The hour drive to the beach was strange. It was by way of the regular paved road that one would expect, but then we also went through a seemingly booming little town with lots of stores on the street. The road was so narrow. We went on gravel roads too through what were little neighborhoods of mostly shacks. Finally, we got to the beach. The Honduran beach on the Pacific is nestled in between Nicaragua and El Salvador such that you can see both of those countries just by standing on the sand looking out to the Pacific. Nicaragua on the left and El Salvador to the right.
There were large open shelters all along the beach with tables, chairs and hammocks underneath them. There were vendors walking around selling anything from shell jewelry to sweet desserts to some coconut thing that you drink from with a straw. The black sand beach had a fairly steep decline to the water. When we arrived, we thought it was storming but it was the high tide waves crashing ashore that sounded like thunder. The water looked dangerous, and we figured we needed to wait until the tide receded to enjoy the water anywhere above our knees.
So we laughed, relaxed and played in the sand. At one point, I was in the water goofing off (more than I thought base on others' later comments) in some stance that would secure me to endure the rush of water on my legs and not lose balance and doing so completely oblivious to what was enfolding right behind me. At some point, apparently, Cindy and I think Cheryl and then Paula were yelling at me about a woman drowning in the water. I didn't hear. The waves were loud and too many other sounds were blending together. Then an image hit me that registered foreign to the moment. Paula and Nick were suddenly in my view. What made the image register as an emergency was Seeing Nick in some tug-of-war position with an appendage of a very large woman. Paula was doing the same, but Nick's image made it instantaneously serious. I don't know Nick well, but what I have seen of him on this mission is a complete workhorse. He digs in and gets to work. The story is that he was up on the beach and made a mad dash in style with David Hasselhoff in Baywatch for this woman after hearing and seeing the need.
My guess after the fact was this woman was 300 pounds, but that netted a gasp from Vanessa, our young interpreter. Apparently, I was cruel in my guesstimating. I then declared, well.. "If she wasn't 300, she was every bit of 270." That seemed to be less cruel, and it appeared to be accepted. Anyways, this woman had been sucked into the water up shore and had been rolling in and offshore on her journey to our point on the beach. The water was such a powerful force that the early attenders lost her at least a couple of times to the pull of the sea and had to wait for her to come back with each ensuing wave.
When I finally became part of the struggle to save her, the result was no different at first. At one point, Paula called out for me to grab her arm, because the sea's pull on this woman was going to drag her in as well as she held on to the woman's arm or leg. Funny that I don't know which it was at the time, but it happened so fast and a lot of this was a blur. Paula claims that she was going to have to let go let she be consumed herself, but I don't believe her. I saw the effort and struggled in Paula's eyes and body and I had seen her work very hard at the worksite this last week. I still don't think she would have let go. So I grabbed Paula's arm and we survived this one pull of the sea.
All this time, this woman's clothes were getting pulled off her by the sea and exposing her greatly. Who Cares!!! A life was at stake. This woman, who was so tired from her struggled and couldn't make one effort to climb out of the water and was dead weight did somehow have the energy to keep trying to pull her shirt back on. Paula had to slap her hand at one point. There was no way that this group of three Gringos were going to drag her out of the water and up the beach incline. With a receded wave, I saw an opportunity to get in a good position between this woman and the pull of the sea. My legs were strong and I could plant myself in some sort of yoga warrior pose and prevent the back and forth bobbing that was going on. It worked. It bought enough time and made us accessible enough that a Honduran came to be the fourth person at the scene that was willing and able to pull and lift her up out of the water. I directed him to grab a leg as the rest of us all did with the same with the other three limbs, and we all carried this woman belly down up the shore. All the time I was looking away so this woman kept as much privacy as possible.
Praise God that she was breathing and moving. A couple dozen Hondurans surrounded her when she was set down. I ran and got my towel so I could give it to Paula so she could be cover the lady. And just as quickly as this whole thing started, we were done and walked away. From a distance, I later saw her standing up still beaten by the sea but ok. There was a beach full of Hondurans but it was only us one group of gringos that were there to save her. I truly believe that if it wasn't for Paula, Cheryl, Nick and myself, this woman would have drowned. I apologize if I missed anybody that helped or if my recollection isn't complete. It just happened so quick.
I am not sure what God had in mind for this moment, but I am sure something was at work. It made me think of Ecclesiastes 3:11(NLT), "Yet God has made everything beautiful for its own time. He has planted eternity in the human heart, but even so, people cannot see the whole scope of God’s work from beginning to end." It's sort of ironic that a week spent trying to save souls and serve others had us literally saving a life during our down time. I have a couple expressions about God when he works in one's life. I say "God can be a showoff sometimes" or "God's smart like that. Even though we may say we saved a life in our last day in Honduras, I am pretty sure I speak for everyone that we give all credit to God for putting us there at that moment.
Thanking God with every moment of every day of this mission trip, but I still praying that he wipes the image of the woman's exposure out of my mind. ;) (I'm sure she'd appreciate the granting of that too!)
God Bless.
Aaron Mason.
Awesome!
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