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Ministry students learn from poor on Honduras trip By ALBERTO ENRIQUEZ They'd planned to drive 4,600 miles, dig a septic system for an isolated village in Honduras, then drive back, in a school bus dubbed the "Stinky Twinkie" by the 36 guys who shared it for six weeks. Then Hurricane Mitch struck. Three ministers in training say they and their partners from the Applegate Fellowship School of Ministry never got to build that septic system. Mitch turned them back just 100 miles short of their destination. But they returned home Friday having learned lessons in faith and contentment that a minister doesn't learn from a book. "We are so blessed," ministry student Joshua Miller marveled Tuesday. "Just the fact that we have flush toilets, hot and cold running water, and washing machines. It gave me a whole new appreciation for washing machines -- even the poor in the U.S. on welfare are like millionaires compared to these people. Very few of them would even have concrete floors." Third-World poverty was not news to Dave McCoy, a group leader who last year completed the school's one-year course in practical ministry, which includes construction and guitar playing. He's made two previous missions to Latin America. This time, McCoy was impressed by the lessons the faithful can teach a missionary. "The ones that are Christian, they worship the same God that we do, and (their faith) perhaps is greater," McCoy said. "They don't have the distractions that come with wealth." Nathan Barnwell, also a group leader, saw the hand of God in their safe return, in the near-misses and coincidences that kept them from harm's way. En route to La Ceiba on the Caribbean coast of Honduras, the group was stalled in the highlands by a broken trailer hitch. That one-hour delay kept them from descending further, where the full fury of the hurricane would soon be ripping out bridges, tearing great avalanches out of mountains, and cutting off access in all directions. Instead, the group watched the worst of the devastation on the Honduran equivalent of the Weather Channel. After two days, the group realized there was no way they'd make it in and began the trek back north through Guatemala and Mexico. Even in the highlands, torrential rains and two weeks without sun had left roads in bad shape. A two-hour drive through the southern Mexican state of Chiapas turned into a 10-hour ordeal. Temporary replacement bridges would accommodate only a single vehicle at a time. "The Lord just totally protected us every step of the way," Barnwell said. In Oaxaca, the group finally was able to put its talents to the test, not just ministering, but digging and laying the concrete footing for a small church at Manos de Ayuda, a permanent mission operated by Northwest Medical Teams. Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 1998, Medford, Oregon USA