Nevada County Picayune and Gurdon Times Newspaper Archive

City natives volunteer in Honduras

Gurdon natives Charlie and Kay Dixon Hogue spoke to Rotary club Thursday, June 26, about their recent visits to Tegucigalpa, Honduras, this year.

The trips were part of the Operation New Life mission, in which surgeons work for free to fix problems for those who have facial deformities such as over-bite and under-bite, cleft palate, benign and malignant tumors, and those who need bone reconstruction.

Two teams  a 13-member maxofacial team and a 25-member maxofacial and general surgery team  worked together to help fix the problems of those in physical or medical need. Sometimes the teams perform their mission work up to four times in one year.

"The missionary helps (those in need) physically, and hopefully spiritually," Kay said of the mission work.

Their February trip was their first mission trip ever to be involved with firsthand, but the Hogues have been donating money for other missionaries for the past five years. They have been involved in church as long as they have been married  40 years.

After graduating high school and getting married, Charlie joined the Army. After his service, the two settled in Little Rock. Kay taught second and third grade for 31 years before retiring. Charlie worked as purchasing manager at Mabeline for 20 years. He currently works as a consultant for several companies.

Charlie and Kay, both 1965 graduates of Gurdon High School, decided to make their first trip to work as volunteers for the surgeons in February and again in April.

Kay said she told Charlie that, after hearing about the mission and its purpose, she wanted to go to Honduras before she died. She said Charlie joked, "Well, you'd better go now."

Kay said Tegucigalpa is a city of 1.5 million people, with 53 percent of the population being under the age of 18. She also said there are, on average, at least 80 births per day there.

The city is full of gang activity, she said, and a rank smell lingers over the city because of its geographic location  in a "bowl" surrounded by mountains where the city's smog cannot escape.

During their stay they could not drink the water because of pollution, but were supplied with bottled water for drinking and brushing their teeth.

They stayed in a hotel and worked at Hospital Escuela, a hospital in which learning doctors are trained  much like UAMS in Little Rock. Because of heightened security, she said, the missionaries had to enter the hospital as a group and had to have passports and interpreters with them at all times.

The hospital only had air conditioning in the operating room and in the outpatient oncology room, she said.

Their days began with breakfast at 5:30 a.m., followed by devotional. Work began at 7 a.m., and sometimes the missionary surgeons and volunteers worked 12-hour shifts.

Each individual case had to be evaluated, and the surgeons often had to send people home to die because nothing could be done for their situation, Kay said.

She said that, during their trip in February, Charlie worked back and forth from two operating rooms to a supply room as a circulator; and during their trip in April he got to do what was right down his alley: working inventory at a computer.

Among the items the missionary took with them were Spanish coloring books, crayons, beanie babies, toy cars, Spanish Bibles, foam crosses, jewelry for young girls, cross necklaces, and hygiene kits and sandwiches for new mothers.

She said several patients and people accepted Christ as their savior during their short trips.

She showed the club a slide show of many of the patients they met during their stay.

Charlie took the floor next, saying that the mission trip was not just meant for helping people in need.

"It's meant to teach," he said. "Doctors could do 100 surgeries and help 100 people; but teaching 100 doctors means helping 10,000 people."

The Hogues do not plan to go on the trip again this year, but perhaps next year if they feel called to do so, she said.



In other Rotary news, President Billy Tarpley announced the club will not meet July 3 because the date coincides with the Independence Day holiday. He also announced that former Rotary member and president Gary Maskell has arrived and been welcomed to Warren.

"He'll be well received by the Warren (Rotary) club," he said.