Getting Ready for Honduras

Getting Ready for Honduras

Our parish mission group will be leaving for Copan, Honduras on Tuesday evening, and I'm trying to get ready for the trip.

There are the practicalities, of course: getting a new pair of workboots, finding my passport, cutting my packing list down to a minimum, notifying my bank that I'll be using my card in another country. Tasks like these tend to get me antsy. I joke with Lee sometimes that I enjoy being in other places, it's the getting-there that bothers me. It's the kind of joke that's only funny because it's so true. She's being very patient with me these days.

But the preparations are not all tasky and practical: some are inner and spiritual as well. The first time I went on the Honduras mission I was really nervous, and I found myself praying a lot, asking for courage, asking to be kept safe, asking not to feel overwhelmed. For my third trip I'm not so nervous — but I find that prayer is still important. I'm praying for safe travel still — I always do that when going from Point A to Point B — but I'm also praying this year to be more attentive throughout the whole mission experience.

Prayer is about more than asking God for things, and it's about more than reciting time-honored forms of words (though it is about them, too). Prayer at its core is a disposition of the soul, a focusing of mind and heart and will, an opening of the spirit to be witness to the creative work of God in and around us in the present moment. Prayer is allowing the outward and visible details of life to become luminous with the inward and spiritual light of God. I want to cultivate that disposition of the soul on this Honduras trip. It's not always easy. Physical labor in the hot sun can be, for me at least, kind of mind-numbing; it doesn't always occur to me to look for God in the next shovelful of sand or bucket of wet concrete. Working in close quarters with a bunch of other people can lead to lessened patience and shortened tempers; I have to be intentional about remembering that we are all children of God and all beloved. After a hard work day, kicking back with a cold beer and a good meal, which we do, is a lot of fun, and I want to be mindful that these are not just creature comforts, but are gifts of God, who gives us each day our daily bread and gives us our meat in due season.

While we're on our mission trip in Honduras, I want to be attentive to these things, and so I'm preparing myself for prayer.

And, finally, I have one preparation to make that is strictly technological: I need to make sure that I can post to my blog using only my handy-dandy smartphone and not a whole computer. This year, like last year, I intend to blog from Copan, and I'm hoping all the gadgets and connections and apps line up to do so. I'm posting this very message from my phone, and if you're reading it now, that means the system works. I invite you to keep reading over the next two weeks: following us in your thoughts and prayers makes you part of the mission, too.

On Tuesday I'm leaving for Honduras, and by the grace of God may the spirit of prayer be always present on the trip.