My Trip to Honduras
Part 1 - We're More the Same Than We Are Different
Back in the fall of 2018, I interviewed Souls4Soles CEO, Buddy Teaster, for a running podcast I was doing at the time. I'd Google stalked some of Buddy's story, discovered he was an ultra runner, and since I had aspirations of becoming an ultra runner myself, I thought he'd be a great interview.
Well I was right.
He was.
Because I came out of that interview fired up to tackle something much bigger than a 100-mile trail race. I came out of it wanting to go to Honduras. 😯
OK, maybe "wanting to go to Honduras" slightly overstates my enthusiasm. But after Buddy gave me the history of his running journey, he told me the history of Souls4Soles. He told me how the organization had gone from being primarily a relief agency to one now committed to wearing out poverty.
To be honest, when I first heard Buddy say "wearing out poverty", I felt like I was reading one of those inspirational messages you see on a sign in front of your local church. It's hopeful and heartwarming when you read it, but then you drive on. And by the time you exit the Starbucks drive-through, knocked down a sip or two of your first pumpkin spice latte of the year, you've forgotten poverty exists outside of - well - church signs.
But then Buddy told me about their model: collect shoes people no longer want or need, get them in the hands of entrepreneurs in developing countries, the entrepreneurs then start small businesses that support their struggling families and allows them to reinvest in more shoes. And repeat.
Buddy was describing the teach them to fish bumper sticker come to life.
Then he told me about their travel program. The program is designed to give people who collect or donate shoes an opportunity to go see the countries where their shoes are making an impact. Buddy told me how transparency was important to him and the Soles4Souls team. Well, encouraging people to follow their shoes a few thousand miles to developing countries to experience the impact firsthand, that was a pretty strong testament of transparency to me.
Here's the thing, though. My comfort has always been rooted in developed countries. I once asked God if I could have some "serve the poor" extra credit because my wife took a trip to Haiti. I mean, it doesn't get much closer to me actually making the trip myself does it, God?
At the time, I thought he did what I often sense him doing in response to my rather thoughtless musings. I thought he shook his head and moved on to the people who were actually going to Haiti. But then I found myself on the Souls4Soles website, searching for trips, and there it was. Honduras.
So God said there's only one way to discover the true narrative, and it's not by riding the coattails of your wife's journey. It's time for a journey of your own.
I'm not sure what I expected to feel when we landed in Honduras. According to some, I should have felt fear. Given that for a few days I was trading in many of the relative luxuries of the world for relative discomfort, feeling some anxiety would have been natural.
But really, all I felt was intense curiosity.
What does a country look like that's still developing?
What do people look and sound and feel like who are in the middle of this development?
How much different is reading about poverty than walking along the dirty and dusty roads where the poor live?
One of the first answers to my curiosity came moments after leaving the airport. Looking out the window of our van, I saw a large stadium. For some reason the view was soothing. I think the Estadio Olimpico Metropolitano
was the first thing I saw that said the developing world isn't completely different than the developed world. Given our love for sports in America, I saw a shared passion in that stadium.
In the months leading up to this trip, I'd focused a lot on how much we are all different. In this moment, though, looking out at a stadium rising high above a people clearly in need, I began to focus on all that we have in common.
Over the next few entries in this series recapping my journey to Honduras, I hope I can capture that. Because I feel it stronger than I ever have. As much as we try to define each other by our collective differences, we are all very much the same.
Focusing on our differences is poisonous. Embracing each other for our common humanity - that is healing. My prayer is that sharing my thoughts about this journey will point us a little closer to the healing.
Next time: Part 2 - What Motivates You?
