Mission Honduras

In December 1998, I became involved in the relief effort associated with Hurricane Mitch. This storm hit Honduras so hard that it killed over 8,000 people, left 11,000 missing, and another 5,000 homeless. Some estimates indicated that this disaster set Honduras, already the poorest country in the Northern Hemisphere, back another 50 years.

The purpose of my initial trip was to deliver two trunks of medicine to Missionaries. These medications, valued at $14,000, had to be hand delivered to ensure that they got to the right place. During that short three-day trip, I was able to witness first hand the destruction of the hurricane. At our pastor's request, I looked around for ways that our church family could help.

Quickly I discovered a project that had been under construction for nearly six years. In November 2002, The Hope Center will be dedicated and opened with a 100-bed orphanage, a feeding center, and a medical/surgical center built entirely by volunteers to serve the people of this poor country. The Hope Center is located about 35 miles from Tegucigalpa, the capital city of Honduras in an area called the Valley of the Angels.

In addition to the Hope Center, there is a church on the same property that has weekly services, a board of trustees from the local community, and a thriving Sunday school. One of the most moving experiences of my time in Honduras was watching the Sunday school children pray for God's help for their relatives and friends as they attempted to recover from the storm.

Our church, the Stonebridge United Methodist Church in McKinney Texas, sent a team of twenty-two volunteers in February of 1999 to Tegucigalpa for a week. That group made curtains, painted the 14,000 square foot Hope Center, and ministered in their own personal ways to the children and residents of the Valley of the Angels.

We returned to Honduras in January of 2000 with a team of 18 volunteers. Our team painted, cleaned and scrubbed that entire facility, getting it ready for occupancy. Members of our team distributed personal care kits - socks, combs, toothbrushes, toothpaste, pens and pads, and other small items to families living in mud huts. They accepted our gifts as if we had brought them gold watches. The children got candy and comic books about Christ and his word. This trip taught me again how blessed I have been and how needy our world continues to be.

Tom Pearce
2/15/02