Growing Together

In early May, 12 of us from St. Mary Student Parish in Ann Arbor traveled to Honduras to spend a week with the local International Samaritan team learning, serving, and growing as children of God. What unfolded over the next five and a half days touched every one of us in ways that we could not have anticipated.

A sense of community permeates the group of families who live in Buen Samaritano, a community near the city garbage dump in Tegucigalpa, Honduras. They greeted us on the first day with warm smiles, big hugs, and signs with each of our names on them. With pride, they walked us through their streets and to the newly constructed Buen Samaritano (Good Samaritan) Family Life Center. This building was dedicated and totally completed in early June, but in May it had already become the lifeblood of the community. It is a place of respite, learning, warmth, laughter, tears, belonging, and—most of all—love. 

Our team, along with more community members, had the opportunity to help do some landscaping at the family life center and at the water tower which brings fresh, clean water to the community. We dug small holes with shovels and trowels in very hard, dry dirt. We added mulch and soil, and then the children were there with watering buckets to provide the life-giving water needed for these plants to grow and bloom.  

Like these plants, the fertile soil and water of the community were helping us see that we were part of a bigger plan that is helping to break the chain of poverty, and change lives for the better. 

We helped improve the road to the new family life center. The work was hard, hot, and taxing on our bodies. The soil needed to be loosened with pickaxes and crowbars, the unusable parts thrown away, the area leveled, secured with rebar, and then concrete hand mixed and poured into the area we had prepared.

This is a perfect metaphor of what needs to happen to our hearts to help bring about the kingdom: softened, secured, and smoothed over. 

Fernando, an artist, was at the family life center painting a mural of the Good Samaritan. The mural very much represents the community. The face of the man who had been beaten and the face of the Samaritan were those of two boys in the community.  

The landscape of the mural is of the surrounding area and there are vultures from the garbage dump flying around. Fernando encouraged anyone at the family life center to contribute to the mural. He would gently instruct the “artist in training” on what he wanted you to do to progress the mural.

This reminded me of our responsibility for helping to bring about the kingdom of God: we are to take the paintbrush to bring about a beautiful canvas with our fellow brothers and sisters. The prominence of the mural in the family life center and how it was painted will be a constant reminder of what’s required to bring about the kingdom. 

The women and mothers hold this Honduran community together. We celebrated Mother’s Day with them on our last day in Honduras. The children performed for them, games were played, and kind words were shared with them including from two mothers who were on our team. The mothers were given the respect they deserved, and we were all able to see the pride and joy they had for their children. 

We were also reminded of how much work there is still left to be done. With help from some of the mothers in the community, our team was able to prepare 180 meals for individuals who were laboring in the dump for wages that might equal a few dollars a day. We traveled into the dump to deliver the meals.

The dump is what I imagine hell to be. It was hot, the smell of rotting garbage in the air, hundreds of vultures sitting and flying around while men, women, and some children picked through trash looking for items to redeem for a small amount of money.  

The meal we took might have been the only good food they ate that day. The fact that human beings are forced to do this work and marginalized by their society is appalling and sinful. There is so much more we all need to do to realize the kingdom of God. 

Our team experienced a life-changing trip. While not everyone can go on an immersion trip, I hope by reading this reflection, your heart will be moved to help in some way to bring about the kingdom of God.

International Samaritan is a Christ-centered organization built on Catholic Social Teaching. Our mission is to walk hand-in-hand with people who live and work in the garbage dumps of developing nations to help them break out of poverty.

We provide holistic scholarships for students from kindergarten through college, and we’re currently supporting 950 scholars in Central America, the Caribbean, and East Africa.

Would your church or school group like to partner and travel with us? Learn about our Learn, Serve, Grow program.

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Tom McDonough, Volunteer

Tom McDonough has met Samaritan Scholars in Guatemala and Honduras through immersion trips with St. Mary Student Parish. Tom is an avid runner and is already committed to running this year’s Samaritan 5K!