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Hope in the Wake
of Hurricane Mitch
By Dawn Forsberg "Many countries have helped with food and other aid," an official told volunteers from Cheer Up Missions after their inspirational show at a homeless shelter for Hurricane Mitch victims, "but what we needed was you!" In January, eight volunteers from the FCF project, Cheer Up Missions in Louisiana (two of whom are pediatricians), came to bring cheer, medical treatment and humanitarian aid to victims of Hurricane Mitch. In the Honduran capital of Tegucigalpa, four volunteers from the Guatemala-based FCF project, Casa de Corazones, joined their team.
Together they performed their clown and musical show 16 times in ten days, encouraging thousands of people, as well as counseling and comforting hundreds individually. They also distributed $10,000 worth of medical supplies and equipment, and thousands of dollars worth of clothing, food and toys that the team from the U.S. had collected and brought with them. At a local clinic and several of the shelters that the team visited, Drs. Bob and Margarita Guy provided free medical exams and treatment for hundreds of needy children. After seeing the need first-hand and being personally involved with the people of Honduras, Cheer Up Missions has continued to make further trips to Central America. After making an appeal on a New Orleans radio station for local businesses to help sponsor their second trip, the team was also invited to go to Nicaragua, which had been severely hit by Hurricane Mitch as well. I had the honor to accompany the Cheer Up Missions team on their second trip to Central America. We had the opportunity to visit Nicaragua, where we stayed for five days, performing and distributing medical supplies, clothing and food to many needy families. It was heart-breaking to see the conditions of the shelters where these families lived. Most of the shelters were wooden posts in the ground, covered with plastic bags. We visited two such shelters, where the little huts were in the middle of a dusty field with no running water or trees. The conditions were appalling!
You could see the joy emerge in the children’s faces as the clowns began performing. Most of the children had been very bored, with no other activities. Many of the youth had started joining gangs. We were able to bring a little happiness into the routine of their daily lives, which was very rewarding. Before leaving Nicaragua to continue our trip to Honduras, we visited a children’s hospital in Managua, the capital. We gave them some much-needed medical supplies that were donated by sponsors in the U.S. The director thanked us profusely and explained how much they appreciated and needed these particular supplies, as they were sometimes unable to perform certain medical procedures because of the lack of them.
After performing for the children who were able to leave their rooms, we then went to each of the rooms of the children who were bedridden and brought them cheer with songs, magic tricks and words of comfort. One particularly touching moment was when we were taken into the room of three-year-old Jolene. She was diagnosed as being malnourished, as well as having TB. She looked more like a six-month-old baby. Jolene looked very frightened, so we started singing for her. She calmed down right away and just sat there with a peaceful look on her face. When we tried to leave, she began crying. So we returned and continued singing for her. This happened three times, as she cried every time we stopped singing. We then prayed for her and she calmed down so we could continue on to the other children. The next day we left by bus to Tegucigalpa, the capital of Honduras. We were able to re-visit places that the Cheer Up Missions team had visited on their first trip, one of them being a home for abandoned children. These children were very responsive to the love, songs and clown show that we were able to perform for them. They have about one adult to care for every 10-15 children, who are very much in need of extra love and reassurance. Most of these children’s parents are still living, but were no longer able to take care of them for different reasons. Many of the children had been left on the doorstep of this facility to be taken in by the staff there. Since this is a home for girls, the older boys were separated from their sisters. One of the little girls there, Magdalena, who you see me holding in the picture below, had burn scars down the side of her body and just wanted to be hugged and didn’t want to leave my side, not even when the clowns started to do their magic tricks and jokes.
Later that day we had an hour meeting with the First Lady of Honduras, Mary de Flores, to explain the work we had been doing there, as well as present her with some medical supplies for the hospitals she works with there in Honduras. She is very concerned about the needs of her people, and is personally involved in many projects, including a cancer hospital for children. It was a great privilege to meet someone who is so dedicated to helping others.
On their previous trip, the Cheer Up Missions team had been invited to speak on a large Catholic radio program. We returned and were able to give a message of hope to the people of Honduras to not give up.—That even though things look bleak at the moment, with having to rebuild Honduras, and so many people having lost their homes and their families, if we all pitch in together, we can each change our part of the world, one life at a time, one heart at a time. The Cheer Up Missions team have since made their third trip to Central America, this time visiting El Salvador, as well as Honduras, distributing further medical supplies and humanitarian aid. They participated in a "feed the homeless" mission in San Salvador, preparing and bringing 250 meals to street people. They were able to personally deliver eight wheelchairs to very needy children. One girl named Marianna, was twelve years old and had polio since the age of nine months. She was severely handicapped and was unable to react to much outside stimuli. When the Cheer Up Missions volunteers placed her in her wheelchair and prayed for her, she began to smile—something which her mom told them was quite amazing, as she hadn’t seen her daughter smile in years. I feel very privileged to have been able to accompany the Cheer Up Missions team on this trip to Central America; and will never forget all I saw and learned from the sweet people of these beautiful countries. |
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