Chatterbox: Down to Earth

Mission trips!

I just got back from my first mission trip ever! It was to an orphanage in Honduras for kids with HIV/AIDS, called Montana de Luz, which means The Mountain of Light. It was completely amazing and utterly life changing. While I was there, patching up the dirt roads and mixing concrete for a new sidewalk at the mission, (and getting bitten by bugs, sweating ridiculously, and sunburning badly,) I realized that this was what God has called me to do. I didn't want to leave, and since today was my first day back in America, I spent half of it looking at pictures of all the friends I had made there and crying a lot.  If I could have, I would have stayed down there the rest of my life and been ecstatically happy. Even though Honduras is the second poorest country in the world and is riddled with more problems than I had ever imagined, the people there are amazingly friendly and happy just to be alive. I saw kids carrying jugs of water that must've weighed twice as much as they did, but when I waved and shouted hola, their faces lit up like they had everything they wanted.

I'm having a really hard time with the re-entry to America, because it really is a different world in Honduras. Everything, even the things I thought were the most important to me before I went seem completely worthless and superficial now that I've seen what it's like in a third-world country. I'm disgusted at how materialistic I was before and I realize now that I don't need even a 1/8 of the things I thought I did. For some kids in Honduras, having a bad day means that you don't get to eat, and your only pair of shoes finally disentigrates. Anyone else who has been on a mission trip, respond por favor! I could go on about Montana de Luz forever, so just tell me if you want more info.

P.S. Please, look up Montana de Luz. Maybe you can get your church to go on a mission trip!