These were just a few of the Honduran surprises awaiting Archie Jones and his team of 10 mission volunteers from five different churches. Most team members were from the Mocksville area.

Housing and meal arrangements for Honduran volunteers differ from site to site. Persons who recently began work in Tamara are housed and fed in a solid but worn building on the campus of a former seminary in nearby Tegucigalpa.

Male volunteers at work in Choluteca live in a new bunkhouse that the first mission teams built beside the home of Raymond and Pat Dietz, who coordinate relief work in the area. Women have the use of a bedroom in the Dietz' home, where volunteers enjoy largely American style meals. Workers in Juticalpa currently stay in a local hotel that lacks air-conditioning.

And then there's Alubaren, a small mountain town built around a pleasant plaza that features a Roman Catholic church. The town has a reliable water supply, in large part, because of efforts led by N.C. native Larry Elliott, a longtime missionary to Honduras. A N.C. medical/dental team's work in Alubaren was featured in the May 15 issue of the Biblical Recorder.

An important bridge on the main road leading to the town was washed out by Hurricane Mitch, requiring travelers to drive far out of the way on a deeply rutted dirt road that leads to a ford over the river before turning back toward Alubaren. A trip that once took 90 minutes now requires more than three hours of bone-jarring travel.

North Carolinian participants in recent mission in work in Honduras include (front, from left) Curtis Reavis, Ron Holt, Libby Jones, Alan Branch, Luwonna Oakes, (back) Leland Richardson, Russell Tucker, Paul Stapf, Glenn Oakes and Archie Jones. The group was gathered in Tegucigalpa as they prepared to return home.

Jones and Mocksville team members slept on foam mattresses placed atop the wooden pews and on the floor of Iglesia Bautista Buen Pastor, or Baptist Church of the Good Shepherd. They shared one rather primitive shower that had water every other day, and one toilet whose flushing required a bucket of water poured directly into the bowl. Each day's meals in the pastor's home included tortillas and beans or peas, with eggs and chicken served periodically.

Team members assisted the pastor's wife in cooking the meals on a mud stove. Since the stove is little more than a mud cylinder just large enough to hold a pot or pan over a wood fire, it is called a fuego, the Spanish word for "fire." Some team members earned blistered fingers while acquiring the skill of turning tortillas, which were cooked in a wok-like pan.

The weather was so hot that team members had to take turns working in the sun. Sleep was interrupted by bus drivers blowing their horns as early as 2:30 a.m. as they searched for paying passengers into larger towns or cities. Cows mooed and horses neighed, roosters crowed and donkeys brayed.

Despite the rustic conditions, not one member on the team regretted the decision to devote nine days of life and work to the people of Honduras. While most worked at finishing out the roofs of three new houses, Oakes and Libby Jones gathered children under a shade tree and taught them about Jesus. The number of children grew every day.

As Archie Jones preached during one of the nightly worship services, three persons came forward to trust in Christ. Lives were enriched on both sides of the giver/receiver equation.

Each team member took home special memories. For Alan Branch, pastor of Pilot Mountain Baptist Church, the visit to Alubaren was his first mission trip out of the country. He was most impressed by the sight of four bare-footed boys playing soccer in a rocky pasture with a worn ball that was nearly flat. There was great joy on their faces, he said, though they owned little or nothing. He saw that as a lesson for Americans, who are prone to complain at even minor inconveniences. Branch will encourage others in his church and association to experience partnership missions for themselves.

For Libby Jones, a bubbly native of Chile, it was the joy of using her native Spanish as a gift to translate for others. Jones was adopted by Archie and Caroline Jones during their mission assignment in Chile, and lived there until they retired when she was 11 years old. Now a rising junior at Davie County High School, she found that her Honduran experience sparked a serious interest in following her parents into vocational missions.

Ron Holt's participation was a return engagement. Holt, a member of Hephzibah Baptist Church in Wendell, helped a team from Hephzibah construct a church building in Honduras last September. The team plans to return in the fall of 1999, but Holt will be in class at Southeastern Baptist Theological College in Wake Forest. Not wanting to miss another mission experience in Honduras, he asked for an assignment with a team traveling earlier in the year.

His message for persons who are considering volunteer missions? "Pack your bags! You will come expecting to be a blessing, but will wind up being blessed yourself, especially in Alubaren."