About Us
The Inter-American Restoration Corporation is committed to addressing the needs of impoverished, underprivileged, or traumatized people, both at home and abroad. Established as a 501C3 corporation in 2002, IRC has strategically incorporated first world resources, business practices, and efficiency with compassion and focus. The result has been to provide necessary and needed relief directly to the people who lack life’s essential conveniences both in the United States and in underprivileged nations. Bringing glory to Christ is our main focus and motivation, as well as allowing God to use us and our gifts to minister to those He has chosen to place in our lives.
Driven to satisfy the complete spectrum of the individual, IRC is dedicated to facilitating the spiritual, educational, physical, and community needs of the person. As such, IRC directs projects geared toward the revitalization of the whole person and the whole community, through many different organizational projects, experiences, and ministries. Providing opportunities that allow us to encounter the Savior, Jesus Christ, and help the disadvantaged through these ministries.
IRC Board of Directors The Inter-American Restoration Corporation came into existence in 2002 to facilitate ministry. The organization’s greatest motivating factor was to encourage and empower ministry by improving people’s medical and living conditions. Members of the IRC board were already heavily involved in short-term missions through TORCH Missions. Through the two-week trips, we realized that more help was needed on a full-time basis and projects were born to aid ongoing works in Honduras, Haiti, Guyana, Brazil, Nicaragua, and the United States with post-Katrina aftermath.
Our purpose is to provide these projects with guidance, finances, and assist in setting up legal and political guidance through our resources. Since the conception of IRC, land has been purchased, a women’s training program instituted, a children’s home begun, rehabilitation of gang members through tattoo removal, and a free medical clinic has been put into operation which provides medical care and pharmaceuticals to the clients it serves.
IRC board members also continue to lead TORCH trips throughout the year to build homes, schools and churches; to feed the hungry; assist in children’s programs; and general assistance to the poor through deliverance of needed supplies by sending containers of food, clothing and medical supplies throughout the year. We are currently assisting many of the poor hospitals and communities in the country of Honduras with badly needed supplies and ambulances. IRC’s vision for the future is to continue to assist people who are willing to provide relief for people who are in need and to empower people to become involved in ministry.
Tim Hines
President IRC
TORCH Missions Board Member
TORCH Group Leader
Governmental Liaison
Since 1994, Mr. Hines has carried a reputation internationally for his skillful resourcing to bring assistance to those in need. Tim is an experienced and innovative leader who is known for his advocacy for the poor and underprivileged both in the United States and worldwide. He provides valuable access to partnerships that are dedicated to the goal of providing needed aid to individuals in crisis. This includes many programs in Honduras, and this assistance as been invaluable in the recovery of lives following the devastation of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans. Tim has a B.A. in business development from Florida International University and a master’s in theology from Brevard Christian. As a youth minister for over 20 years, he has a great passion for training young adults to become excited about serving in Third World countries. He leads large groups to build houses; distribute large quantities of food to the hungry; provide filter systems for drinking water; and handles logistics of medical brigades. He has been instrumental in setting up micro loan programs for the Mi Esperanza Program for women, opening a free medical clinic in Santa Ana, Honduras, and acquiring land where a children’s home is located.
He is the director of the Tattoo Erase Program, which rehabilitates former gang members into society.
He has provided leadership and encouragement to missionaries, and has been a leading example to TORCH Teams providing humanitarian aid in the Southeastern United States. Tim is driven by a passion to serve the poor and underprivileged people regardless of their age, race, gender or social positionAs IRC’s liaison to the government of Honduras, Tim provides IRC with a relationship to the government that enables its work to be facilitated quickly so that much needed resources arrive at their intended destination in days instead of months or years. The government of Honduras has furnished IRC with a receiving warehouse where all donations are inventoried and sent to the organizations, communities and people to which they are intended.
During Hurricane Katrina, Tim relocated his wife and two children to the New Orleans area where he helped coordinate logistics for 18,800 volunteers in association with IRC, Hilltop Rescue, Camp Hope and the American Red Cross.
Mark N. HalbertPhelps Dunbar, LLP
IRC Board Member
Practice
Mr. Halbert is an associate in the Tupelo office practicing in the areas of labor and employment law, commercial litigation, and tort and insurance litigation. He has experience in employment matters, including employment discrimination, wrongful termination, employee benefit claims, and fair labor standards and practices, construction and other commercial disputes, and premises liability. Mark has represented both public and private entities and has participated in all phases of litigation in federal and state courts, including appeals.
Prior to joining the firm, Mark was an associate at Mitchell, Williams, Selig, Gates & Woodyard, PLLC, in Little Rock, Arkansas. He is licensed to practice in both Mississippi and Arkansas.
Education
University of Arkansas at Little Rock, J.D., with honors, 1996; Survey and Comments Editor, University of Arkansas at Little Rock Law Review
Harding University, B.S., Public Administration, 1991
Professional Memberships/Affiliations
Member: American Bar Association (Labor and Employment Section; Litigation Section); The Mississippi Bar; Defense Research Institute (Employment Law Committee); Lee County Bar Association
Community/Civic Activities
Graduate of CDF’s Community Leadership Institute, Class of 2004; Advisory Board Member, Policy Committee, Tupelo/Lee County’s Business Incubator, The IDEA Center; Member of the City of Tupelo’s Baseball Complex Committee; Past Member of the City of Tupelo’s Major Thoroughfare Committee; Youth Soccer, Football, and Baseball Coach; Presidents’ Council, Harding University
TORCH Missions member 2002
TORCH Mission Leader 2006
Inter-American Restoration Corporation Board Member 2006
Janet Hines, Founder
Executive Director, USA
Founder Mi Esperanza Program/Women of My Hope
Ms. Hines is the executive director/US for the Mi Esperanza Program. She is very involved in the growth and development of every aspect of Mi Esperanza’s programs, overseeing stateside fundraising, developing promotional materials, grant writing, and creating The Women of My Hope groups all over the US. Janet also represents Mi Esperanza on the IRC Corporation board of directors, Mi Esperanza’s parent organization. Her connection to the women and their struggles to care for their families is a driving force in her commitment. Janet is married and lives in Mandeville, LA. She has four children and three grandchildren, and all are involved in her work in Honduras in some tangible way.
Gayle Davidson, PhD
Inter-American Restoration Corporation
Vice President/Medical Director
TORCH Group LeaderFounder
Clinica de Esperanza
Ms. Davidson is the vice president/medical director for the Inter-American Restoration Corporation. She has 10 years’ experience in Third World countries mission work and humanitarian aid to Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, and West End, Grand Bahamas Island.
Gayle was a first responder to Hurricanes Andrew, Ivan, and Jeanne in Florida, and Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans. She coordinated efforts with St. Tammany and St. Branard Parish to run 11 shelters in conjunction with Homeland Security, FEMA, The Red Cross, and local officials.
Gayle worked with the Georgetown Hospital in Guyana following flooding and a leptosporsis outbreak in 2005. She currently leads annual trips for short-term missions teams each summer with TORCH Missions to build homes, feed the hungry, provide medical care and minister to children.
She is the co-director of Tattoo Erase Program in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, where she has removed tattoos from rehabilitated former gang members for the past 2 1/2 years.
Each year, she currently collects and sends four containers of medical supplies and humanitarian aid to the country of Honduras, and provides pharmaceuticals to Guyana and supplies to a Port Au Prince, Haiti feeding center. Gayle is AES certified with shipper’s export license.
Gayle is the founder and medical director of Clinica de Esperanza (opened in August 2007), a free medical clinic in Santa Ana, Honduras, which provides pharmaceuticals as well as medical care on a year-round basis. She distributes and supervises supplies according to the needs presented by a variety of organizations, including local clinics and hospitals.
Gayle has a bachelor’s degree in nursing from Harding University, a master’s degree as family nurse practitioner, and a PhD in theocentric counseling. She is a Florida registered interpreter for the deaf, a member of the National Speakers Bureau, and recipient of the Presidential Award for Humanitarian Aid from the Honduran government.
Gayle currently has a private medical practice in Melbourne, Florida. She is married and has three children, Amber, Shayn and Megan. They often join her in the mission field and have made many personal sacrifices to promote the work.
Mark Connell
Director of The Honduras Project
IRC Board Member
Mark Connell and his wife, Lori, live and work full time in Tegucigalpa, Honduras. Their first trip there was a two-week mission trip in 1999 with TORCH Missions. That trip forever changed their lives.
Mark is a former golf professional who spent many volunteer hours working with teenagers in his local church and, in 1994, went back to school at Lipscomb University in Nashville, Tennessee. He graduated in three years with a BA degree and worked as a youth minister in Birmingham, Alabama, for the next 11 years.
After that first trip to Honduras in 1999, they returned each year for two weeks until 2003. It was then that they were given the opportunity to spend their entire summer in Tegucigalpa, and four years later moved there for full-time work in May 2008.
Mark and Lori were high school sweethearts and have been a couple for nearly 30 years. They have two children, Ryan (28) and Eric (26), who are both married, and they have the joy of two grandchildren with one more on the way.
You Can Help: Compassion In Action-
How you can helpIRC is a 501C3 organization. If your company or foundation wishes to contribute to our work, please send your donation to the address on our contact us page. Make checks payable to the Inter-American Restoration Corporation. If you would like to donate to a specific mission, please indicate this on your check’s memo line; otherwise, all donations will go into the general fund. One hundred percent of all donations are directed to the program participants so you can be sure your donations will be helping as many people as possible. No administrative fees are withheld from the money collected and distributed to these projects.
