MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – A group of sixteen Morgantown missionaries are beck in the mountain State after being caught in Honduras just as the global pandemic began.
Retired Morgantown architect John Sausen says they arrive on March 14 and quickly were advised to arrange for travel back to the United States.
“Before we could do that, the very next day the Honduran government closed the airports,”Sausen said,”The next day they closed the borders and would let anyone leave or enter the country.”
In the meantime, the group was able to build one structure and prepare 200 food bags to distribute to local families.
“That was a real blessing to them,”Sausen said,”Because, they closed grocery stores, gas stations and banks, so the local people had no way of finding food for themselves.”
Sausen says after days of phone conversations with the U.S. Embassy, the offices of Congressman McKinley and U.S. Senators Manchin and Capito the Honduran government made an adjustment to their policy.
“The Honduran government said even though our borders are closed and the airports are closed,”Sausen said,”We will allow commercial flights in to take nationals out of the country.”
The group finally arrived back in Morgantown in the early morning hours of March 21. Sausen says they were in a COVID-19 free area and none of the members of the group had any symptoms and still don’t.
“The area where we were at, there were no viruses detected,”Sausen said,”So, in some respects we were very safe being sequestered from the rest of the population.”