The Face I Always Carried in My Heart

By Rhoda Bowman Smith

In 1991, I went on my first of 5 trips to Honduras with a medical mission team.  There were 5 of us on the first team, 2 doctors and 3 nurses.

Nurse Rhoda and a smiling Maribel in 1991

We went to one village called Bartolo and set up our medical clinic in the church.  There was a young girl who kept smiling at me and watching me as I worked. I knew very little Spanish and she knew no English, so we mostly just kept smiling at each other.  Later I learned that her name was Maribel, and we were able to communicate a little.  She was the daughter of the pastor.  Her home had a dirt floor and 2 walls made of adobe brick, two walls made of scrap wood and sticks and mud.  It was just one room.  I can still remember meeting her mother in the doorway of that house.

After that day, I would still see Maribel as we drove through her village to get to the other villages we visited to hold clinics.  She’d run out to the dirt road when she heard the trucks and wave to me.  She always wore the same blouse and skirt, so she was easy to find.

We were told on our first day that we would find a face that we would always carry in our heart and connect with Honduras, and I knew that for me that face was Maribel’s.

After I returned home, I wrote letters to her and she wrote to me as well.  I went to Honduras again in 92, 93, 94, and 95.  Each time I would see her…she would be taller, more mature.  Once, I sent her a Spanish Bible, another time I brought a tambourine so she could play music in her church.  I sent money so she would be able to go to high school in nearby San Isidro.   Then I lost track of her. I never knew what happened to Maribel.

That was 20 years ago.

Recently, I got a Facebook “friend request” from someone named José.  I had no idea who he was so I just ignored it.  I’ll come back to that.

Now I have to tell you about my friend, Helen.  I met Helen on Facebook, on the Disney page.  Before we went on our trip to Disney in October 2010, I was keeping up to date on what was going on at Disney World by checking into this page from time to time.  This lady named Helen posts there quite a bit.  Somewhere along the line I learned that Helen adopted an Abby…just like we did…so I sent her a message and we began communicating personally.  Helen is a Christian also so we had quite a bit in common.  When we went to Florida in October, Helen was also down there and we actually were able to meet.

Last night, Helen sent me a message on FB.  It started out, “Here is a message that came to me.  It explains much!”  Then the note was from the fellow named José that I didn’t know and had ignored.  It turns out that José is Maribel’s husband!!!! For 20 years, Maribel has saved my letters and pictures, and my name is one spoken in their home enough that José wanted to find me for Maribel.  His message to Helen was wondering if the Rhoda Bowman Smith that she is friends with could also be the Rhoda Bowman that Maribel knew so long ago.  In his semi-broken English, he explained how Maribel and I met, and asked her to have me contact him if I could be the right Rhoda.  The amazing thing is that he picked Helen.  Out of all the 200 people on my FB friends list, he chose Helen! It could have been someone that I friended because I knew them in high school but still am not really communicating with, or with an old co-worker from Ohio.  Or even with someone who would have thought he was some nut and just deleted his message.  But he chose Helen.  When I told Helen the whole story, she said that she KNEW that God wanted her to send that message on to me, that something important was happening here.

So, I connected with José and we “chatted” back and forth that day.  Maribel still doesn’t speak English and by now the

Maribel with her husband José Ernesto and daughters in 2011 dressed for Maribel's sister's wedding

only Spanish I know is counting to 10 and “taco”.  José came to Honduras from Nicaragua to attend a school sponsored by Teen Mission International, on property near the Heart to Honduras headquarters.  He was a missionary to several Spanish speaking countries.  But he married Maribel and now they are living in Bartolo, the same little village where I met her.  Her father, the pastor, has died but her mother is still living.  He sent a picture of her…she’s all grown up and they have two little girls, ages 7 and 3.

My mind is just boggled, just…blown…for so many reasons!  Of course, the obvious, that Maribel even remembered me!…and that José had the means to find me!  Remembering that there was no electricity in her village, I wondered how he could have internet ability (and they don’t in Bartolo, but he has internet at his work for Project Global Village).

Maribel and daughters in Costa Rica 2011

And then to see her photo, she’s wearing white pants and a fashionable top, her girls are wearing trendy clothes and they were at a beach…not at all the impoverished family that Maribel came from.  They look like they could be Pittsburghers on vacation.  The picture was taken in Costa Rica, where José went on a mission trip.

He tells me that Maribel never forgot me, that she talked about me to him so much and so often since they were married that he knew he had to try to find me.  One day she had even said to her husband that she had two mothers and he said, “I know – your mother and my mother.”  But Maribel said, “There is another special woman.  She touched my life forever and there is special place in my life for her.  I know one day I will know about her again.”  He told me that when he contacted her and let her know that he found me on FB, she started crying for joy!

I posted a picture of Maribel and me on my FB page and a brief synopsis of this story.  José commented, “Something like this, we will see in heaven”. And wow…that is so true!  But it is just amazing to me how the Lord put this whole 20-year story together!….how a little girl I smiled at in an impoverished village in Honduras could have kept me in her heart for all these years, and married a man who was determined to find me for her.  God just never ceases to amaze me!!!