The Utila Adventure - The Beginning

 

 

The Pico Bonito Mountain Range along the Northern Coast of Honduras

 

La Ceiba is the crossroad of many cultures, and sits on the Caribbean coast at the base of Pico Bontio, a 7986 foot peak that sits only seven miles from the shore. This long ridge of high mountains stretches over 100 miles from Trujilo to Tela, isolating La Ceiba from the rest of Honduras. For decades, La Ceiba was accessible only by ship, air and the Tela Railroad, built by Standard Fruit Company, in the early 1900’s, when they began cultivation of bananas and pineapples along this northern coast of Honduras. Standard Fruit built the Dantoni Hospital, where our son Lukas was born on September 14, 1992, as well as the first bi-lingual school, along with many bridges, roads and other infrastructure.

Standard Fruit (Dole Pineapple Hawaii) also brought an international staff to La Ceiba- French, English, Canadian, and American as well as management from the plantation on the island of Lanai, which is next to our island of Maui. We lived in La Ceiba from 1986 to 1998, managing our school project which was located along the Coco River in the Miskita, the remote eastern corner of Honduras, over 200 mile east. La Ceiba was the closest place to make a phone call or exchange money when we began our project in 1984. We felt at home with this international crowd.

Along with the internationals and the native indios, there are escaped slaves from a rebellion on the island of Martinique who settled along this coastline. These ‘garifunos’ brought their African culture to La Ceiba, adding exotic colors and sounds to local scene. Offshore are the Bay Islands, a former English colony that was given to Honduras in the late 1800’s. With three main islands (Guanaja, Roatan and Utila) along with many smaller islands, this English population brought white skin, blood hair, ruddy complexions and self-government ideals into the cultural mix of this truly unique region of the world.

One day in 1989, I visiting my friend Dr Clem, a missionary dentist who lived in La Ceiba. It was then that I met my first Utilian. He was a former ski racer from Austria named Gunther, who had come to Utila in the 70’s searching for pirate treasure. Gunther told me about the deep clear waters around Utila, the fantastic underwater scenery and encouraged me to visit the island. Gunther was a local athletic celebrity, known for his deep dives and long runs. He was also a follower of Jesus, and we became instant friends.

Gunther at our cafe in 2025

It was a few weeks later that Laura and I flew over to Utila in our airplane, landing on the hardpacked coral rock airstrip on the south end of the island. We walked up a trail on the east side (the were no houses there then) found a deserted cove, and jumped in the water. Gunther was right- this island reminded us of our own Maui, and we began making regular Sunday afternoon flights to Utila. Eventually we began to meet other Utilians. One was Rocky Jones, who owned a house on Bell’s Cay, which we began to rent often and bring our friends. It was there that our daughter Mikaela learned how to swim.

We began to notice all the scuba diving schools with the students from all corners of the world who came for their open water, divemaster and instructor certifications- Europeans, English, Irish, Canadians, Australians, Israelis, American, Argentinians, Japanese, as well as Hondurans from the mainland. Finally, it dawned on us- the world is coming to Utila.

Our Lord told us to ‘make disciples of all nations.’ It seemed like Utila was a place that we could meet people from all of these places. We noticed also that none of the four churches on the island were reaching out to this crowd, many of who came party as well as scuba dive, yet for Laura and I, these were our kind of people. We had come from their background and had experienced their lifestyle.

We decided our best course was to take advantage to this unique opportunity and plant a Hope Chapel, our non-denominational church on Maui, here on Utila. In 1996, we invited one of our Hope Chapel youth group pastors, Daryl Mackin, to come and explore this opportunity. It seemed like a green light from the Lord, however events the following year distracted us when we took three of our Miskito leaders to Israel for a study tour in October of 1997.

 

Johanna and Daryl Mackin with us at the Rio Coco Cafe Vero Beach.

Daryl and Johanna founded "A Soldier's Child" Foundation, to provided for children of miliary parents who have died on duty, with over 600 kids participating annually.

 

On that trip, we became friends with our teacher, archeologist Dr Randy Smith, who invited to come to Israel in 1999 and work with him on a project. We spent July through September living in downtown Jerusalem next to the big park on Rabi Akiva street. We returned in the fall and winter of 2000 for another stint, where we helped Randy begin a relief program to those Arab and Jewish families that had been affected by the Intifada, the armed conflict between the Palestinian Liberation Organization and the Israeli government. This effort lasted for the next three years. Our work with Randy and trips to Israel, Greece, Italy and some Caribbean countries caused us to literally forget about our plans for church planting on Utila.

 

Our 1997 Study Tour group at En Gedi Dead Sea Israel

Kathy, Randy, Augusto, Michael, Laura, Craig, Onofre and Truman

Another factor was our move from La Ceiba to Waspam Nicaragua on the Coco River in the summer of 1998. The war in Nicaragua had ended and the new government had asked us to cross the Rio Coco and move our schools from the Honduran side to the Nicaraguan side and become the community school in 14 communities along a very remote corner of Nicaragua. With an enrollment of over 1600 students, we were very focused on educating Miskito children and adults.

It was in 2004 that we met Sarah and Jim Hornsby, the founders of the Young Life ministry in Nicaragua, who invited us to come up to their camp, high in the mountains above Matagalpa. They brought hundreds of Nicaraguan youth to their camp every year, and grew coffee on the property to fund their project. That gave us an idea to purchase Nicaraguan coffee and get it to the U.S. to roast and sell, which would help us pay or staff of 54 teachers. With the help of a few friends from Raleigh North Carolina, we began Rio Coco Beans coffee company in November of 2004, with an online store. Eventually in 2008, we purchased our own roaster, and began roasting coffee in Vero Beach Florida.

It was also in March of 2008 that we decided to return to La Ceiba and visit some of our friends, whom we had not seen in over eight years. When we arrived at the La Ceiba airport, Salin, one of my pilot friends from my bush pilot days, offered to fly us out to Utila in his airplane. We had friends there that we had not seen since 1998. We accepted and flew out. When I stepped out of the airplane and onto the island, I had a very strange thought:

“I can’t believe it. I totally forgot about the idea of planting a church on Utila, and have not even thought about it for many years!”

We walked down the main street to Utila Watersports to see our friend Troy, owner of the dive shop. He was very pleasantly surprised to see us and invited us in. It was very nice to reconnect to our friend and his wife Edith. Soon Troy had a phone call and stepped into his office. It was then that a young man walked into the shop.

“Are you the boss?” he asked.

“No, he’s in the office on the phone.”

“My name is Aaron, and I am a divemaster who just arrived on Utila, and am looking for a job.”

“Where are you from Aaron?”

“Israel.”

“What town?”

“Haifa.”

“Nice place.”

“You know Israel?”

“Yes, we lived in Jerusalem in 1999 and 2000.”

“Why were you there?”

“We went to study archeology and the Bible.”

“So you are a Christian?”

“Yes.”

“Then maybe you can help me. Can you tell me how God, the Holy Spirit and Jesus all go together?”

I was very surprised at this question, as never in my months of living in Israel did I have any Israeli make such an inquiry.

I realized that Aaron must have had some conversations with Christians while he was travelling. I also realized that him asking this question the day I arrived back on Utila after a 10 year absence had some supernatural significance. Now I was paying attention.

“Hear all Israel! The Lord our God is One!” Deuteronomy 6:4

We began talking about how this verse describes Yahweh as a multi-personality being, because the word ‘One’ in Hebrew is a collective noun that can be used to describe a cluster of grapes- many but one.

Troy came out and spoke to Aaron and gave him a job.

I suddenly had the strong but strange thought “It’s not a church, it’s a coffee story. More will come to a café rather than a church.”

I told Laura, “I think we are supposed to begin a coffee store here.”

“How do we do that?” she asked.

“I don’t know.” I replied.

It was shortly after that when Troy asked us “How are your kids?”

“Well, we have had two more since we last saw you.”

“Why don’t you bring them back this summer and take the open water course? You can use my apartment across the street.”

Laura and I looked at each other and realized that we had just gotten the answer to our question. We would come back and the Lord would show us “how”.

 

Three months later.

 

Laura, Mikaela, Lukas and Arielle all enrolled in the Open Water course at Utila Watersports. I had been a PADI certified Open Water diver since 1978, when I took the course on Grande Island, near Subic Bay in the Philippines. Moselle was only seven, too young to be certified, but the instructors allowed her to dive with me and use my spare regulator. “Just don’t go below 60 feet” they told us. We did.

The instructors were from Switzerland, England, Canada, Australia, Italy, Germany and the U.S. They all were curious about this family taking the course, since most of the students who came to Utila were backpacking singles. They got even more curious when they discovered we managed a primary school project in the Miskitia. We had many conversations with them after the dives.

The Bagby Family at Utila Watersports in June 2008 with their instructor Andrea, a chemical engineer from Halifax Canada.

But there was one who didn’t say much to us. Her name was Marian, the head of the dive school. She was from Germany and heavily tattooed, with a spider and skull along with other dark themed artwork.

One afternoon I passed Marian who was writing at the picnic table.

“Marian, where can I get a good cup of coffee on Utila?”

“Mike, there is no good coffee on this island.”

I nodded and crossed the street to our apartment, where I heated some water, ground some Nicaraguan coffee beans, and made a French press of coffee. Returning to the picnic table with two cups and the press, I set the cups down and filled them with delicious coffee.

“Marian, here is your cup of good coffee.”

Marian had a puzzled look as she lifted the cup, took a sniff, and then a sip from the steaming cup. After a moment, she looked and me and smiled.

That’s when Marian and I became friends.

Coffee is the friendship drink.

 

July 2009

We came back the next summer with our friends Olivia and Tony and rented Troy’s apartment for a month. We met many new friends, and invited them to our home for coffee. The most memorable were two Irish girls from Dublin- Jennifer and Sinead. Jenn was an accountant and Sinead an archeologist whom we met at the ferry landing in La Ceiba. I was standing in line to purchase tickets for our family when Jenn walked up to me and asked:

“Excuse me sir. I need to ask you a question. Can you buy rum on Utila?”

“Of course you can. There are plenty of stores that sell it.”

“Great! We have three liters with us and we hoped that we could get more.”

Irish girls.

My friend Tony, also from Dublin, once told me:

“You know why God invented alcohol? So that the Irish would not take over the world.”

It a few days later on our morning walk that Laura and I passed Jenn and Sinead, walking home after a long night out. They looked like they needed a good cup of coffee. We invited them to our apartment and they walked back with us. We talked and they came back the next morning for more coffee and conversation. It became a regular thing.

We invited them over for dinner and asked them if they had any religious background. Being Irish, they were Catholics, and told us of a time in their youth where they had to memorize many things from a book, and then dress in white dresses and participate in a ceremony in the church, but they were not sure what it was all about. We recognized this as the confirmation classes and being confirmed as a member of the church. That surprised them.

One evening they came over and told us they were leaving the next day on the morning ferry. Laura asked them if we could pray for them. Olivia, Tony, Laura and I placed our hands on their shoulders, and we began to ask God to fill them, direct their steps, that they would come to know Him, and to protect them during their travels back to Dublin. As we did this, they began weeping. The Spirit of God was moving.

They didn’t know what was happening or why they were crying. We explained it was the presence of God Himself. It was a moment….

The following March of 2010, we came back for another month. Again we were inviting our new friends to our apartment for coffee and conversation. Travellers are open to discussion of ideas that are new, at least to them, especially after experiencing hospitality, good food and good coffee.

We had met so many people during these months- an Israeli doctor, German electrical engineer, Polish archeologist, Swedish chef, Austrian circus performer, Canadian swim coach, Argentinian bar tender, Australian ship captain, English intensive care nurse, American school teacher, Russian mechanical engineer, English drywall/plasterer, Russian film student,  along with the assorted Italian, Swiss, Canadian, Spanish, Argentine, American, German,  Australian and Utilian dive instructors that inhabit the island.

Yes, the World comes to Utila.

We came back in 2011 and found a two-bedroom house with a small bathroom and small kitchen on the water next to Utila Dive Center. The owner Dorcas rented it to us and we made plans to come back that summer with some of our friends from Maui. We hired Robert Bodden to help us build out a café service area, build a small dock, and help us with general maintenance. As we worked to get things ready, we continued to meet new friends, and invite them over for coffee.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Kate & Dustin Insley, our team leaders 2011-2014

 

At this point, we had met travelers from every European country but one- Luxembourg, where I attended university my junior year. I mentioned this to Laura one day as we were cleaning up the yard and constructing our walkway to the dock. The next day I was driving our golf cart down to the hardware store and saw a tall blond guy walking in front of me. I stopped and asked him if he wanted a ride, and he jumped in beside me.

“Are you here diving?”

“Yes, and the water is incredible.”

“Where are you from?”

“Luxembourg.”

“Really? Where in Luxembourg?”

“Why do you ask?”

I lived there in ’71 and ’72, attending the Miami University campus.”

“In Limpertsberg.”
“That’s where I lived. What street?”

“Avenue Pasteur.”

“I lived at 71 Avenue Pasteur with the Joseph Speller family”

“I know that family. I am friends with their grandson.”

 

It seems like all the world is coming to Utila, at least all of Europe!

We opened the Rio Coco Café a week later.