This month a missionary reflects on small joys, we share in the celebration of La Virgen de Suyapa, and continue giving thanks for 25 years of mission!

Reflecting on Small Joys

By Emma, Current Missionary

One day a fellow missionary, Kelsey, said, “I’m going to make a list of little joys that I encounter while I’m in Honduras and a full bar of soap is going to be the first on the list." I liked the idea of making a list of things that bring me joy even if it’s as small as the feeling of rolling a full bar of soap over your clothes as you wash them. I’ve found plenty of “little joys'' to add to my new list.

1. Sorting Vegetables

One week I had three girls helping me ages 4, 6, and 10. They love reading the sheet that tells me how many vegetables go to each house, but the two youngest can’t read or identify numbers. With the six year old holding the paper, I teach her how to read the grid and whisper what it says to her. Then she announces it to the 10-year-old who grabs the vegetables and tosses them to me to put in the correct bag while the 4-year-old pretends to be a fantasma rojo, or red ghost and walks around with an unused sack on her head. This in fact is more helpful than asking her for three avocados, because she comes back to me with as many avocados as her tiny arms can hold. We’ll work on learning numbers this year in Kinder. Needless to say, vegetable partitioning can take a while with these kids, but they’re funny and make me laugh.

2. Baking cookies

Making treats and being able to share them is always fun, but it can be a tricky process trying to bake over hot coals. As I learned from prior experience, if the coals are too hot you’ll just burn the bottom and have raw cookie dough on top. When another missionary asked if somebody wanted to make a treat in the fagón once the beans were done cooking, I took the opportunity to make oatmeal cookies for the other missionaries. It was a slow process making only four cookies at a time in a pie plate because I was using the outdoor stove with its narrow opening instead of the outdoor oven. But with patience and lots of attentiveness, I was able to make a batch of really yummy cookies.

During the process 5 boys came over with their Tía while they were on their Sunday walk around the Finca. It was perfect timing for them and I couldn’t refuse them cookies. While that meant the missionaries got less, it was fun sharing the goodness with hungry boys who appreciated a warm, fresh cookie. They ended up staying around our house all afternoon and into the evening sitting in the hammocks, playing marbles, making mayhem, and just talking. It was an unexpected, but perfect way to spend a Sunday afternoon.

3. Kids leading Mass in Trujillo

One exciting change in 2021 is that we have returned to going to Mass in Trujillo on Sundays. It’s fun cramming into the bed of the truck with either the boys or girls and riding over to Trujillo. We leave at 7:15 to get to 8 o’clock mass and bump along for the whole car ride. It’s certainly different than the one minute car ride at home. I didn’t realize that the Finca frequently does all the Mass parts, so one Sunday morning it was fun to see all the girls sitting up in the choir and listen to different teenagers proclaim the readings and petitions. It’s so good for our kids to get practice participating in the Mass with others from outside the Finca and to practice their public speaking.

Virgen de Suyapa: Patroness of Honduras

The Feast Day of Our Lady of Suyapa, Patroness of Honduras, is February 3rd. We invite you to pray with us through her intercession for the mission of Farm of the Child and the country of Honduras.

O God, the people of Honduras claim Our Lady of Suyapa as their patron. May she who bore your Son to the world continue to show them your protection and loving kindness. May all who honor her know your blessing in their lives. We ask this through Mary’s intercession. Amen.

The Farm community has been gathering to pray a Novena to our Lady of Suyapa for the past week!

Celebrating 25 Years of Mission

Fr. Matt Kuczora CSC (Summer Missionary 2009 and member of the Board of Directors), shares memories from his time at the Farm of the Child and his reasons for supporting the mission.

While serving as a summer volunteer, I was asked to accompany one of our children to the hospital in Trujillo. He had fallen out of a tree and broken his leg. When we arrived at the hospital, the best the doctors could do was to take an x-ray and recommend we travel four hours to the nearest larger hospital (over difficult roads and during the effects of the 2009 coup d'etat, mind you). Trujillo is a department (state) capital and yet its main hospital could not operate on a broken bone.

As we sat in the waiting area to be discharged, I overhead the diagnosis being given to the family next to me. Their son, almost the same age as our little boy, had been in a farming accident and had also broken his leg. They were given the same recommendation.

Through the Finca del Niño we had access to a vehicle, a place to stay in the larger city, and the reference letter required to access a private hospital there. The family next to us had only the daunting prospect of making their way for the care their son needed. Before I could talk with them about our plans or even offering them a ride, they were gone - hurriedly looking for ways to scrape together bus fare to a city they had never visited before.

In the US, if I broke my leg I wouldn't think twice about being able to receive treatment, but a broken bone can still be a life-threatening condition when not cared for. Is that what happened to the boy next to us? I don't know. I shudder to think that even a broken bone could lead to such tragedy.

At the Finca del Niño, we can't overhaul an entire regional medical system. We can (and do) provide for the children in our care and impact our community through our clinic, school, chapel, and neighborhood outreach.

Thanks be to God, our little boy had a successful procedure and was soon back climbing trees! And still, I often think about that other little boy and the challenges he and so many other families face in Honduras. As I pray for them, I also thank God for the generosity of so many who make the necessary and sometimes life-saving care at the Finca possible.