My story of creating beauty through courage, hope and connection… has to start when I took my first trip to Honduras back in 1999 to help at a children’s orphanage that my brother-in-law introduced me to through his church.
I was leery at first as I thought I was going to have to preach to them about religion and I’m very opposed to that. I think all people find their own way to their own truth at their own time. I have no business trying to convert anyone. He reassured me I did NOT have to do that at all and he told me that I was friendly and good at connecting with people/kids and to just go there and have fun with the kids. I said I can surely do that and I agreed to go!
My first trip was planned for April 2000 with my high school-aged daughter. It was our first time traveling outside of the USA and to a foreign country, and then a developing country at that.
I was intrigued and excited until I read that I needed to get a few different shots/ pills for protection from malaria hepatitis etc. I have always hated getting shots and was scared to death and cried like crazy as a child so I was tentative as I very “courageously” went to the travel clinic and got what was needed without shedding even one tear. Yahoo I went out of my comfort zone and I grew up.
I knew this trip to come was happening at the right time as I was a stay-at-home mom who volunteered a lot in my kids’ classrooms and now they were in junior high and high school and needing me less and less each day.
So I had been thinking ahead and looking for something new and useful to occupy more of my free time. I also perhaps selfishly was ready to travel and see other parts of the world as I had already been to most of the states in the USA. I needed a new adventure, a new start, a new purpose.
I needed a new adventure, a new start, a new purpose.
Then at aerobics classes one morning I found out that one of my exercise friends was going with my sis in law in November of 1999 and they talked me into going along solo with them. A girls trip of sorts which I had never done before.
So I went and what to my wondering eyes should appear on my arrival to Honduras … the extreme poverty I witnessed with several blue tarp tin tire & stick built shacks sitting right along the busy highway roadsides was mind boggling to me … and the clear blue sunny skies above me and dare I say the 80 degree very warm temps felt so good.
Then more “beauty” was around each curve as we drove down and whipped around on the very winding two-lane road with four lanes of traffic dodging one another playing what seemed like a game of chicken. I was crossing my fingers that we would arrive safely and not get in an accident. At the same time I was astounded at the lush green mountain passes covered with thick rain forest-like vegetation and colorful flora. I was shocked, also, to see young children running alone or with chickens by the roadside as we whipped past them at 55 mph. WOW what a wonderfully different world I was now experiencing.
Our bodies slowly thawed and sweated along the way. It was a nice welcome reprieve from the snow, cold, and sub-zero temps of November that we had left behind in Minnesota. I recall thinking, “I could easily get used to this!”
When we got off the paved road and made our way down the short, rutted, potholed, dirt and dusty road we passed several wooden cow carts hauling firewood to the adobe style homes in the small village. We finally arrived at the gates of the Hogar (orphanage) and what BIG “Beautiful” brown eyes and delightful white smiles I saw peering at me from the many beautiful milk chocolate colored faces. My two teens are blue-eyed blondes and so peering into the lovely dark faces of those little kiddos was the complete opposite of what I normally saw each day. Needless to say I instantly fell in love over and over again
When we entered the gates I was immediately surrounded with loving hugs, hola amiga and rapid Spanish speaking kiddos very interested in the big white gringa. (I’m 6 feet tall.) I felt like I had died and gone to heaven. The warmth and love I instantly felt from these joyful virtual strangers, soon to be friends for a lifetime, was astounding and so heartwarming. I was so thankful right at that very moment to know I was already coming back in a few short months with my daughter. One can surely not go there only once!
The warmth and love I instantly felt from these joyful virtual strangers, soon to be friends for a lifetime, was astounding and so heartwarming.
That wonderful November trip ended up being the first of 35 I took until my last one in June of 2009. Those trips were a soothing balm to my weary soul and broken heart as well. I felt pressured to have an abortion at the innocent age of 18 when I felt like I couldn’t stomach having my baby then giving it up for adoption as I would always wonder where it was and how it was doing. But in retrospect that is what I probably should have done because maybe he or she might have tried to search for me later in life and I could have still wondered about those things all those years. So in the end I found these trips became a way for me to give back and bring some “hope” to many dear lil ones after I sadly chose to end the life of another sweet babe. I quickly got very involved with those dear, beautiful, loving kids and continued to do so for 10 years. I took lots of photos of the kids and the people we met in the streets of town each visit I made.
I then printed several copies to share with each of the kids for their personal photo albums on my next visit as well as the locals I met along the way . So many laughs and smiles were shared at my next visit when trying to find the locals by showing the photos to others when they were no longer working/living where I had taken the picture during my previous visit.
I love meeting new people and “connecting,” so I quickly volunteered and became in charge of the “connections” between the children of the hogar in Honduras and the worldwide sponsors (padrinos) who supported them financially either monthly or annually. This was my way of trying to bring some “Hope “ to those less fortunate.
I volunteered to keep those records and each visit I would have the kids write a note to their sponsors and then I’d send a current photo along with it.
I also started a scholastic Spanish book club with the padrinos and would bring those new books purchased for the kids library when I returned to the Hogar sometimes three times a year.
I love meeting new people and ‘connecting,’
I also got involved with a health mission trip as well in Honduras and enjoyed traveling to several different villages, another orphanage, and different areas of the country on those health trips I helped with triage for eye clinics doctor & dental office visits in the pharmacy packing pills and entertaining the children of the village who gathered each night after the clinics closed. I was lucky over the years to enjoy sharing different visits at the Hogar with both my kids, my husband, several groups from different churches, the military guys who supplied water to the Hogar, and Chris along with his EP school friends.
The amigos I made in Honduras several years ago are now all grown adults and many now with children of their own. That leaves me a big big fan of Facebook as I still get to keep in touch, connected and able to watch their own children grow up through the pics they post. It seems like a lifetime ago I was there and almost like it was a different lifetime for me with all that has happened in my life since then.
After my Honduras stint I also had the opportunity to travel to Haiti after the hurricane to bring hope, smiles and laughter to those who had lost everything…. To Tanzania Africa on a visioning trip to find opportunities for partnership with a church in MN… And a trip to India with a different organization to help build a church and give dental clinics while I played and entertained the children.
My husband and I then had the good fortune of living in Yokohama, Japan and Shanghai, China from 2008 to 2013 for my husband’s international Job. In Japan I was able to meet and connect, during lots of social cultural activities and while hiking, with lots of expats from around the world. In both countries I volunteered with kids in orphanages and schools, and in China at the hospital where poor rural Chinese kids traveled long distances to get heart surgeries. I got to travel to inland China to visit the heart recipients in their rural homes months after their operations as well, which was fascinating. Many folks we met in those villages had never seen a foreigner before so it was like the circus was in town when all of us expats arrived. I too made many a Chinese friend when I exercised in the park each morning with the craft ladies, Grace, and the A team… the Tai Chi class and the large group aerobics class
After living in two of the largest cities in the world and volunteering for 101 different organizations over the years, I’m currently quite isolated by choice and enjoying my quiet time in my golden years. My first years back in the USA were spent caring for my elderly parents until they both died, and I also volunteered with hospice folks and at an adult daycare for folks with dementia, Alzheimer’s, Louie body syndrome, and Parkinson’s, etc.
Then Covid hit and we got really isolated even more here in the northwoods of WI. Since 2013 my husband and I have been living in our family built log house on 40 acres of woods where we keep busy gardening, tapping trees for maple syrup, picking apples from our small orchard and picking wild berries for making homemade sauce and jam.
We love to fly or take road trips cross country with our camper to visit our kids and three grandsons while seeing other friends and family we’ve crossed paths with over the years in the different chapters of our lives.
My Facebook page thankfully keeps me connected and able to travel the beautiful world we live in when I check in each day with the wonderful friends made over my first 68 years of life! I am so blessed and grateful to know so many folks from all walks of life, cultures, races, religions, persuasions and am thankful to have had the opportunity to travel, see and learn about 38 countries around the globe.
Ciao de Karlita!
