Home Again

Hi there!

Just a quick note to let you know that we all arrived home safely today from Comayagua, Honduras.

Last night the parish that is physically hooked up to the Friary had a concert from about 6-9 pm. We joined in and mingled. After they cleaned up, the musicians of Mary Our Queen jammed for a couple of hours. Everyone had a great time playing or just hanging around listening.


We woke up to rain and no electricity (which meant no coffee this morning!). We all commented how the weather cooperated so well during our time there!

We had our morning prayers, Mass, breakfast, and then off to the airport.


We arrived to the Atlanta airport freezing. The temperatures in Honduras have been in the 70's and 80's all week.

Thanks for all of your support and prayers.

The Mary Our Queen Mission Team

Saturday--Our Last Day of Missions

Dear Friends, Families and Benefactors,

As we end our time here in Honduras, we want to thank you from the bottom of our hearts for your prayers and financial support. All of this couldn´t happen without you! Thank you.

The work team finished pouring the footers for the outdoor kitchen and even out the dirt while the rest of the work team went over to San Benito, the medical center that the Friars help run to paint the outside of the building front.

The Adventures in Faith team went to two different aldeas. An aldea is a village in the mountains. In Honduras, the parish priest is responsible for about 70-80 of these village parishes. Often the priest only gets to some of these villages once a year. The two aldeas that we went to today belong to the priest, Fr Renaldo from Mary Queen of the Apostles.

The first village was about a 20 minute drive this morning. We parked our vans on the main road and then walked about 5 minutes up the hill. When we arrived at the aldea, we were in awe at the beauty of this mountain village. They had a tiny building for their church. It was about 15 by 30 feet.

The children just kept coming and coming for the program along with their moms and some dads. They all were spellbound as we did the program about the Nativity. Maria narrated the story and Stan was the MC for each of the programs. They did the Nativity skit and then they let the village children do the skit. They then broke up into three groups...one making a tryptic (sp?) with the the Holy Family, the shepherds, the three kings and an angel, one group did a game with trying to find Bethelhem and the other children wrote down a gift that they wanted to give Jesus.....and then they all rotated. We had a chance to hold little babies so that the mothers could also make a tryptic...even the men did one!



The team ate a quick lunch of sandwiches and then we drove to the other aldea. When we started there were less than 20 children. By the end, the small church was filled with children and parents. They were so appreciative and we were humbled by their joy and gratitude.

Tonight we had a holy hour, followed by dinner and celebrating Paul´s birthday with cake. We had a debriefing in the Friary. At Casa Guadalupe there are about 500 people at a parish concert and dance. It´s giving us another look at Honduran culture.

Well, we are all so thankful for being able to come on the mission trip. We are thankful for all of you who made the trip possible. We are coming back a different person because of what each of us experienced. We hope that all of you can one day come with us....

God bless each of you.
The Mary Our Queen Mission Team

Most Exciting Field Trip of our Life!

Yesterday, January 1 was the Solemnity of Mary our Mother and Br Dismas told us that we were going to go on the best field trip of our life---it was all of that and so much more!

We had our morning prayers and Mass then went to some waterfalls that were about 2 hours away...the name of it is Pulhapanzak (sounds like"pull-your-pants-and socks"). We had our bathing suits with us and we swam some and then took a tour behind the waterfalls. It was amazing---none of us had ever done something like it before. We laughed and had so much fun making our way to under the falls. We had to swim and climb on some rocks to get there. Under the falls was a small cave that we crawled into. We decided that we have a new appreciation of the weather reporters who stand out in the rain in hurricanes to report. We felt like buckets and buckets of water being thrown on us. After that we jumped of some cliffs into the river. Everyone had a great time doing that. To top it off, about half of the team did the zip lines across the river and then across the waterfalls.

We got home to Casa Guadalupe about 8:00 pm. We were all tired but happy. We had eggs, beans and tortillas for dinner. Br Dismas showed us a short moving film about the Father´s great love for us...even when we don´t appreciate it. We were glad for bed time.

Thank you for your support. God bless you.

The Mary Our Queen Mission Team