Honduras mission trip opens eyes of Wayland students

A medical mission trip to Honduras made a lasting impact on the seven Wayland Baptist University students who participated. For some, it confirmed the direction God wants them to proceed with their education and careers. For others, it simply made them more aware of their own blessings.

Wayland students Jarrett Ross (left) and Trevor Burrow (second from right) work with a Honduran doctor at one of the medical clinics in which the medical team participated.Adam Reinhart, chemistry professor at Wayland, and Andrew Kasner, associate professor of biology, led the trip, working in coordination with missionary Joe Denton.

The students are enrolled in the university’s pre-health program, and the medical mission trip presented them an opportunity to see how God could use them in missions before they begin time-consuming studies in medical school, Reinhart noted.

“The side of the trip that will impact our students the most is just giving people a more global perspective of what God’s doing around the world,” he said. “Everything doesn’t look like it does here, and people around the world face different kinds of challenges that we don’t experience in this part of the world.”

Wayland student Erin Miller hugs a patient at a psychiatric hospital during the university’s medical mission trip to Honduras.Jessica Kenneson, a sophomore from Wiggins, Colo., noted the trip initially made her question her career choice but ultimately reaffirmed her calling to become a medical researcher.

“Through the week, I thought, ‘Well, maybe I’m supposed to be a missionary to Honduras, because I love it.’ I loved Honduras. I wanted to move there. It’s beautiful. It’s gorgeous, and the people are so sweet, and I love their language, … and their food is just fantastic,” she said.

Wayland Baptist University employee Amy Rendon (left) and student Jarrett Ross (right) are joined by other team members as they pray for a Honduran man.But something Denton said at the end of the trip brought her back to her first calling. He told the students they didn’t have to become career missionaries to make an impact for God. They should follow their passions, but with an eye toward using them as a ministry.

“He told us to do what God has called us to. God has called us all to a specific thing, and he said if you don’t follow that, people will suffer,” Kenneson said.

“It was refreshing to know that I can be a scientist and do what I love and still be a missionary for God here and also do what he’s called me to.”

For Trevor Burrow, the trip had the opposite impact. He went in with an eye toward a career in medical research and came out with a realization God is calling him to medical missions.

Members of the Wayland medical missions team are (front left): Dr. Adam Reinhart, Honduran missionary Joe Denton, Jessica Kenneson, Megan Huerta, Erin Miller, Elizabeth Reinhart, Levi Kasner, Amy Rendon, Zoe Benson, Dr. Andrew Kasner, Honduran interpreter Raul Munguia Malgar, Taylor Eaves and Trevor Burrow.“Before the trip, I had planned on doing medical research, but now I think that God just wants me to be a regular M.D. and help the people in Honduras and other Third World countries,” Burrow said.

Events prior to the mission trip confirmed God was closing doors that previously appeared to be open and using Honduras to redirect his life, he noted.

“I had some summer research plans for other universities around the state that fell through. … Now, after visiting Honduras, I think God really wants me to just follow the general medical degree and help other people instead of doing research,” he said.

Erin Miller, a junior biology major from Katy, is interested in working in medicine and went on the trip because she thought it would be a “really neat way to serve.” Plus, it represented an opportunity to travel to a foreign country.

Once she arrived, she faced with two realities. First, as an American, she has far more opportunities than many others around the world. Second, whether or not people understand the same language, individuals know when they are loved.

Wayland student Jessica Kenneson (left) gets information from a patient at one of the medical clinics in which the medical team participated.Miller admitted she didn’t speak much Spanish, but explained she was moved by how easily she and her fellow team members were able to connect with Hondurans, particularly as they interacted with the children of families who received treatment at medical clinics.

“You’d be walking around at the medical clinic, and the little children would just be staring up at everybody because we look different and act different,” she said. Often, students simply would smile at a child and offer a greeting, and the child would smile back.

“It’s like they don’t speak any English and I don’t speak any Spanish, but there is that connection there,” she said.

A visit to a mental hospital drove the point home even more dramatically, Miller added. Patients seldom receive visits from the outside, the students learned. In fact, the group from Wayland found out they were the first visitors the patients had seen in years.

“I came up to this woman who was just kind of standing alone by herself, just kind of standing looking off in the distance,” Miller said. When the student approached her to give a hug, the woman wrapped her arms around her waist and rested her head on the young woman’s shoulder, reluctant to let go.

“I understand a very little bit of Spanish, but she said, ‘Oh, yo quiero,’ like: ‘I like this. This is nice,’” she said. The moving experience left the college student pondering the contrasts of their two worlds.

“I just feel an appreciation for what I’m given. I’m born into this opportunity of education, health care and all those things,” she said.

Amy Rendon was the one non-science-oriented adult on the trip. She is the assistant director of annual giving in Wayland’s advancement office and a 2008 graduate. Her bachelor’s degree is in Spanish, and she also earned a master’s degree in education from Wayland.

Rendon spent hours interpreting for the students.

“I am so incredibly proud of our students,” she said. “I saw selfless servant-hearted students. It just blew my mind. God told Jeremiah: ‘Don’t let anybody look down on you because you’re young. You will say what I say, and you will go where I tell you to go.’

“These students’ hearts are so responsive to the call and mission God has on their lives, and not just on this mission trip. I saw them work together. I saw them be challenged. Just to hear them, the excitement of these experiences with people and using medicine and their education—it’s just neat to look at that and see God work in their lives and open their hearts to the possibility of missions in the future.”

For Reinhart, that was a big part of what the trip was about.

“If you want to take the surest, shortest way to take somebody from a pew-sitter to really being involved in ministry, send them on a short-term mission trip,” she said.