March 2019 Trip

Gehlen Catholic Mission Honduras

Changing Lives

2019 Journey

On Tuesday, March 12, the nineteenth Gehlen Catholic Mission Honduras student mission team participated in the send-off prayer service in the Deb Campbell Gym. This year’s theme “I’m Always There” was apparent throughout the prayer service. Erin Hoffman, a chaperone of the 2018 team, spoke about the impact her mission trip had on her and had words of wisdom for the 2019 team. The missioners then lit candles as the Christian Leadership Team members read aloud the reason each missioner was lighting his/her candle and why he/she wanted to participate in the mission trip. After that, all missioners received their t-shirts, crosses, and “junta” booklets from various family members, as they said their farewells before leaving the gym.

Mission team members walked through the back gym and hallway to the bus while Gehlen Catholic School students and staff, along with family members and friends, created a human tunnel for the missioners to traverse. Each person was encouraged to touch the bags the missioners carried to signify that a part of them would travel with the missioners into Honduras.

	Love is, above all else, is the gift of oneself. ~ Jean Anouilh
Do not be mediocre; the Christian life challenges us with great ideals. ~ Pope Francis

The 2019 Gehlen Catholic Mission Team had the ambitious goals of constructing homes for three poverty-stricken families in the Nueva Capital area of Tegucigalpa, building twenty bunk beds and five picnic tables, updating the vertical gardens and building new ones, and delivering as many gift bags as possible during their stay in Nueva Capital. Nueva Capital is mainly comprised of families who had to move to higher ground when Hurricane Mitch destroyed their homes in 1998. We believe approximately 125,000 people live in the Nueva Capital area. Due to the unavailability of water projects in the area to which we’d previously traveled, this year’s Gehlen Catholic Mission team focused on construction, similar to the 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, and 2018 teams. The team worked in Honduras from March 13^th to March 22^nd.

Francis Seivert, Julio Rivera, and Marta Sosa, met the team at Toncontin Airport in Tegucigalpa. Francis had been in Honduras for a bit, helping to prepare for the team’s arrival, as well as working with various children who have medical problems. Julio Rivera accompanies Francis throughout Honduras and is a long-time friend of Mission Honduras LeMars, Gehlen Mission Honduras, and Then Feed Just One. Marta Sosa handles the distribution of Then Feed Just One food in Honduras and many other duties. She also helped in the planning for this year’s Gehlen Mission trip, as well as the previous trips into this area. After the military transport truck was loaded with the 80 bags of materials, the team climbed onto their buses and was on the way to Nueva Capital.

This year’s mission team consisted of Carolyn Bickford (team leader), Bruce Kellen, Linda Reichle, Pat Jones, Juan Uribe, Fr. Matthew Solyntjes, Tom Kellen, Jennifer Kreber, Scott Paulsen, John Peters, Dan Goergen, Ken Schmit, Dr. Ellen Aquino, Mary Hunt, Lori Schuch, Chris Kessenich, Lisa Morris, and Steve Mousel, as chaperones; Ally Aquino, Adam Berkenpas, Sage Goergen, Mitchell Hunt, Meredith Kellen, Isabelle Kessenich, Caden Kneip, Grace Kreber, Katelyn Langel, B. J. Mairose, Jared Morris, Ethan Mousel, Aubree Nilles, Dylan Oloff, Drew Paulsen, Katie Peters, Cody Schmit, Adam Schuch - Gehlen Catholic High School students; Lexi Harpenau and Olivia Schroeder - Remsen St. Mary’s High School students; and Bradi Bohlke– Kingsley-Pierson student. After arriving at Santa Teresa de Jesús School, their compound for the trip, the team settled into their cramped quarters and prepared for their 10-day mission.

Each missioner on Gehlen Catholic mission trips is responsible for his/her own costs. To date the Gehlen Catholic and Mission Honduras LeMars programs combined have placed 1,026 missioners (44 different teams) on the ground in the second poorest country in the western hemisphere. Five other mission programs have been created from Gehlen Mission Honduras - the Briar Cliff University program in Sioux City, IA; the Sisters of St. Francis, from Dubuque, IA; the high school mission teams from Springfield Catholic High in Springfield, MO, St. Thomas More High School, Rapid City, SD; and Bishop Heelan High School, Sioux City, IA. The Gehlen program, along with the Briar Cliff, the Sister Water Project, Mission Honduras LeMars, and Rotary For Life Water Project, have completed more than 40 water projects to date and sent eleven full scale medical and dental brigades over the years. The program has also built approximately 30 homes for some of the poorest families in the Nueva Capital area. Clean drinkable water, Then Feed Just One food, home building, and professional medical care remain the major goals of the Gehlen Catholic & Mission Honduras LeMars programs. For more information on the medical program please visit this same website for the January medical trips. For more information on Then Feed Just One please visit www.thenfeedjustone.org. For more information on Mission Honduras LeMars go to www.missionhonduraslemars.org.

Because there is much preparation that needs to be completed before the team travels into Honduras, planning for this year’s mission team began during the summer of 2018. With the lack of water projects around the Esquias area, and other mitigating circumstances, it was determined in 2013 that the team would take a new direction, focusing on relocating to Nueva Capital. Marta Sosa, who was working with the Cerro de Plata Foundation at that time, in conjunction with ACOES, located three extremely poor families in the Nueva Capital area of Tegucigalpa who desperately needed homes. Planning then began to prepare the team in the task of the home construction.

Do more than belong: participate.

Do more than care: help.

Do more than believe: practice.

Do more than be fair: be kind.

Do more than forgive: forget.

Do more than dream: work.

~ William Arthur Ward

The team “lived” at the school, using classrooms as dormitory rooms. Supplies, such as paint, construction tools, painting supplies, and generators that the team used, were stored inside their dorm rooms also. Missioners slept on mattresses that were placed on the floors in the classrooms, although some were lucky enough to have small beds. The team used the library for meals, which were prepared each day by the hired cooks, Cinthia, Marlene, and Raquel. Work days began at 6:00 – 6:30 a.m., allowing the team time to eat breakfast and finish chores before beginning the day’s projects.

One of the first projects was to sort the wood needed for the homes from the bunk bed and table wood. The missioners were divided into groups to work on beds and tables. Another group began the task of building a vertical garden, a project that was a continuation of a new project started during the 2018 mission trip. The missioners also got a good start at emptying the black duffle bags, filled with all the items that their supporters had donated throughout the year. The night before the first work day, construction crew leaders Bruce Kellen and Pat Jones visited the house sites and planned out the details for each one. As soon as the wood was sorted and loaded into the military transport truck, all missioners convened on the house sites to begin the process of building homes for three extremely poor families.

After the homes were built, the missioners and families painted the outside and inside of each home and installed the wiring, even if the family did not have access to electricity presently. Once that task was completed, the student missioners took a day to make each home “special” by brainstorming possible enhancements to each home. Then, the students created/built those items with the help of the adult missioners. The student missioners truly enjoyed the chance to install items like shelves, benches, tables, and toothbrush holders into each home. They also purchased items that each family could use, like plastic chairs, tortilla makers, plates, glasses, and silverware. The team also provided a generous amount of groceries to each family, purchased with donations given by those who support our team.

Other donations by charitable people allowed the missioners to present almost 100 little girls with a handmade pillowcase dress. Hearing the giggles of pleasure as they wore their dresses for the first time brought smiles to the missioners who were helping them choose their dresses. Several small boys, who were selected by the school’s principal, were provided with a pair of “The Shoes That Grow.” These leather shoes can be purchased for only $15, and amazingly, can be adjusted five sizes.

The overall Gehlen Catholic Mission Honduras ‘Changing Lives’ program has three main goals for each mission journey into Honduras: to do a work project of some kind, to immerse themselves into normal Honduran life, and to experience the poverty that grips so much of this beautiful country and people.

When the missioners delivered the gift bags to the homes of the Santa Teresa school children, the poverty was quite apparent to all. The families receiving the gift bags smiled as the missioners unpacked soap, shampoo, toothbrushes, toothpaste, lotion, toys, clothes, and shoes. Even the bag the items were delivered in was considered a gift to the family. Seeing the dirt floors and walls of worn boards with gaps between them truly gave the missioners an eye-opening look at the reality in which the Honduran children live each day. The formidable walks the children undertake in the early morning hours to get to school by 7 a.m. showed how important their education is to them.

Serving is a powerful thing.

God wants to bless you,

but He also wants to be

a blessing through you.

On their final full day in Honduras, the missioners had a home blessing ceremony. During the ceremony Fr. Matthew blessed each home, both inside and out. The families receiving the homes took the opportunity to thank each and every missioner for their beautiful homes. The house keys were handed to the home owner, who signed papers of ownership while the missioners witnessed the signatures. As a special touch, a wooden cross that was handmade by Jim Konz, was hung in the home to remind everyone that God’s light will continue to shine in each family that received a home. Our prayer is that the families will continue to share Christ’s light with all around them.

The day of their departure, the school personnel thanked the 2019 Gehlen Catholic Mission Honduras Team. The people of Nueva Capital shared their amazement of the wonderful example the missioners had set for the students through their hard work, their willingness to speak with them in Spanish, and the positive role models they had set for the students.

Every evening of the mission trip the missioners gather together in what is called the “junta.” The junta provides the missioners a time to share some of the items in their personal journals, but more importantly, it provides the missioners an opportunity to process all they are witnessing during their mission trip. Often emotional, the final junta is always the most difficult to get through. All missioners are anxious to go home, but everyone is torn because they also want to stay with their Honduran friends.

If you are a Christ follower, you are a missionary.

Whether it's next door,

or across the globe,

it's OUR mission to share the love of Jesus!

At the end of the meeting, Carolyn Bickford shared a message with the team from Mission Honduras Le Mars / Then Feed Just One Director Richard Seivert titled, “Someday Maybe, Someday Maybe, for Both You and Me.” (GCMH blog on Saturday, March 23, if you’d like to read his full message) Seivert’s message focused on a 1-year-old girl named Genesis, who died of complications from stunting while the team was working in Nueva Capital. In a paragraph toward the end of his message, Seivert stated: "So, here you are in the midst of all kinds of young people in a place called Nueva Capital, Honduras. You have successfully completed the designated requirements of this mission. You have done the homes (they are functional and beautiful), the bunk beds (they are wonderful and soft), the hanging gardens (they are amazing and will be nutritious), you passed out dozens of gift bags to different families, and you have undoubtedly hugged and been hugged by an immeasurable number of kids – and the moment you arrived at Santa Teresa de Jesus on that first day, you probably thought you were a magnet and the kids of Santa Teresa were of the opposite polarization. They and you just couldn’t quit hugging, could you? I understand, I really do, I have been there so many times – but I would ask you young people tonight, this last night in Junta, this last night in Honduras, if you are able to communicate that feeling, that moment, to others. That ‘hug moment’ that you shared with one little girl or boy, the moment in time when you felt like you never wanted to leave these young children, that gut wrenching realization that tomorrow you come home, but they don’t come with you, and now this wonderful mission that so many never get to experience, is coming to an end. And it is in that understanding that I share with you, sort of like our own bond of MISSION, that I wish you the best on your return to the United States, and by the way, a place where they, the kids of Nueva Capital Santa Teresa de Jesus School – like most Hondurans, a place, the United States, where they all want to be. You see, if you have not realized it yet, THEY ARE YOU. They are you but with only one difference. They were born in Honduras, into poverty, a poverty that most of them have no chance of ever escaping – the Lottery of Birth – repeated over and over and over again millions and millions of times, and in my best Latin, ‘ad infinitum.’”

Seivert continued, in part, “Will you ever get to True Christianity? I must confess, I am not there, but continually on the road, continually working on it each and every day - Someday maybe – Someday maybe, for both you and for me. And for Genesis, isn’t it rather ironic that her very name is a Greek word, meaning ‘Origin’ – beginning. Something new. Maybe the genesis (little g) for children like Genesis (big G) is YOU. Maybe you are the new beginning for the millions of others like her. As I have always believed deeply in my heart, there is great great power in the young of today, and I especially find it true in Gehlen Students. Please never shy away from a Christ Like Responsibility and what YOU can do.”

The 2019 mission team more than met the goals of their mission trip. From working diligently on their chosen work projects, to playing with the children, to participating in liturgies, the team received the opportunity to focus on others. From hand washing their own clothes in the pila, doing daily chores, and taking one-minute cold showers, our missioners experienced a little of what life is like for a person in Honduras. The missioners worked hard at using their Spanish, and many students were happy to be able to carry on a conversation with someone in Honduras. Many friendships were forged. Not a single team member was ready to return to the States when the final day of the trip arrived.

It has become customary for the missioners to return home with only the clothes on their backs. Team members sorted through all personal belongings and stacked them in a designated area in the library. These items will be taken by the ladies and men of Nueva Capital, washed, and distributed among those who are the neediest. Team members leave not only their clothing, but their shoes, flashlights, sunglasses, and other items. That alone says a great deal about the quality of young people with whom we deal on our mission teams.

The physically exhausted missioners returned home to their families’ welcome at the Omaha airport late on March 22. Though all missioners were happy to be home, every single person shared his/her wonderful mission experience with all who would listen. This year’s theme “I’m Always There” was shown by all missioners as they lived their mission journey in Honduras. Each day they followed God’s example as they worked and played among the Hondurans. They prayed as God taught them while celebrating Mass together. They were examples of God’s love as they worked alongside their families to build them beautiful homes. God could be seen in each missioner as their lives were changed through their mission work. Gehlen Catholic Mission Honduras ‘Changing Lives’ – was again proven by every missioner!