My discovery of Yocón wouldn’t have been possible without Paul, an American evangelist and dental technician who had spent many years living in Honduras. His son, James, who was my translator on the mission team, kindly offered to let me stay at his home for a few days while I decided my next steps.
James, who was in his early twenties, lived in a small house with his wife, their four-year-old daughter, and his wife’s 14-year-old brother. When I arrived at the family compound in Talaga, James introduced me to his father.
Paul asked about my plans, and I explained that a group of doctors was planning to set up a small clinic in a remote village. They had been visiting Honduras with various teams, each time to a different location, but without follow-up, their efforts lacked continuity. They aimed to establish a clinic they could revisit yearly to support sustained health improvements in the community.
“How long are you planning to be around?”
“As long as possible,” I responded. “I don’t want to go back to the States.”
“Where will you stay?”
“James invited me to sleep on the floor in his house for a few days. After that, I don’t know.”
“Well, that’s not going to happen. I have a spare room in my house where you can stay. There are things you can do around here to earn your keep.”
For the next two weeks, I stayed busy helping with the garden and rebuilding a wall in the kitchen, but there was never time to look for a village, which was my main objective. I brought it up one night over dinner. Paul thought for a moment, then mentioned a village he had visited a few years earlier. It was remote and underserved, but he assured me the road was manageable—just a few miles of dusty dirt track and a few crossings. “Nothing to worry about,” he said. “We can make the trip on Saturday.”
Paul, James, and I set off in Paul’s battered Toyota pickup, raising a cloud of ochre dust behind us as the paved road transitioned to gravel and then to a rough track. When we reached the river, I felt a flicker of unease. It was wider than I had expected and murkier, and the makeshift crossing—little more than packed earth and hope—looked like it hadn’t been dry in weeks.
“This river doesn’t look safe,” I muttered.
Paul grinned, the kind of grin that pretends to banish doubt. “Four‑wheel drive—no problem.”
Halfway across, the Toyota dropped into a hidden hole. The truck tilted, water rising around our boots, sinking with the slow inevitability of a ship going under.
We scrambled onto the muddy bank. In silence, we watched the Toyota sink, inch by inch. Fortunately, we weren’t entirely without resources. A farmer was working nearby with a team of oxen, and after a brief, animated negotiation, conducted entirely in Spanish, he agreed to pull the truck onto dry land. The engine sputtered back to life. Paul wiped water from the dashboard with a rag. Then he looked at me with the earnest hopefulness of a man who had not yet considered the possibility of defeat.
“Do you want to try again?” he asked.
“No, not if this is the only crossing, it would be too risky for a medical team.” Survival here would mean gambling with rivers—and I wasn’t ready to stake lives on chance.
What began as a debate about the wisdom of a second attempt quietly settled, and a heated discussion about baptism and original sin reignited as we made the journey back. Although we had debated these issues before and never changed our views, it was a good way to pass the time. Unbeknownst to us, however, we also passed the turnoff that would take us home.
“Are you sure we’re on the same road?” I asked after what seemed like a longer period than it took to come. “I don’t remember all these curves.”
“Hmmm, you’re right,” Paul responded. “I wonder where this road is taking us? We can stop at the next village to find out.”
The road wound upward through jungle hills until the ridge split open, revealing a valley so beautiful it felt like a secret kept by the earth itself. There, on the canyon floor, a small village sat with a river running through it.
“That’s it!” I exclaimed. It was exactly what I had envisioned.
We drove down into the valley and stopped for a cold Coke at a small tienda, where Paul, in fluid Spanish, inquired about the village and gathered what information he could. He returned with news in two parts.
“Good or bad news first?” he asked as we got back on the road toward home.
“Good,” I responded, glancing back at the village in the valley.
“Well, they would love to have a clinic here. The closest hospital is four hours away, and they mostly rely on a ‘medicine man’ and his magic potions when they’re sick. There haven’t been any Western people in the area for nearly two years.
“That sounds like a challenge,” I replied enthusiastically. “What’s the bad news?”
“The reason there are no Westerners here is that two Peace Corps workers were killed in a brawl between rival political parties. Plus, gangs and remnants of the Contra soldiers still drift through this part of Olancho like bad weather.” Paul urged me to look for a location closer to civilization. I nodded, but inside I felt the pull of that valley—a place marked by danger yet whispering of purpose. Sometimes belonging hides where others fear to tread.
After returning to Paul’s house, I called the Pastor in Mississippi and told him about the village. He said it sounded good and that he would inform the doctors. Two days later, he called back and said the doctors were very excited about finding a village and had donated an old Chevy pickup truck and medical supplies to get started. He told me to tell James he could start working full-time, and that his first assignment was to come to Mississippi to pick up the truck and the donations. The doctors would cover his expenses.
When I relayed the information to Paul and James, Paul suggested that the three of us make the trip back to the States so he could bring back an old school bus that had once served as their mobile vacation home. It was sitting in a storage yard in Texas. If he had the bus in Honduras, he could convert it into a mobile dental clinic and expand his ministry, which included pulling teeth and making dental plates for people who could not afford them.
“Who is going to drive the bus?” I asked, suddenly feeling a bit overwhelmed. “With my bad vision, there is no way I can drive a bus.”
“Don’t worry, I will be driving the bus; you can drive the Toyota. It’s small and easy to drive. James will drive the Chevy pickup.”
Paul made it sound so simple, but had I known what we were in for, I would have acted on my ‘Are you crazy!’ feeling and tried to come up with another plan.
We started early in the morning. It was decided it would be too crowded with the three of us in the front. I volunteered to lie down in the back of the truck, which fortunately had a cover. The cover, however, was too low, preventing me from sitting up straight. I slept a lot because the only view was out the dirty back window.
At dusk, Paul and I swapped places so he could rest. James then took the wheel, and we carried on through the night. I was astonished by the danger of the roads in Mexico—no shoulders, drivers with their lights off at night, and sometimes wreckage from head-on collisions left unattended. I don’t recall much else; I only remember feeling immense relief once we crossed back into the USA.
We initially traveled to Mississippi to pick up the Chevy truck, which we were told had been fully overhauled. Then, we drove to Texas. Paul drove ahead alone, while James and I enjoyed the Chevy’s spaciousness. After several miles on the highway, we communicated via walkie-talkies that we wanted to stop for food. Paul took the next exit, and we followed. James pressed the brake pedal to slow down, but nothing happened. He pumped the brakes multiple times, but there was no response. The emergency brake slowed us a bit, but as the turnoff light turned red, Paul applied his brakes, and we collided with his rear.
The damage was minor, so Paul repaired the brakes himself instead of taking the truck to a shop. Later, we arrived at the storage yard and began cleaning the old school bus that Paul had used for family camping trips years earlier. While searching through a closet, a rat suddenly jumped out—trapped with nowhere to run, it scampered up my pants. I screamed, pulled my pants down, hoping it would escape without leaving any bite or scratch marks. Needless to say, I became much more cautious afterward.
Paul was a skilled mechanic and got the old bus running in just a few days with parts he found at a junkyard. We slept on the bus to save money, and before we knew it, the departure day arrived. I felt nervous because, with only one good eye, my depth perception isn’t reliable. The roads in Mexico worried me, but I was doing this as a favor to Paul, for everything he had done for me.
The first stop was buying insurance, a necessity when traveling through Mexico. Paul said he would take care of it and went in with all the papers. He came out a short time later and said, “We have a problem.” He was already listed on the Toyota’s insurance, so he had to add my name to the bus’s insurance.
“No! I cannot drive that bus through Mexico!”
“You won’t have to. All you need to do is drive it through the entry point. Once we are in Mexico, I will take over. Just relax, you can do this.”
I agreed to it, but I was a nervous wreck going through customs on the Mexico side.
It went smoother than I had thought it would, and after checking in, Paul took over driving the bus, while I drove the Toyota, with James bringing up the rear in the Chevy.
Everything was going smoothly until we reached a police barricade in central Mexico. They were inspecting for weapons, drugs, and who knows what else. The officers were heavily armed and intimidating. After a thorough search of the cars and the bus, they finally told us we could go. As I climbed into the Toyota, the officer in charge motioned me out, recognizing that my name was on the bus insurance, not the Toyota. Paul didn’t argue this time, but as we exchanged keys, he whispered, “Drive slowly, I’ll figure something out.”
Ten miles down the road, he pulled over in a small rest area so that we could trade vehicles. Two young men approached us and asked if we were headed to Honduras. They were former Honduran soldiers who attempted to get into the US after their discharge, but got caught. They were hoping to get a ride back to Honduras, and Paul said, “Okay.”
I felt such relief when we finally entered Guatemala. While waiting for the paperwork to be processed, a well-dressed man asked Paul for a ride to the Honduran border, and Paul invited him to travel with us in the bus. Everything was proceeding smoothly until lunch. Paul stepped off the bus to join us, but as he approached, the well-dressed man suddenly jumped out of the bus and ran away. Thinking there must be a reason for his sudden flight, the two former soldiers chased after him and managed to catch him. However, their quick action drew the attention of the border patrol, and for a moment, I feared we might all end up in trouble.
Paul checked and found that his passport and wallet were missing from the bus. The man, of course, denied it and claimed that Paul had kidnapped him. The police did not know what to do because they said they had no evidence. The two former soldiers then grabbed the man, turned him upside down, and began shaking him. Paul’s wallet, passport, and a bunch of other stolen items fell to the ground, and the man was arrested on the spot. Paul reclaimed his belongings, and we drove off with Paul driving the bus in the lead. It was late afternoon as we pulled into the yard, with many friends and neighbors there to welcome us back.
The following week, James and I made plans to move to Yocón. James had some hesitation about moving his family away from the security of living with his father, and I think Paul saw me as a threat to their relationship as well. One evening, there was a heated discussion among James, his wife, and Paul. It was all in Spanish, so I didn’t understand what they were saying. By morning, James and his wife were loading the Chevy. An hour later, we left, with no words of farewell, only silence.
The journey began with a favor and ended with one too—a favor that reshaped bonds, turning bridges into crossings that no longer led back.