Three years ago I was new to the world of leading students through a week of International missions. I believed with all my heart that it was a valuable use of their and my time, but when it came to programing the actual schedule while we were here...clueless. Or at least nearly clueless. I did have nearly a decade of camp under my belt, so i ought to have been a little better prepared for the emotional, physical and spiritual journey that students go on during a week doing anything, but alas I found myself not even thinking about it until we pulled into the hospital on the morning of our first real day of the trip. It ended up being one of those accidents that I have made sure we make again every year. Hospital first day. In camp we knew that you start with an emotional tough day and work your way towards physically tough days. The body takes less time to heal.
I asked Avery Anton to share about the time at the hospital.
"Today was a day of many emotions. As we started our day at the hospital, I know that I was pretty anxious to get in to see the kids and hopefully be a distraction from what they were suffering from. We split into groups, grabbed some toys, and were off to the rooms. The thing about the hospitals here are that they are significantly different than those in America. In the General Pediatric ward, there are about five kids to each room, there are bugs crawling around, and the bed sheets are from whatever was donanted. Once I realized that most of the issues these kids were in for would be a simple fix back home, I started to realized how bad of a situation they are in. Knowing that, I went to see these kids with a whole lot of love and joy. If I have leared anything about these kids, it is that they LOVE bubbles and stickers. I think I sat with a kid and blew bubbles in his face for a solid five minutes and he never stopped smiling. So as we went from room to room, we gave the kids toys and played with them for a few minutes and then continued on. Even though it was a short time that we spent in the rooms, the kids, who now were covered in stickers, had some new toys to play with.
Many of you know about our Coffee for Kids program at Grace point, but if you do not, basically we sell Honduras coffee and give the money to the hospital to pay for food for the kids. Three people in our group passed out food to all the kids. It is really cool to see this happen. Although we are here in Honduras helping, everyone at home who has helped out with this program, has made a HUGE impact on this hospital. It is rad to see that our whole church is making an impact and helping out so many kids.
Once all the food was served, we regrouped after the first fourty minutes, and then switched which wards people were in. Myself and five others went into the cancer ward. One of the first things I noticed was that everything was significantly more sanitry that the other wards. We went to a large room that had around ten beds (some were vacant) and handed out toys and played with each kid. The cool thing about this was that since there was six of us and about eight or so of them, we had a lot more time to play with each kid. I was with a young boy for the majority of the time and we played with these propeller toys, finding new ways to make multiple fly at once, and decorated a ball with many stickers. It was awesome to get to play with these kids and see the joy that they got from the toys. We saw some pretty hard things today at the hospital. It is weird trying to be joyful when you see a kid crying out of pain from his cancer. But, in a way, that is what we are here to do. We come to bring joy to these kids for a week and show them who Jesus is. No matter how much pain there is around us, we are here for Jesus and, yes at times we will have our moments and be sad, but i believe the main purpose of this trip it to show them who Jesus is and bring joy to them. Today was hard, yet it is very obvious to see how God is working over here."
-Avery Anton
It blows my mind each yeah to watch this day happen. The GPCers are placed into a place that is uncomfortable and difficult. They are equipped with only bubbles, small toys and a knowladge and hope that they can be a smile in a broken situation. It is difficult emotionally, it is beautiful and stretching spiritually. It is a day worth living.
The rest of the day was spent running our first VBS and sports camp (Someone will talk about them tonight) and then going to play soccer against some of our new honduran friends after dinner. I'm sorry that I didnt get this out till this morning, my old body was exhausted after the soccer due to oldness. Thanks for following along, I'll try real hard to get more up tonight!
kyle kerchner
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