EL HOGAR, THE HOME OF LOVE AND HOPE, Tegucigalpa, Honduras, August 2008

The mission of El Hogar is to provide a loving home and education in a Christian environment for abandoned, orphaned and hopelessly poor children-boys and girls. El Hogar has three different schools.

St Peter’s in the Woods, Fairfax Station, Virginia took our first mission trip to El Hogar in August 2005. We have just returned from our second mission trip in August 2005. St Peter’s has been supporting children at El Hogar since the start of our parish 18 years ago.

The trip to Honduras this year was somewhat different from our previous trip. This was caused by an airport accident back in May that caused the Tegucigalpa airport to be closed until about a week before our arrival.

This necessitated the team, Kay and Norm Cooper, Linda Baccus and Jeff Ferguson, changing our plans and flying into San Pedro Sula, about 150 miles from Tegucigalpa, but also home of Our Little Roses, a home for girls which we supported for many years. Because of the detour, we were able to add a visit with our former godchild, Tirza Romero. St Peter’s supported Tirza from the age 3-21. She currently is attending the University of Honduras and will be graduating in 9 months. It was wonderful to meet and visit with Tirza. She gave us a tour of OLR., We also had the pleasure to visit the Mayan ruins at Copan.

Following our short sojourn in SPS, we were picked up and driven to Tegucigalpa by Padre Rich Kunz, Executive Director of El Hogar Ministries in Honduras. It is almost a five hour trip from SPS to Teguc over several mountain ridges that slow the heavy traffic down. But we did arrive safely early Saturday evening and prepared to spend our week with the boys.

Sunday we attended Sta. Maria Episcopal Church with the kids and then spent the afternoon getting to play with the kids on campus for the weekend. Some of the kids do have families in the area and they go home on the weekends.

Monday morning was our official introduction to El Hoar and the younger students, familiarization briefing and tour with Claudia Castro, the director of El Hogar, and Raul Castro, the volunteer coordinator. We visited the various class rooms and saw the school in operation. We also toured the grounds, including the new dormitory currently being built to replace the old wooden dorms.

Tuesday and Wednesday we were able to visit the other two schools the Technical Institute and the Agricultural school which are located some distance outside Teguc .Each school provides the older kids with the opportunity to learn a trade and earn a living in Honduras. Each drive provided additional exposure to some of the lovely mountainous scenery of central Honduras, but also showed some of the less prosperous areas. The Technical Institute is the home of one of our godchildren, Walter. Our other godchild, Edgar, and the Batla’s (members of St Peter’s) godchild, rolling ton, are at the farm. Mary Rhoades, a former parishioner and attendee of the 2005 trip also supports Kevin at El Hogar.

On Tuesday afternoon we also were able to visit the girl’s home, located about a ten minute drive from the main campus. Ten girls now attend the school ages 6-9. Once the new dormitory is completed, they will be housed on the main campus The girls have just been added to the school within the last year.

Other highlights of the trip included home a visit of one of the students, and a special concert and revival meeting for the kids. One of our projects consisted of sorting bags of “stuff” received from the States and Canada. El Hogar holds a monthly “sale” where the kids can use the points they have earned for school work and other activities to purchase new clothes, games, and school supplies. We assisted with sorting the items for the sale and running the sale with some of the staff. The current supplies that are needed are shoes for boys, black pants and white shirts to be used as band uniforms.

Our time with the kids was also precious. I think we all developed our favorites among the kids and we each had our special talents with them. Norm brought his caricature drawing skills that intrigued many of the kids, Kay and Linda brought some craft work to do with the kids, and Jeff just enjoyed playing with the kids in various activities.

All too quickly, our week was over and it was Saturday and time for us to return to SPS. We took a bus back to SPS. It was a very nice bus with curtains to keep out the sun, bathroom, and hostess to service snacks. Our luggage was checked to the airport and we were given boarding passes just like at the airport. The bus was very clean and safe. Our flight did not leave for the US until 1 am, so we had time to read and have dinner. The experiences left a mark on each of us who were able to participate in the trip.

The food on our trip was very good. We ate the same food the kids were served. We tried the local fruits and vegetables. We all faired very well with our stomachs. One night we gave the kitchen staff the night off and we served hotdogs and potato chips. It was a big hit. They wanted seconds and more.

Consider that next time may be your turn to visit and experience first hand life in a third world country. I do believe you will find, just like we did, that the people there are happy and enjoy their life as it is. They have problems like we do, but seek their own solutions day to day, just as we must.

Linda Baccus

Founding Member, BraveHeart Women Global Community

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