by Dr. Seth Berl ’78
day #13 honduras….. i know heritage church is readying itself for mega-impact week but here in honduras we are in relax mode. bob wright, oral surgeon from sarasota, David adcock, OB-GYN from moultrie as well as my wife linda and myself have been here in honduras working for 2 weeks. the mission field is so much harder than you can imagine and i have nothing but respect and praise for those who serve in another country. our host missionaries are rhonda and TR sweeney from augusta, ga. they have lived the last 15 years in honduras. Just think about that!
team 2 had a great week. by the numbers we saw about 1080 patients with 2 doctors. our 2 dentists, bob and michael dent from sylvester saw about 160 patients. our team only had 12 members so we were very worried about how we could run all our areas and still get home by dark. you do not want to be driving on a mountain in honduras after dark. you have a very good chance to run into a car with no lights as well as a cow, horse with or without a rider, a 5 year old child walking alone on the side of the road, a bicycle going faster than you or a motorcycle passing you on a mountain curve with a double yellow and a truck coming the other way. i have never had a team so willing to pitch in anywhere they are needed. it actually felt like we had too many team members and many got to play with the honduran children. how many american kids would be happy just to blow or chase bubbles for hours? in the 2 weeks, we had a total of 6 college student who elected to spend their spring break in honduras rather than the beach or elsewhere. that is remarkable. i imagine most of us were not thinking of serving others in a third world foreign country during college spring break but just having a good time. maybe there is hope for this younger generation. 3 of our students are from university of florida, 2 are from university of illinois where linda and i went to college and 1 is from emmanuel college in boston, mass. i wish we could get some UGA students to join in.
saturday is our travel day. up early and home late.
for those of you who have read my posts in previous years where i wrote about exciting or scary adventures, everything just went too smooth this year. i never let the facts get in the way of a good story but this year i just did not have the material to work with. I mentioned this lack of life threatening adventure to Linda and she just said to thank God for good weather, a good bus driver, great team members, a supportive church, excellent missionaries to work with and a God that had prepared everything in advance. amen i knew there was a reason i married her!!!