Just wanted to let you know some details on our summer mission trip to Honduras. We’ll be building houses, feeding the hungry, serving food to those in the dump, doing medical clinics … and MUCH more.

DATES: The dates are June 29th – July 6th and flights are already booked.

COST: $1600.00

If you want more information about this trip please feel free to contact me. OR If you’d like to go on this trip and reserve a seat for yourself, I NEED A $100 non-refundable deposit anytime. The airline makes us add a name to each seat and we’re allowed to hold it for the $100 deposit.

ALSO, when you give me your $100 deposit … YOU MUST INCLUDE your full name, your full birthday, AND your passport number (if you have it). Email me at the address on this website and I’ll send you the address and all the information.

Any questions?

I love my trips to Honduras, and I SO wish I could speak Spanish … but I can’t. While my Spanish is very limited, I do speak fluent Love. More and more I realize that Love is an international language that crosses all cultural, social and language barriers. I’m continually amazed how easy it is to speak Love to people and how willing they are to respond the same way.

I was looking through my pictures yesterday and realized how much I have fallen in love with Honduran kids … kids whose language I don’t speak. Sometimes we show up on a house building site, and I spend more time loving on kids than I do swinging a hammer … and I don’t feel guilty about this. I may not can speak Spanish, but I do LOVE speaking the language of Love in Honduras.

These are some of my FAVORITE pictures from Honduras.

Two of my newest friends that I fell in love with this trip.

Here are a few stories behind some of my pictures from my trip to Honduras last week. I had a hard time choosing which pictures to share, but here are a few. (BTW: You can see the others on Facebook with some more stories.)

Anytime you take a picture of someone, they want to see what it looks like.  One of the coolest things we did this year at the Jesus Banquet was to bring some little printers and paper and actually print off the pictures we took of kids. This was Marc Tindall’s brilliant idea. The camera and printer will stay in Honduras so from now on all our future trips the kids can have a portrait of themselves.

A picture of the Jesus Banquet from a hill close by. Over 1200 were fed and more importantly shown God’s love.

You’ve met Sonya before on my blog. Sonya is a regular at the dump, as you can tell from her clothes. She always welcomes me with a smile.

Pretty little Honduran girls. These girls were standing around watching their new house being built. They may look a little emotionless here, but you should have seen them when they walked into their new home and picked out their new bunk-bed.

This is a little boy named Oscar. We visited Oscar in the hospital after he had just had surgery. Oscar had his leg run over by a truck while he was at the dump digging through trash. Because he had no money for surgery, they were going to simply remove his leg. Thankfully, Marc Tindall and some kind hearted people wouldn’t let that happen and instead paid the $400 or so needed for his surgery to fix his leg. Now Oscar is going to be fine. I love this story.

Probably my favorite day of the trip. We spent $1000 on vegetables, fruit, beans and rice and took it all to a poor little village and handed out sacks of food to the community. In the picture are just the onions we purchased.

At the end of the day after the Jesus Banquet, there were still a bunch of little kids hanging out. A man selling ice cream rolled up, and I waved all the kids over and started buying ice cream for kid after kid after kid. I had told my friend Charlie that I’d bring her back something from Honduras. She suggested that I save that money and do something special for some kids with it. So … Charlie, thanks for buying ice cream … the kids LOVED it. This was just 3 of the MANY kids who enjoyed ice cream that day.

My boys fell in love with little Stephanie this summer. We spent two days this summer in her little community, and she stole our hearts. It didn’t take long after arriving in her community last Friday to spot her. Within seconds … she wrapped me around her finger again. Just in case you forgot, it was my 9 year-old who had written this about Stephanie this summer.

 One of the new houses that were built this past week. It’s a larger and much better house. They now include bunk-beds and little rooms. Nothing is more gratifying than finishing a house after a long hard day at work. This is a picture that Marc Tindall took.

We purchased about $1000 worth of beans, rice and food at the market and fed an entire village for a couple of weeks. What a great way to spend $1000.

Beautiful children that were fed today in Bueno Samaritano today. Can’t wait to share more.

In just three weeks I’ll be back in Honduras with a group of friends for what we call “The Jesus Banquet at the Dump.” On December 7th at the dump in Tegucigalpa, Honduras something very special is going to happen. Some of the poorest people in the world are going to be fed, served and shown the love of Jesus.  This will be a sit down banquet where they will be served. We will have tables, chairs, silverware, napkins, and a place for them to wash up.  The plan is to feed about 1200-1500 and show the people of the dump the same kind of OUTRAGEOUS love that God has shown us.

If you’d like to help buy a plate of food for the dump banquet, you can make a donation of any amount, and I’ll send you a “Honduras Hope” silicone bracelet like the one pictured below. You can use the PayPal button on this site if you’d like, and it’ll automatically include your address. I have two rubber silicone bracelets that I wear on my wrist. One is my yellow LiveStrong bracelet, and the other is my Honduras bracelet. I occasionally take the LiveStrong bracelet off, but the Honduras bracelet is always there. My Honduras bracelet reminds me of three things every time I see it …

• First, that I’m blessed because I will eat today while others won’t.
• Second, to pray for the Honduras work and hungry people everywhere.
• Third, that I should NEVER be satisfied with just feeling sorry for others, BUT I must be willing to do something to make a difference in their lives.

So if you’d like a “Honduras Hope” bracelet, just make a donation of any size and I’ll mail you one or more. You can use the PayPal link on this blog or send it via snail mail (PO Box 239, Childress, Texas 79201).  You’ll be directly helping feed people at this year’s Jesus Banquet at the Dump.

The one I'll send you is like this one but will be blue with white "debossed" letters that say HONDURAS HOPE.

See this picture better by clicking on it.

Jesus said in Luke 14:12-13, “When you give a dinner or a banquet, don’t invite your friends and family and relatives and rich neighbors. If you do, they will invite you in return, and you will be paid back. When you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind.”

(Help me spread the word on this by Tweeting this post or posting it on your Facebook.)

There’s not a Wednesday that goes by that I don’t think of my friends at the dump. This is their day… their day of the week to be fed. Every Wednesday my amazing friend Marc Tindall and a group of Christians make a trip to the Tegucigalpa dump in Honduras to feed hungry people who are there. Sadly, the dump people have spent the last 6 days searching the trash for something to eat, recycle or sell. While we’ve been asking questions like, “When or what are we going to eat?” they’ve been asking questions like, “Will we eat today?”  Thankfully today is Wednesday … so they’ll eat today. That warms my heart.

In a little over a month, on December 7th, we’ll have a “Jesus Banquet” for the people at the dump. They won’t be fed beans and rice from the back of a truck, instead they’ll be served “banquet style” some of the best food you can eat in Honduras.

Sawyer and his new friend ... from last year's trip.

Want to step out in your faith and do something that will challenge you in every way?  Want to go experience an amazing opportunity to serve? Want to go love on some beautiful people?

I will be going back to Honduras this December, and I’d like to invite you to come with me. Here’s the information…

DATES: December 6th – 12th

COST: $1500 (covers everything but a few lunches)

PEOPLE: I have room for 25 to go on this trip.

ITINERARY:

• Tuesday – Travel Day
• Wednesday – Jesus Banquet at the Dump
• Thursday – Service project at the Casa de Esperanza
• Friday – Market to purchase food and deliver it to Buen Samaritano community (like this).
• Saturday – House Building
• Sunday – House Building
• Monday – Travel Home

On Wednesday we’ll be taking part in what is called the Jesus Banquet. It’s a banquet where we serve a meal to the poorest of the poor from the Tegucigalpa dump. We’ll set up tables and serve people a plate of some of the best food in Honduras.  The idea came from Jesus when he said … “When you give a banquet, don’t invite your friends, brothers or relatives, or your rich neighbors … but when you give a banquet invite the poor, the lame, the crippled and the blind, and you will be blessed.”

If you’re interested in going, or want more information … feel free to contact me at my email address. Here’s a video from a past trip…

I’d like you to meet Canon. He and his family went with us to Honduras. Canon just turned 12-years-old and was a “go getter” in Honduras. The picture fits him perfectly … everywhere he went he had his backpack FULL of things to give away to others. He brought stuff from home like baseball caps, soccer jerseys, clothes, bracelets and on and on. Canon always had Honduran kids around him because he was always giving away his things.

Just before Canon left to go home he spotted this little boy who was watching him from behind a gate of the Casa orphanage. Canon realized the boy needed some shoes so he gave him his Nikes … his last pair of shoes.

Canon ended up wearing home his mother’s pink flop flops that were 2 sizes too small (see picture).  That’s love. No wonder Jesus said, “I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”

I want to be like Canon.

This is Cooper (in the middle of picture). He is my 9 year old son who just spent an amazing week working in Honduras. He built houses, fed hungry people, made LOTS of new friends and even went to the dump with me. I think it is a HUGE blessing for my children to get to go to Honduras. I have no doubt Cooper was affected in a positive way by this trip.

One afternoon after spending an entire day playing with kids from one of the poor villages in Honduras, I noticed something was really bothering Cooper. I asked him if he was okay, and he couldn’t talk … he was choked up. I just held him tight. Later that night he wrote in his little journal he was keeping the following message.

“Today in Honduras I went to the medical clinic. I met a girl named Stephanie. I was very sad that I won’t get to see her for another year.  She had holes in the bottom of her shoes. I wish I could let her have mine. I cried for about 30 minutes because I won’t see her until next year.  I wish I could pack her in my suitcase and take her home.  I already miss her very much and that was my day.”

Of course Lea and I were touched by his words. Had his shoes not been twice the size of Stephanie’s, I’m sure he would have left them.

Here’s a little report on our Honduras trip. Sorry I’m a little slow sharing, but we got in at 2:00 Sunday morning, and I’ve been sick ever since. I was trying to think about what all I wanted to tell you, and finally decided that I’d just show you. We did medical clinics, clothing give-aways, feedings, built wooden houses and block houses, played with kids at the Hospital Escuela, and on and on. It’s tough coming up with just 12, but here’s 12 pictures and the stories behind them.

If you go to Honduras, you’ll see houses like this. Yes, people actually live there. Can you imagine trying to live in a house like this … or raising a family there?  The GOOD news is that this house was replaced with a new one for the person living there.

Here’s what a wooden house looks like. It takes about 4 hours to complete. This house was a bit tougher to build because it wasn’t on level ground. But due to a great work crew, we still had it knocked out in no time. This house went to a 51 year old twice-widowed lady who was living in a home that was falling down around her.

This little girl is named Stephanie. We took this picture in the little village where she lives.  I met her the first time I ever went to the dump (August 2009). I even wrote about her here. She’s the little girl whose picture is on the back of the “Dump Shirt” that Bread for a Hungry World sells. Sadly Stephanie still has to go to the dump to help support her family. Stephanie was at the dump  on Monday while we were feeding there.

When you go to Honduras you can always expect to make new friends. Cooper made lots of new friends. The shorter necklace that the little girl in the picture was wearing was Cooper’s. She asked him for it, and he didn’t hesitate to give it to her. I was proud of him.  If Cooper will let me, I’m going to share with you something he wrote in his journal. It was amazing seeing Honduras through the eyes of a 9 year old.

If you read my blog this time last year, you first read about Baby Jesus here (Saving Baby Jesus). He came through one of our medical clinics as a newborn. His mother was unable to make milk and the doctors said that little Jesus was only a few days from dying. Today he is a healthy little boy.

For those that sent bracelets … and there were 1000′s … here is where they went. The little children love them. I wanted to include this picture and what you can’t see is the “bracelet line” was a mile long with kids. Thank you for sending.

The girl in the middle is Sonia.  We met her at the dump. She was working there digging through the trash. She hit it off immediately with our Angelica (left) and Kristie (right). Our girls cleaned Sonia’s hands and then painted her fingernails for her. When finished she asked for the polish and with a big grin asked Marc Tindall and I if she could paint one of our fingernails. Of course we let her.

 If you go to Honduras with us, you’ll get to eat some really cool things. Here’s a plate of talapia I ate the first day.

 I’m proud of a lot of things that we do in Honduras, but I’m especially proud of our medical clinics. It’s the one thing that our group does that most other groups don’t. We do two days of medical clinics and provide medical attention for the poor which is an essential thing. Many of the people in this long line can’t even afford to fill a prescription, and we were able to simply give them the meds they needed. I sure appreciated our doctors and pharmacists that came and worked so hard.

I met and spent time with lots of kids. On Wednesday afternoon I met Emma (pink), Stephanie (next to Emma) and Daniella (with her little fists clinched). My MOST favorite was Daniella. We really hit it off. We played all that afternoon together. She would hold my hand, sit in my lap and she even took me to see her little house. I miss her.

Here we are playing a new game we made up called “Gato, Gato, Perro” (cat, cat, dog). It’s played exactly like “Duck, Duck, Goose,” but I didn’t know how to say “duck” or “goose” in Spanish.

“HANDS & FEET”

The theme this year for our trip was “Hands and Feet” of Jesus. That was our goal to be His hands and His feet. My friend Bianca took the following pictures on our trip and then made this picture to fit the theme. I love it!

Thanks for being interested in our trip…

The kid below got to eat.

Spent some time at the dump today. The smell was bad, the people were dirty, but this little boy got to eat. We ran out of food about the time he walked up, but with enough scraping on the pans, we were able to come up with a bowl full of beans and rice for him.
I’m thankful to all those who gave on Dump Day and made feedings like this possible.

I hope this picture comes through … it’s of people who were heart-broken. These people waited all day in line to see one of our doctors … and time has ran out on them. They were turned away. There were just more people than we could see.

It hurt to look them in the eyes. I didn’t even want to make eye contact with them when they were told to go home without seeing the doctor. I could handle seeing them frustrated, but it broke my heart to see them sad. Many had babies and small children …

Who knows, many of them may have been praying for months that they, or their children, might see a doctor. Yet it didn’t happen.

They are people just like us … but people who don’t have the same access to doctors, meds, and hospitals as us.

Don’t get me wrong, it was still a great day because hundreds of people did get to see the doctor … but my mind are on the ones that didn’t.

Please say a prayer for them.

We’re building two types of houses this week … wood and block. Today we’ve spent the day mixing concrete for the block house we’re building. The one cinder-block house we’re building will take us a week to finish. We’re also building several wood houses, those only take a few hours each.

We worked all day, through two different rain storms, and finally got the foundation laid. It’s been a good day in Honduras.

(Picture of us mixing concrete)

Twenty-four hours after arriving Honduras everyone has officially made it. We had 2 that started a day late after travel problems, but as always, God worked it out fine.

Today we worshiped with the church in Santa Ana. Although two-thirds of the service was in Spanish, we still enjoyed it greatly.

After lunch we split our group and went to two different places, hospital Escuela and a boys orphanage. Hospital Escuela is a hospital for the poor. There are many needy people there. We passed out food until it was gone and then handed out beanie-babies, stickers and bracelets to the sick kids.

The other group took pizza and went to an orphanage for boys. They spent the afternoon playing games.

Both groups met back up that evening at a very poor little village called Nuevo Oriental. We spent the remainder of the day there playing playing with kids.

Tomorrow we get busy. There are two wooden houses to build, all the meds to sort for Tuesday’s medical clinic, a cinder-block house to start and we’ll feed at the dump.

I’ll try tomorrow night to post again and include a few pictures.

Blessings…

Today we leave for Dallas-Fort Worth. We’ll catch a Rangers game tonight and then leave bright and early in the morning for Honduras.

We’ve got a group of 50 who are going to spend the week serving others. Our suitcases are packed FULL of items that you’ve sent for us to take.  Remember when I asked “here” for help? You guys overwhelmed me. We were just bombarded with things we needed to bless people in Honduras.

Everyday this coming week I’ll do my best to keep you updated on what we’re doing. Stop by and check in. And, thanks for praying for us.

Tables full of medicines that you sent for our medical clinics.

Little Berkley and Chloe holding some of the thousands of bracelets we recieved.

We’re planning on building LOTS of houses while in Honduras next month. It may be everyone’s favorite thing to do. There’s SO much reward in building a house, and at the end of the day praying with the family that is to receive it saying, “God bless you … this is yours.”

Sometimes people pay for a house to be built (about $1500) and we dedicate that house as a memorial or in honor of someone. This next month when we go, we’re going to build a house in memory of Lea’s mother who passed away April 2009. I’m not sure there’s a better way to honor this wonderful Christian woman. Here’s the plaque we’ll attach to the house when we’re done …

"This house was built with love in memory of Evelyn Keeney. May God bless all those who live here."

Many houses in Honduras look like this ….

And Honduras Hope teams love to leave a house that looks like this …

A group of 47 of us are heading to Honduras in a little over a month.  I just thought I’d ask this morning …. would you, your church, your work, social club, etc, be willing to help gather things up for our trip to Honduras?  We need some help with some little things to take with us.  The following are a few things we need and if you can help, please email me and I’ll send you an address where you can ship them. These would greatly bless our work there…

• STICKERS: Small stickers for children. The size of a nickel or smaller. The children LOVE stickers.
• BRACELETS: Yarn bracelets (See picture below). You can stick a bunch in your pocket and the children beg for a bracelet.
• COLORS AND SPANISH COLORING BOOKS: The children love crayons and coloring. Sometimes when there are long lines for food, clothes, or to see the doctor at the medical clinic, we’ll pass out colors and Spanish coloring books and just sit and color.
• MULTI-VITAMINS:Children’s and adult multi-vitamins.  Generics are fine.
• OINTMENT: Ointment for skin (generic) like anti-itch cream and antibiotic cream (click on link to see pictures). These are used at the medical clinics.
• PAIN KILLERS (big bottles) Acetaminophen (Tylenol) and Ibuprofen (Advil) in the generics (click on link to see pictures). We sort these out in sandwich bags and use them at the medical clinics we do.

Please send them no later than July 5th, to …

Trey Morgan  PO Box 239, 210 2nd SE, Childress, Texas 79201

When we visit the children's hospital in Honduras, they love getting stickers and yarn bracelets.

Last year my friend Tamie Ross sent me this package for our trip. Her church had gathered up this stuff and it helped us tremendously.

Yarn bracelet. 3 pieces of yarn about 12'' long, then you weave them together. The kids love the ones that are made with the brightest yarn.

Can you help with any of these?

Physical touch is powerful.

I love this picture … let me tell you why.  This is my friend, Marc Tindall, and he’s being Jesus.  Marc is loving on a person from the dump in Tegucigalpa, Honduras. Despite this lady’s stench and despite her filth … he loves her anyway. He’s concerned with her physical, emotional and spiritual needs. He’s being the hands and feet of Jesus.

Could you … would you … hug a person like this? A person who reeked with the smell of rotten trash? Jesus would. Marc would.

It doesn’t matter what someone looks like or smells like …. find someone to love on today.

“And Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man and said, “I will. Be healed!” And immediately the man was healed from his disease.” Matthew 8:3

(Update from Thursday, May 6th: According to our best guesstimate, we cleared $35,000 Wednesday night, so that the Dump Ministry can continue. Thanks to EVERYONE who gave, fasted and helped spread the word.)

Welcome to DUMP DAY 2011

This is a day that we stop to consider how blessed we are materially. A day we stop to be the “Good Samaritan” in the story Jesus told, choosing NOT to pass by on the other side of the road. We choose to help today. We choose to make a difference.

Today we are making a difference in the people who live, work and eat at the Tegucigalpa dump.

People of the dump. Dirty people. People who have names, lives, needs.

We are blessed people. We eat until we’re full. We don’t go to bed hungry. We live in homes that are MORE than adequate. We have an abundance of everything … food, clothing and “stuff.”  Please understand there’s nothing wrong with being blessed with material things, but not sharing what we have is wrong!  Just “realizing how blessed we are” is not enough. Feeling sorry for the hungry and the poor of this world is NOT what Jesus was looking for from us. Poor people don’t need our sympathy or our pity, they need our compassion. The same compassion that the Good Samaritan had, one that took action. For me to sit back and simply say, “How sad,” makes me no different than the Priest and Levite that passed on the other side.

So what are we going to do today?

Let’s give a little. Any amount would be great. Here are two ways to give. You can give via snail mail by sending your check to:

Honduras Hope

PO BOX 9222

Columbus MS, 39705 (attn: Dump Fund).

(This is a tax deductible donation)

Also give ONLINE,

You can give online by going to Bread For A Hungry World’s website, and on the top right there’s a “Give to the Dump” donation button. Bread for a Hungry World is helping partner in our work at the dump. They are going to add $5 per donor to each donation given. (This is also a tax deductible donation.)

I’m trying to encourage everyone to use one of these two forms of giving I just mentioned. I suggest the above link of Bread for a Hungry World because they will add to your donation.  I’ll also remind you that my Paypal button is always on this page, and while you’re welcome to use it, please understand that my Paypal is NOT going to be a tax deductible donation.

If you donate today, we’d love to keep a running total of donations. So if you don’t mind, leave a comment on this blog saying something like, “The Morgan family gives $100″, or your comment can be totally anonymous.  That’ll give us the ability to say, “We’re currently at … “

Also don’t forget that we have about 200 prints of this picture (16×24). If you’d like one that is signed and numbered by the artist, we’d like to give you one. We’re asking for a $150 donation for a print and it’ll be mailed to your home. It is essential that you include somewhere with your donation “I would like a print” along with your name and address.

PLEASE help spread the word today. Let everyone know (via Facebook, Twitter, blog, email, etc) what’s going one. Encourage everyone to give.

“For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink… I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.” ~ Jesus

Thank you VERY much!