.

But as they delved more deeply into the needs of people living in the Merendon Mountains of the Central American country, volunteers with “Mission Honduras” saw that many patients were having to walk several hours to get to the clinic, then return home in the dark.

    The story of one couple – who walked 4 1/2 hours to the clinic with their sick 6-month-old – struck a chord with Jamie Harrell.

“I can’t believe they walked that far with their baby and then turned around and went home on the same day,’” recalls Harrell, 21, a newly graduated neuroscience major and the veteran of four Mission Honduras trips.

    Now, patients and their families will have a place to stay overnight.

In May, a Tulane Catholic Center contingent of 30 returned to La Fortuna, located in northwestern Honduras near the Guatemalan border, to complete work on a guesthouse for the clinic’s widely scattered visitors. The cement structure – a repurposed, one-story former schoolhouse – will provide free lodging to as many as 20 guests per night.

   “We put in the windows, we replaced the roof and did a lot of siding work,” said Harrell of the hilltop guesthouse, located just steps from the clinic.

Opened in May 2010, the clinic is a joint effort between the Tulane Catholic Center and the Misioneros de Esperanza, based in the city of San Pedro Sula. Located a two-hour walk away from the next available medical facility, it provides services including prenatal and obstetrical care, the distribution of medicines and vaccines, and minor emergency care such as stitching and the setting of broken bones.

“It’s still all very new and very basic,” said Harrell of the clinic, noting that future enhancements may include the addition of on-site dentistry services and more bathroom facilities. Tulane’s Catholic Center provided yet another vital piece of the service needs by funding the certification of two Honduran nurses to staff the clinic. 

A twist on Spring Break

    Mission Honduras began in 2002 as an opportunity for students involved with the Catholic Center to go on a mission trip during Spring Break rather than go home or to the beach.

For the first two years, they worked in Comayagua, a city in central Honduras. In 2004, the group turned their attention to the urban and rural outreach work of the Misioneros de Esperanza, returning there every year except for a Katrina-forced interruption in 2006.

During its most recent trip, the team of young adults, led by Dominican Father John Lydon, Tulane Catholic Center director, spent the first few days in San Pedro Sula visiting orphanages, a nursing home, a children’s hospital and a home for children with HIV. At each stop, they presented a monetary donation and gave the children juice, cookies and a piñata party.

Mountain visits

   The second phase of the trip had the group splitting into groups of three to five to make home visits to eight remote mountain villages – or aldeas – in the area. They distributed clothes, shoes, school supplies, dental supplies and soccer balls to their appreciative hosts, whose homes have limited access to running water and electricity.

“My favorite part (of the mission trip) is visiting the families who live in the mountains – I love the kids up there,” said Harrell, a graduate of St. Andrew the Apostle Elementary and St. Mary’s Dominican High. “(The children) just are so happy with nothing. They just want to play. Balls and water balloons are two things that make their day.”

Harrell said despite their modest surroundings – their beds are thin mats placed on the floor – aldea residents show their guests incredible hospitality and are grateful for  items such as toothpaste and deodorant – things “they can’t just run down to the store” and get, Harrell said.

   “Anything they have they’ll give to you,” she said. “They kill their chickens for us – and they don’t get to do that on a regular basis. We eat like kings and queens in comparison to them.”

Harrell said mission work has made her more cognizant of what God is calling her to do with her time, treasure and talents.

   “You learn how to be truly joyful,” Harrell said, anticipating the Catholic Center’s mission trips to Honduras in March and May of 2012.

   “After we finished the clinic, all I could think was, ‘Look at all the stuff that we’ve done,’” Harrell said. “One of the ladies that was down there with us looked at me and she said, ‘No. Look at all the stuff you’ve done through God.’ Mission work is doing God’s work with your own hands. It’s not about what you did; it’s about what God wanted you to do.”

To learn more about Mission Honduras, visit http://tulane.edu/studentaffairs/orgs/mission honduras.

   Beth Donze can be reached at [email protected].