A Boy Scout in Honduras

When we left the States, we left many things behind. For Thomas, one of the things he left behind and misses most is Boy Scouts of America Troop 546, Temple, Maine. We had discussed the possibility of him continuing in the Boy Scouts under their Lone Scout program. But to be truthful, it sounded, well...rather lonely. A Lone Scout in a foreign country camping out by himself, it just didn't sound appealing and so Thomas was prepared to give up scouting.

To our complete surprise, several months after we arrived we learned that the Fosters, Meeks and Colbaths had formed a "troop" in El Socorro under the Lone Scout rules, but meeting together. We even found a used Boy Scout shirt in a second hand store for Thomas as he hadn't brought his.

Thomas at Jardin de Gracia, El Socorro, HN July 2013

Several weekends ago, we had an overnight camp out. Thomas was "grub master." He needed to do this in order to rank up. We had brought our big tent with us and some of our camping equipment when we moved here, so between all of us we were able to make due nicely. Sitting around the fire that night, telling jokes, performing skits, eating hamburgers and swatting mosquitos it almost felt like we were back in Maine.

The next day our goal was to do a 5 mile hike using a map and compass. Our destination was a waterfall with a decent swimming hole. As we hiked along the dirt road, which became a trail leading down through the pine woods, we stopped occasionally to check the compass and refer to our map. For some strange reason, although in the States I have an excellent sense of direction, here in Honduras if you ask me to head north, I usually head east...or south...or west. Other Gringos seem to have the same problem and it may be because the country/geography of Honduras actually runs NW to SE and the Caribbean coastline actually faces north. Or maybe it's because I have yet to find a decent map of Honduras to get my bearings with. Or....

Anyway, the trail is rather steep leading down to the swimming hole but very beautiful. I wish I could say the same about the hike out, but hey, we made it. The boys swam and dove from the high bank for awhile and then we cooked hotdogs over an open fire for lunch, before heading back to base camp for a review of our maps and the weekend.

Several weeks later, the Fosters who are administrators at Jardin de Gracia, (check out their website) had a STM team from Oklahoma come down to help for a week and Mr. Coates, one of the team members, gave the "troop" a class on the US Constitution and it's Amendments in order to satisfy the BSA requirements of learning about what it means to be a citizen of the USA. He did a really good job and I learned a lot of things about the Amendments that I did not know or had forgotten.

Mr. Coates and the Boy Scouts of Honduras

I am really thankful that God has provided for so many of the relational needs each of us have here. Barbe now meets with a group of women who meet every other week. We have our home fellowship group on Wednesday nights which week after week is a huge blessing. The men's breakfast each Tuesday morning at 6:30 am that we started at Granja D'Elia and which is attended by a number of us men and our sons is another weekly encouragement and something I look forward to. Visits from our home church and Auntie Amy have also been awesome for us. The boys have made many friends here, as have Barbe and I, and all this in only six months.

And Boy Scouts too!

 

If there are any other boys here in Siguatepeque who are interested in joining the Boy Scouts of America and our "troop" contact James Foster or click the link in this post to learn about the requirements which you would need to meet in order to join. We'd be more than happy to have you join our "troop".