HOME IN HONDURAS

by Marian Blumenschein

John Blumenschein, a successful gynecologist with his own clinic in Independence, Missouri, was a man with a dream that has had far-reaching effects. Selling his practice in 1957, he and his wife, Marian, and their five.children left the States for Latin America. They didn’t have a definite destination in mind, but they did know it would be somewhere that had no school, no medical facilities, and no church. They found it in a beautiful upland valley in central Honduras-the poorest of all Central American countries. What happened there is a story of trial and tragedy and triumph.

Home in Honduras is just a segment of that story—the early days of adjusting to life in a primitive setting, of planting and building, of teaching and learning, of helping and being helped.

On December 14, 1958, Dr. John died of cancer, and the dream might well have ended there. But he had urged his wife to stay on, promising, "Others will come." She remained in the valley for five years after his death, founding a school and—with the assistance of friends from the States—an agricultural program and a clinic. Following her return to Independence, a foundation was formed to continue the work she and the doctor had begun.