Richland church youth group home after Honduras coup

By Sara Schilling, Herald staff writer

RICHLAND -- Amanda Koopman and her youth group from the Church of Christ held an impromptu worship service in a parking garage in Honduras right before they left the country escorted by armed guards.

They had spent the day before driving through the Central American nation on back roads in a convoy of SUVs, hoping to avoid the demonstrations and roadblocks that sprang up in the wake of a military coup.

Members of the youth group started singing and reading aloud verses from the Bible.

"It was a time of praise and encouraging each other to keep hanging on for a couple more days," said Koopman, 17.

She and her friends are back in the Tri-Cities this week after an exhilarating and at times harrowing journey home.

The group of 21 teens and adult chaperones set out for Honduras on June 26, planning to spend about 1 1/2 weeks working at a Christian school and for an organization that helps families with special needs children. They stayed in the town of Trujillo in the northern part of the country.

But a few days into the mission trip, the political situation in Honduras changed dramatically. President Manuel Zelaya was ousted in a military coup. The U.S. state department advised Americans to restrict their travel in and to Honduras and warned of unrest.

Group leaders decided to cut the mission trip short. The company that handled the group's travel insurance arranged for escorts.

The teens and adults spent Saturday driving hours in five SUVs through the mountains on back roads to the capital of Tegucigalpa.

At one point, "we ran into a pretty big roadblock where (armed Hondurans) had rolled out cinderblocks across the road to stop traffic," said Evan Bates, 23, one of the chaperones.

The youth group's escorts explained about the work the teens and adults had been doing -- from installing a sidewalk to helping teach Bible classes, Bates said. The SUVs were allowed through.

The group arrived in Tegucigalpa with the plan of catching a flight to the U.S. But then the airport closed.

So the teens, adults and their escorts crossed over into El Salvador, where they finally got on a plane.

Despite the political turmoil, "we were always safe. I never felt in danger," Koopman said.

She described the trip as life-changing. Before going to Honduras, the senior at Liberty Christian School in Richland had planned to become a teacher. Now she hopes to return to Trujillo after college to teach at the school where the group worked.

"I loved the kids there," she said. "They were the hardest thing to leave."

Koopman and the rest of the group arrived in New York early Tuesday and flew to Portland on two separate planes that afternoon.

Bates, a senior at Washington State University Tri-Cities and an intern at the Richland church, said it feels good to be home after such a long journey.

Group members not only learned about another country and culture, but they also came to better appreciate the comforts of living in the U.S., he said. They leaned on each other and felt watched over by God.

During the trip, there were scary and stressful moments, especially toward the end when the travel plans kept changing, Bates said. Some in the group seemed to reach a breaking point Sunday in Tegucigalpa, when it became clear they'd have to drive to El Salvador in order to fly back to the States.

In the parking garage, they began to worship God, who they believed had brought them that far.

"We sang for about 20 minutes. We prayed together. A spirit of tranquility and calmness soothed everybody," Bates said. "It was pretty powerful. We realized there was nothing to be afraid of."

Then they got on the road to finish the trip home.

-- Sara Schilling: 582-1402; sschilling@tricityherald.com

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Thursday, Jul. 09, 2009

Richland church youth group home after Honduras coup

By Sara Schilling, Herald staff writer