Heading Home--planting the mustard seed.

  It's Saturday morning and our work is done at the various sites that we serve. Today is dedicated to packing up. The afternoon is free and we will celebrate Sunday Mass here at the hotel at 5 PM.  We leave the hotel on a bus at midnight and head into San Pedro Sula for our flight home in the morning.  We'll be back in Little Rock late on Sunday afternoon--a long trip ahead to be sure.

   It is going to take some time for me to process the many experiences that I have had here. My emotions range from joy to sadness, from elation to frustration, but above all I am filled with gratitude for this opportunity, gratitude to the many wonderful missionaries, and gratitude to the people of Honduras whose faith, willingness to endure hardship and tremendous spirit of community have touched me deeply.

   Tomorrow's Gospel text includes the well known parable of the mustard seed, the little seed that when it blossoms does so much good.  I like to think that our mission group of doctors, nurses, dentists, optometrists, pharmacists, construction workers and electricians as well as teen age and college student members have planted many mustard seeds.  We don't know how they will spring up and grow, but they most surely will.  That is how the reign of God comes forth.  The people of Honduras have also planted mustard seeds in us whoch I am sure will blossom forth in many ways as we return hone to the US.

   Below is a picture of a young girl that we visited in Los Leones yesterday.  She has cerebral palsy and cannot speak well.  She had a beautiful smile on her face.  After the doctors and nurses attended to her I gave her the Sacrament of Annointing.  I blessed her family and hone as well. Before I annointed her i asked in Spanish, "Conoces a Jesus?"  "Do you know Jesus?"  With a smile on her face she pointed to a crucifix on the wall in her home and then to heaven.  She surely planted a mustard seed in us.

She planted the mustard seeds