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Hernando Today

Remote island experiences subject of new book

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By KYLE MARTIN

kmartin@hernandotoday.com

Published: June 8, 2009

BROOKSVILLE - The tiny six-seat Cessna swooped low over the Bay of Honduras, the drone of its propellers making conversation near impossible.

But Dr. Gary Wilson didn't need words to interpret the panicked expression on his wife's face.

As the plane approached the tiny spit of a landing strip, Wilson glanced out the window and spotted a stranded plane belly-up on the island's shore.

Wilson gripped his wife's leg as the plane dropped like a rock onto the crushed shell and sand below and the pilot stomped on the brake. They came to a rocking stop a few feet from the edge of the bay.

What happens next is the focus of Wilson's recently published book: "And God Smiled on the Utila."

A retired general practitioner of 36 years, Wilson most recently kept a practice at Oak Hill Hospital. A Michigan native, he came to Spring Hill with his wife, Marilyn, in 1970.

In 1977, his pastor at First United Methodist Church in Brooksville, the Rev. Bob Fox, returned from a trip to Central America with a mission. Actually, he wanted it to be Wilson's mission.

There was a nurse on an island off the coast of Honduras who needed help setting up a medical clinic. Wilson warmed to the idea and began making plans with his family, which included three children, who were 11, 7 and 2 at the time.

In his book, Wilson describes the obstacles that almost derailed the project from the start and the "series of miracles" that overcame them.

Beginning with his white-knuckle landing onto the island, Wilson chronicles the early days of the medical clinic over 12 relatively short chapters.

There are lighthearted moments as a thoroughly American family comes to terms with outhouses, rats and roaches. Wilson's more poignant stories center on the surgery of a young boy with 12 fingers and saving the life of the island nurse's father.

In an interview at home Friday, Wilson said his family was grateful to return to America after that first trip.

Although they decided against kissing the tarmac, the Wilsons made a beeline for the closest McDonald's.

The culture shock eventually wore off, but the lessons they learned never did. While the family enjoyed the lifestyle a doctor can afford, they now knew they would be just as comfortable in a shack.

"Material things lost a lot of their luster," Wilson said.

Wilson would continue to visit the island over the next two decades, communicating by ham radio and later phone and e-mail. The idea was never to provide a "flash-in-the-pan" mission trip, but develop a self-sustaining clinic. It took years of effort, but that's now been accomplished.

Not long ago, Wilson sat down with the journals he kept during his time on Utila.

He transcribed them onto the computer with the intention of sharing them with his kids and his grandkids.

That eventually became a manuscript and later his book. Half of the proceeds of the book sales will fund Methodist missions.

To learn more about Dr. Wilson's book, visit tatepublishing.com/bookstore

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