Calling all Military Wives!!

Are you or anyone you know based in Mountain Home, Idaho? (cause I'm moving there soon!). Or maybe you have a question or a comment you'd like to make?
Email me at hannah_noel_h@hotmail.com
Thanks =)

Long lost friend  

Monday, October 27, 2008

Something amazing happened yesterday.

While sitting in my Newswriting class, I noticed my phone flashing the word "Call," but there was no name or number being listed. Since I was in class, I didn't answer, and assumed it was a "caller" (you know those people that try to sell you something!).

I was surprised when seconds after my voice mail picked up, my cell began flashing a "Call" alert AGAIN.

Again, I didn't answer. (I don't like answering to numbers I don't recognize! I listen to the voicemails first!)

I waited for a voicemail alert to pop up, and low and behold, there it was! I leaned close to my desk to inconspicuously listen to the message so that my teacher didn't notice.

My jaw nearly dropped as I heard the first line of the message.

"Um, hello Hannah... this is Princelina. Hi, how are you?"

Princelina?!?!

Travel back in time with me about three years to my senior year of high school. I was on a mission trip to Honduras with a group from my church.
While at Honduras, I got to do a ton of fun things and worked really hard on some "man jobs" that required an arm and a legs worth of elbow grease!
What I remember most though, is meeting a few special people.

One very little person I met was Valerie, a 3 month old black baby girl. Oh, was she precious!

I held her as much and as often as possible. I loved just holding eye contact with her, tickling her, feeding her, singing to her, and rocking her to sleep. If I knew she was in the building, she was nearly off-limits to anyone else besides me!

Her mother (who spoke no English) saw how much I fell in love with her little baby in such a short amount of time. When our trip was over, she asked me to be Valerie's Godmother.

Having a Godmother is a very big tradition in Honduras, I was told, so it was a very big deal for her to ask me-- some little high school American! I was near to tears.

Another important person I met is the previously mentioned, Princelina. A beautiful black woman, widow, a single mother of two, hard worker, with a beautiful heart. She knew how to speak English, so we began conversing every day and soon were good friends.

When our trip came to an end I felt like I needed to give my new friend something to remember me by. I gave her my Bible (she really wanted an English Bible) and a bottle of spray perfume.

An odd combination of gifts, I know, but she loved them! Since she worked as a school teacher, she had access to the internet and had a hotmail account. We exchanged email addresses and sent two or three emails back and forth once I was home. Unfortunately, something happened and our messages stopped going through.

I would receive an email from her asking why I had not written, but I HAD written. Before long I stopped receiving emails altogether. I tried to keep reaching her, but nothing happened.

Eventually I gave up :(
Until yesterday, when my phone rang, and the voicemail left behind said it was Princelina calling me after all this time.

She left her phone number, but forgot to leave an area code. Since my phone didn't register her number, I had no way to call her back!

LUCKILY, there is a man from our church, Joe, who has taken permanent residence in Honduras. I immediately called my Dad (the pastor of our church), who then emailed Joe and asked if he could help with the area code--- and it worked!

This morning I received the code and immediately called her!

It was so surreal to hear her on the other end of the line. She went on and on about how much she had thought about me every day and she had been trying to email me for months. I gave her my email again and wrote her's down and sent her an email right away to see if it would go through.

I told her I was engaged, and she told me she was having a baby (due the day after my birthday!). She asked me when I was coming back to Honduras. It was so hard to give a straight answer.

Will I ever be able to go back to Honduras? After the trip, if asked that same question, I would have given a hands-down "YES I WILL. And don't you DARE try to stop me!"
But since a few years have gone by, the possibility of going seems to be fading away. After all I'm just a college kid who can barely make enough money to pay my tuition, let alone anything else.

Lots to pray and think about. Is it in God's plans for me to take another trip to Honduras, to see my friend and godchild again? I would love to think so. But how? And when?
Like I said, lots and lots to pray about.

I'm so glad I have my special friend back.

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by Hannah Noel

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