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COLUMBIA — As soon as Tyler Shields walked off the plane, his mother screamed and gave him a big hug. 

It was an emotional reunion for the MU senior and his parents on Thursday evening, with Shields returning to the United States after being stuck in Honduras amid a government coup. 

“I breathed a sigh of relief when he finally got back,” his father, Mark Shields, said.

In an attempt to block Honduran President Manuel Zelaya from returning to the country, interim government officials closed the country’s main airport last week, leaving Shields to find an alternative departure route.

Shields, who was in Honduras for six months on a mission trip, said he was calm at first but started to get unnerved as the week wore on.

“I was so anxious the whole week,” Shields said. “How am I going to get home? Am I going to get home?”

Answering those questions was no easy task. Shields and his parents scrambled to make plans for him to fly back to the United States. One option was to fly out from neighboring El Salvador, but getting there proved to be difficult.

So Shields instead took an eight-hour bus ride from Choluteca, where he was doing his missionary work, to San Pedro Sula, a city in northwest Honduras. 

“The bus ride was not fun,” Shields said.

Part of the reason was because he was nervous about being in the country illegally.  His visa expired Wednesday, but he was able to leave the country without facing repercussions.

During the bus ride, Shields said he saw broken windows along the main boulevard of the capital city, Tegucigalpa, signs of the protests that hit the city in the past week. 

From San Pedro Sula, Shields flew to Miami and then to St. Louis. 

“It’s really weird to be back,” Shields said, still reeling from the culture shock. “I think I’m still processing things in Spanish.” 

Shields might use his Spanish again soon. He plans to return to Honduras as early as December to visit and might permanently return once he graduates. He said he wants to continue his work with AIDS victims and impoverished families.

Shields said he is happy to be home, but he has not forgotten about his friends in Honduras.

“I escaped the situation, but it’s still going on,” Shields said.  “I still have a heart for those I left behind.”

Related posts:

1. Student stranded by unrest
2. Allyssa’s Honduras Story – Part 1
3. Allyssa’s Honduras Story – Part 5

By T.J. Greaney
Tuesday, July 7, 2009

University of Missouri student Tyler Shields poses with Luz in a recent image
from Honduras, where a government-closed airport has stranded Shields,
who has spent six months doing mission work with HIV-positive patients.

If everything had gone according to plan, Tyler Shields would be home by now. Last week, the University of Missouri senior was scheduled to complete a six-month mission to Honduras.

Based in the southern river city of Choluteca, Shields has been helping run a clinic for malnourished children, working with AIDS victims and teaching English and history at a bilingual school. He said it’s been a life-changing experience.

“You really completely forget that you are working with people with HIV, AIDS or children that are malnourished,” he wrote in an e-mail to the Tribune. “They become just another person to you, and I believe that’s the point. We are trying to destroy a huge stigma that exists in this country.”

But just as Shields was saying his goodbyes last week, there was a rumble of unrest in the capital. On June 28, Honduran soldiers hauled President Manuel Zelaya from his presidential palace at gunpoint, exiled him to Costa Rica and declared a new government.

The coup was bloodless, and most people Shields spoke to were in favor of the change, but things haven’t been the same since. Tanks and soldiers are stationed all over Choluteca at checkpoints, and a nightly curfew has been instituted. Rumors were circulating that neighboring Nicaragua was massing troops on the border, preparing for an invasion.

“I’ve never felt in imminent danger, but there is a slight scariness in being trapped in another country,” Shields wrote. “The serious tone, as well, to the curfews invoke a little fear as you see everyone rushing to their homes to not get caught out late.”

With only a week left in his mission sponsored by The Rock, a nondenominational Christian church at MU, Shields’ parents tried to convince him to cut the trip short and come home.

“His father and I said, ‘Let’s try to see if he’ll come back,’ ” his mother, Lisa Mision of Columbia, said. “And he was, like, ‘No.’ He wasn’t budging. He was staying up until the last day because he was there for a reason.”

Shields’ flight was to return Sunday, but the continued unrest made that impossible. Sunday was the same day that Zelaya, the ousted president, boarded a private jet and began circling the international airport in the Honduran capital, attempting to land and return to power.

Soldiers crowded the runway to prevent the plane from landing, and the attempt was aborted. Shields said authorities recently announced the airport will remain closed at least another week.

So Shields is stuck. His visa expires today, and he is contemplating crossing into El Salvador to catch a flight there. That plan, needless to say, gives his mother heartburn. “Ever since the text came that the airport was closed, we’ve just been on pins and needles,” Mision said.

But far from being frightened, the experience has reaffirmed Shields’ commitment to missionary work in that part of the world after he graduates. He wrote that it’s impossible to forget the feeling he gets by putting a sound roof over a family of 13 in a one-room shack with a mud floor or the feeling of providing emotional and spiritual strength to a woman whose body is ravaged by AIDS-related illnesses.

“I originally wanted to work in the United States at a church there, but after my time here, I feel like I might be leaning towards coming back to Honduras to do more work,” Shields wrote.

“I would definitely say my life has changed, my view is different and the world is a bigger place.”

Reach T.J. Greaney at 573-815-1719 or e-mail tjgreaney@columbiatribune.com.

This article was published on page A1 of the Tuesday, July 7, 2009 edition of The Columbia Daily Tribune.

Related posts:

1. MU student returns home safely from Honduras
2. Tyler in Honduras (2)
3. Allyssa’s Honduras Story – Part 4

• Father’s Day in Limon.
• The Rock’s Visit to Honduras.
• The Rock Central Methodist
• Yasaira’s new hair cut.
• Manualidades move to Casa Hogar.

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1. News from Choluteca
2. Casa Hogar Vida Updates
3. Casa Hogar Land

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1. Spring Break 2011: Stevi’s Story Part 1
2. Allyssa’s Honduras Story – Part 2
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Mondays: Work with Casa Hogar Vida, the AIDS orphanage, doing anything from visiting houses to administrative work on the computer.

Tuesdays: Work in the malnutrition center and daycare in Limon.

Wednesdays and Thursdays: Teach in the school at the church. Teach Bible class, English, PE, music, and computers.

Fridays: Work in the malnutrition center and daycare in Limon.

A quote from his update:

"I love being apart of this community of people, they are so loving and funny. It’s a lot of fun. I also love that I’m getting to live like a Honduran. i walk to work at the school and I take a city bus (a lot different that Columbia’s bus transit) to Limon. Its a great experience."

Please continue to pray for Tyler, the work he’s doing in Choluteca, and the work God is doing in his life.

Related posts:

1. Tyler in Honduras
2. Honduras LT Updates: Week 1
3. MU student returns home safely from Honduras

Tyler first went to Choluteca on the Spring Break trip in March 2007.  After 3 short-term trips there, he decided he needed to stay longer, and began the process of raising support for a 6-month trip.  He’ll be staying with Pastor Geovanny, and working with the Casa Hogar Vida project, among other things.  He’s started a video blog on his Facebook page, so if you haven’t friended him yet, you might want to.

Be praying for Tyler as he adjusts to life in Choluteca and as he seeks out how God wants him to use this time.

Related posts:

1. Tyler in Honduras (2)
2. MU student returns home safely from Honduras
3. Expansion of the local church in Choluteca, Honduras