Leaving Honduras

In September, 2007 my second, third, and fourth blog posts were about moving to Honduras and leaving Illinois.  It was hard to say good-bye.  I had lived in Illinois three years.  I lived in Honduras ten years, longer than any where else I had ever lived as an adult.  It was hard to say god-bye.

I had not prepared for this move.  It came upon me suddenly and there was a lot to be done.  I was still running a children's home and shutting it down as I prepared to make an international move.

I began with the books.  My dear friends, the books.  I removed all the novels and begin to box the others.  That was easy.  Five boxes of books were going back to the States with me.

I began to sort paper and files.  Hundreds of pounds of paper and other unnecessary items were not going to the States with me.  Yay.

Then I went to the DHL store to buy boxes.  They had little boxes and great big boxes and no good packing boxes.  They had no idea when they might get some more.  Okay that was a bit of challenge.  At Casa and Honduras Hope there were tons of suitcases that people had left.  Some were in decent shape.  Maybe I could use those.

I began to sell some of my furniture.   And created huge messes in my house and I got things out to sort and pack.

I left huge messes in my house that needed sorted and packed and started sorting clothes in the children's home.

My mind was running at full speed all the time.    When I was in the girls' house, I would begin cleaning out the inside bodega.  If I got to the office before the guard every morning, I would spend a few minutes cleaning and sorting in the office.  I would try to sort things in the dorm at night.  We had accumulated clothes and toys for 11 years.  I had visions of selling all of that in one garage sale.  Visions is right.  Then I woke up.  Even after four garage sales, we did not sell it all.

Then I just had big messes every where.

We had people coming and going to help us with all of this.

Nicole contacted a company about moving our big stuff.  We found out we were not supposed to pack anything.  The State Department needed to know what we were taking back.  That's nice.  I did not need to worry about boxes or suitcases any more.

I need to get some of my furniture in the second garage sale.  We had allowed the mission house to be used over the weekend so I could not start taking my stuff up there.  I unloaded shelves and cabinets and set my dishes and pots and pans in the floor so that I could remove my furniture for the garage sale.  Ugh.  Extra work.

Then one Monday morning I learned I had to have all my stuff at the mission house to be packed and loaded.  I had to have it there that day.  We put dishes and pots and pans and such in laundry baskets, took it to the mission house unloaded it and came back for more.  Not very efficient, but we got it done.   Sort of.  Until the day I left, I found things that should have been on that container.  And discovered a few things got packed that should have stayed.

I am still trying to work in my office and the Casa office as are Kelin and Dina.  All the while, we had Thanksgiving, end of school, end of school parties, graduations, counseling appointments and a few other appointments as well.

I was sleeping at the mission house and working at Casa every day.  Many days I would discover something I needed during the day was at the mission house or something I needed at night was at Casa.  Sometimes, I ran back and forth.  Sometimes, I did without.

With each passing day, I became more frantic.  I worked into the night and started early.

I was so happy when I finally got that inside bodega cleaned out.  With empty area, it motivated to get more empty areas.

Furniture and things were disappearing out of the kids' houses.  Missing furniture.  Empty bookshelves and closets.  All houses were beginning to feel less like home.  There were tears daily.  From me.  From the kids.  From the employees.

On Monday, December 11, we began moving the kids to the mission house.  That was hard, but it had to be done so that we could remove everything and clean.  It was logistically hard, too.  We slept and ate breakfast at the mission house.  We would load up and go to Casa to work all morning and have to go back to the mission house for lunch.  Load up and go back to Casa for the afternoon.  As soon as the guard arrived, we would leave for the mission house again.  We would eat supper, shower and go to bed.

At night, I was packing up the store.  The tears fell freely as all those boxes of inventory were carried away.  A lot of me was invested in making that store successful, with every dime of profit going back to Casa.  As hard as that was, saying good-bye to the store was nothing compared to saying good-bye to the people I had come to love over the last 10 years.

I would think that most people move to a new place and invest themselves in other people's lives and have their lives invested in.  That happened in Honduras.  I invested myself in the lives of the Casa kids, the employees, my church, the dump, Los Pinos, Lomas Diamante, Tierras del Padre, Santa Ana, Ojona and probably other places.

Most articles on leaving the mission field say to leave well you need to say good-bye to the people you love.  And it is okay to messy cry.

Messy cry I did.  Several times.

I thought the children would be placed in new homes by November 30 and that I would have time to clean and remove the final things and say good-bye to everyone and messy cry.  I am thankful for the two more weeks with the kids, but I did not get to say good-bye to everyone.  I wanted to go to the dump one more time.  I wanted to see Johana and Sonia one more time.  I wanted to go to church at Los Pinos, Lomas Diamante and Tierras del Padre one more time.

Of course, I said good-bye to the kids, the staff, the neighbors, my church in Ojojona and many others.  Everything did not happen as I planned though.  I did not go to the dump one more time.  I did not see Johana and Sonia.

Timoteo brought several people from Los Pinos, Lomas Diamante and Tierras del Padre out to see me.  Yes, I messy cried.  They prayed over me and we sang.  And, they gave me gifts.  Gifts I will cherish forever.  I have always loved to watch Wendy and Olga worship.  I got one last chance to do that.  They let me choose two songs.  One I chose was "Yo Te Busco".  I have always loved watching Timoteo sing that song.  I could not see for the tears.  My tears.  I hugged every single person that came that day.  And messy cried.  Later that day, four of my precious girls were baptized.  That is a great way to end.  To witness that.

Siomarra, Linda, Josselin, and Erica also came to see me.  It was during a garage sale and I did not have as much time as I wanted to spend with them.  I had intended to get to town and buy Linda a present for graduation.  The unrest in the city made it difficult to get to town many days.  Present or no present, the time I spent with them was precious.  We circled up and Linda prayed before they left.  We all messy cried.

Kelin and I cried several times over those last few weeks.

I wept as the children left and as I said good-bye to each employee.  I wept my way through my last Sunday at church.  I ate lunch with Richard and Yessenia.  And then I began a franticness above all franticness to finish getting  my things ready to leave the next morning at 3:00 a.m.

Friday morning we were cleaning and removing things from the offices.  Many things in the offices I needed until the last minute.  When the Harpers showed up to get the girls, we had to go to DINAF.  There was so much to be done.  I left employees to finish.  I walked down to the house.  Ernesto had big plastic bags scooping things from my desk into them.  I nearly had a stroke, but there really was not a choice.  I tried on Sunday afternoon to reorganize those things.  I tried to back my three suitcases to 50 pounds each.

Kelin and others were going to San Pedro Sula with me on Monday.  Kelin showed up at the mission house at 8:00 p.m.  I am not sure if she thought she was going to sleep or not.  We worked all night.  She reorganized some things for me while I packed.  About 2:30 Sunday morning, we brushed out teeth and hair and freshened up a bit for the long ride to San Pedro Sula.

The announcement of who the new president was was supposed to happen on December 26.  But it happened on December 17, just a few hours before we left for San Pedro Sula.  There were riots and protests and fires.  People were mad at North Americans.

Willy showed up at 3:00.  We loaded the van.  Besides Willy and I there were 6 other people going.  My heart was deeply touched that these people wanted to go to San Pedro Sula to tell me good-bye.

Things went well for a couple of hours.  We got to Siquatepeque and police were cleaning up from one protest.  We got through that without a problem.  Soon there was another one that was not cleaned up.  And another.   And another.  Willy found a way around.  But there were more and more.  In Villa Nueva, the van was surrounded because there was a North American inside.  It was scary.   And, I was surrounded by people that loved me.  No one said, "I wish I had not come."

We finally made it to the airport and all flights to and from the US had been cancelled.    I messy cried.  I bought a ticket on Avianca that would eventually get me to JFK in New York.  Via San Salvador and layovers and such.  That is another story.

After buying a ticket and checking my luggage, I bought pizza for everyone.  Denis prayed for me and we all messy cried.  I walked upstairs by myself as I said good-bye to people and a land I dearly love.

To everyone I love in Honduras, you will always hold a big piece of my heart.