Becca Gavin: A Helping Hand in Honduras – Ohio State Buckeyes
7/3/2015 12:00:00 AM | Softball
July 3, 2015
Photo credit: Shelby Lowe
Rising sophomore Becca Gavin, a native of near-by Gahanna, recently went on a week-long mission trip to Honduras and shared her experience with OhioStateBuckyes.com:
This June, I was blessed with the opportunity to travel to El Paraíso, Honduras on a mission trip. Our team was comprised of members from Mifflin Presbyterian Church located in my hometown of Gahanna. The stars practically aligned themselves for me to go as close family friends were leading the trip and one of my best friends was already signed up. Our mission was to do The Lord’s work at Montaña de Luz (MdL) meaning Mountain of Light. MdL is an orphanage that originally started as a hospice, but now gives hope to children who have been affected by HIV and Advanced HIV, commonly known as AIDS, by providing them with a beautiful life.
The trip was simply amazing and the kids were unimaginably lovable. Our daily schedule started no later than 6:30am where we would eat breakfast and go to Capilla, which is similar to a morning worship with song and prayer. Following devotions, our workday began around 7:30am until an hour lunch break at noon. We finished work around 3:00 p.m. every day and then set up organized crafts for the kids, ranging from a photo booth with Polaroids, to hammer and nail crafts, and dream catchers. Our daily work consisted of a range of activities including gardening, planting papaya trees, digging a trench and installing water pipes for drainage, wheel barrowing mountainous dirt piles, sand sifting, hand mixing concrete, bending rebar, building an outdoor kitchen, and more. The mission work that groups do is important to Montaña because the benefits have a direct impact and reinforce the idea “from hospice to hope.”
Interacting with everyone at MdL was by far my favorite part, as well as the bus rides that we took traveling to and from the mountain and into the city of Tegucigalpa. As we drove through the winding mountain roads, there were humbling views surrounding us in every direction. The mountains were a powerful image containing endless homes that exemplified difficult times and a much simpler life than we envision in the States. As the second poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, the sights were reflective of the fact. Even so, I am beyond ready to return to help make any difference on that one small Mountain of Light that has managed to make a difference in my life in one trip.
