Soccer brought peace to Honduras this year. Enough peace to keep the country civil while volunteers from the United States gave aid to the sick and poor of Tegucigalpa, the nation’s capitol.
Glen Ellyn resident Tamara Wilfong and her daughter Amber were among the volunteers from an organization called Word Gospel Outreach that went to Honduras for a week in October.
Volunteers brought medical attention and Christianity to the capital of what the CIA calls Central America’s second poorest country.
In June, the Honduran army arrested the country’s president, Manuel Zelaya, and kicked him out of the country, creating a politically unstable environment.
Wilfong said she was aware of the risks but had faith in World Gospel Outreach, which has more than two decades of experience in Honduras.
Then, Honduras beat El Salvador in a soccer match to qualify for the World Cup on Oct. 14.
“When the soccer team is doing well, politically, everything is doing fine,” Wilfong said.
While in Honduras, Wilfong witnessed poverty everywhere, she said.
“They live in little wooden shacks with tin roofs and boulders holding the roofs on,” she said.
She saw floors of dirt and children with lice in their hair. Open sewers flowed through front yards.
“It’s just very underdeveloped. You’d think in this day and age, how can people be so underdeveloped? You know, we’re so spoiled here,” Wilfong said.
While in Tegucigalpa, Wilfong and her daughter assisted at various stations of the World Gospel
Outreach’s medical brigade. Wilfong said that, for example, one day she would be helping people take eye exams, and preaching Christianity on another day.
“We tell them Jesus loves them,” she said.
Other volunteer work included cutting children’s hair and cleaning their nails.
“You know, the people, their faces light up. The kids, just the touch of the kids, they want to be picked up,” Wilfong said. “They want to be held. They want to be comforted.”
As long as the children receive attention, she said, “that makes their day.”
Wilfong heard about the opportunity to volunteer at her school, Aurora University. This summer,she took a class about transcultural nursing. When her instructor, Professor Deann Edgers showed photographs of her trips to Honduras, Wilfong was inspired to volunteer.
Edgers said during a typical year, up to 35 people can make the trip, but this year, only 25 people signed up to go. Edgers attributed the decrease to the economy and political disturbances in Honduras.
Because only 25 people signed up to go, Edgers told her students there was an open invitation, if anyone wanted to go. The one student to accept that invitation was Wilfong.
“I saw the slides. I saw the kids. I saw the need,” Wilfong said. “I asked (Edgers) for some more information and I told her I wanted to go.”
