InterAmerican Restoration Corporation

IRC has become a partner agency with Feed the Children/ USA.  God continues to open doors for us to help the poor and needy. Amazing that we can be a part of such a great calling to help and to serve. We hope that you will join our causes to just be used as servants of all mankind. Finding resources and doing what it takes to get those resources to the people who need them. IRC is just a conduit to make that happen but you are or can be the hands and feet that deliver hope to those who suffer for food or clothing, or shelter or just a friend to hold someone’s hand and share your faith with. Reach for the impossible and you will see how rewarding it is to be used in such a powerful way that you will never be satisfied just to serve yourself again. Only you can make the decision to change the world in which you live. So our advise to you is to take a leap of faith.

IRC has expanded our warehouse space in Tegucigalpa, Honduras. There will be some new IRC/Mi Esperanza Offices and a new store location at the same location but a much bigger and updated Store to sell the many products that are hand made by the women of Mi Esperanza. The storage space has been expanded to hold some five containers at any given time. Many TORCH trips send containers ahead of their trips so they can distribute the many items that they have collected through the year to bring the wonderful people of Honduras.

On an upside to service, we would like to involve the groups this summer in helping to clean up and paint a little and help Mi Esperanza make a beautiful atmosphere for the Women of My Hope to learn and be educated to provide for their families in safety while preparing themselves for the work force that they so richly deserve to be a part of.  Please let Mark Connell know that you want to help.

What an awesome donation from Phoebe Putney Memorial Hospital in Albany, Georgia. This bus is fully functional and self containing as a mobile medical and Mammography unit. This unit will be managed and supported by the Fundeih Foundation and the Una Libra de Amor Foundation for outlying regional hospitals that do not have the technology to give breast exams to these rural areas of the country. This fully capable bus will be staffed by Honduran Radiologist that specialize in Mammograms. It will serve some twenty regional hospitals over the next several years and will be a front line diagnosis unit for women that would not have had access to these services before. This Donation was made possible by Tom Gilroy of Millennium Health, Phoebe Putney Memorial Hospital, IRC and the Fundeih Foundation of Honduras. This bus will be unveiled on the Saturday before mother’s day in Tegucigalpa, Honduras by the Honduran Foundations and IRC.

IRC has been blessed with many donations over the last six months. We have shipped twelve containers since last summer. These containers were filled with everything from Hospital supplies, hospital equipment, Mammogram machines, developers, hospital beds, patient tables, guest recliners, IV poles, IV pumps, desk, chairs, medicines, clothes, food, shoes, wheelchairs, crutches, electric wheelchairs, 25,000 christmas toys, computers, monitors, washing machines, care packages and furniture. God has been good and has put some special donors in our lives. Thanks to all our donors and for those who made it possible to ship all these donations to Honduras.

Stardate 9.15.2010….
From the ready room, the work of summer clean up has begun…reports, web and Facebook updates, emails, receipts….. all the stuff that seems to pile up during the haze we call deep space summer. Mission MATT.25:38ff started with a group of 105 and ended with a group of 3 a…nd we had everything in between, and right in between we went where no man has gone before with a group of more than 160 and 4 groups at once! We soon realized that resistance was futile and moved at warp speed to figure how to transport, feed, and water that many people at one time in a country where warp anything is unheard of and not understood…..Dagnabit Jim!

All kidding aside it was an incredible summer and so much was accomplished to benefit the poor here in Honduras all because of the love and dedication of so many. All of our TORCH Missions teams were filled with volunteers who did not lack in enthusiasm, courage and determination. Everyday, volunteers invaded the city and worked diligently to improve the lives of those living in extreme poverty knowing that with each action the love and mercy of The Christ was being poured out over a hurting and desperate country. Mother Teresa once said, “Being unwanted, unloved, uncared for, forgotten by everybody, I think that is a much greater hunger, a much greater poverty than the person who has nothing to eat.” For a people who can look to no one and nowhere for help, the work done here in His service over the past few months became a direct reminder that they are not forgotten, that they are not unwanted, unloved, or uncared for. Thanks to all of you that continue to make all of this a reality.

In just over 2 months, or 8 weeks, or 60 days, or 1440 hours, how ever you choose to look at it…more than 80 homes were built for the homeless, thousands of bags of food delivered to hungry families, visits to orphans at nearly a dozen different children’s homes, inmates at the juvenile girls prison where ministered to and given a clinic (the first in 15 years!), hospital prayer ministry took place nearly everyday, medical and dental clinics held in remote locations and in city villages for people who otherwise have no medical care, concrete mixed and poured for a variety of projects, land leveled for a woman and her handicapped son to receive a home, food and clean water shared at the local dump community, a community daycare painted, new fence and new playground added, etc etc etc. It is amazing to watch and be a part of such an amazing amount of work.

Well it is official! Game on. This group begins the summer rush in Tegucigalpa and Marc Tindall’s groups are starting up in Santa Ana. These groups will be helping out the needy. Building some houses, visiting children’s homes, hospitals and delivering food, clothes and bibles to those who are in the path that God has laid out for our many groups this summer.

There will also be seven containers arriving in the next couple of weeks that will bring some much needed supplies. Two of these containers are loaded with donated hospital supplies. One is for some ministry happening at Lago Yahoa, with a well drilling machine directed by Mark Fitz. One is for ministries directed by Marty Smith from Georgia, One is from Terry Reeves for his group arriving on the 28th of June. One is from Tim Hines for his group arriving on the 14th. One is from Gayle Davidson for her group on the 14th. Mercy that is a lot of stuff. Thanks to everyone who made this possible. Giving freely is a blessing that so many are involved in and many have sacrificed to make it all happen. Praise God from whom all blessings flow!

Saint Vincent Hospital made a generous donation of  hospital beds, tables, chairs, night stands, stretchers, desk, reader boxes, refrigerator, fax machines, shower stalls, exam tables, exam lights, special ophthalmic table, patient monitors and many other needed amenities. This donation will be distributed to several needy hospitals in Honduras. Let me thank the good folks at Saint Vincent Hospital for going beyond the call of duty in loading two containers and getting them on their way to the poor and needy. Kathryn Sokol and Ray Dorocher were an awesome team to work with. Thanks to Ray for getting a team together to make it all happen.  Also thanks to Vanguard Health and the role they had in assisting with these donations.

The next couple of weeks will be very exciting in Honduras.

It is an exciting time. Many are getting ready for the summer groups that are going to be coming to Honduras. There will be groups ranging in size from 30 to 180 participants at a time. Most will be staying in Tegucigalpa and Santa Ana. We will have many groups that will be in the country simultaneously so it is gonna be a lot of fun. Fortunately we have a lot of great leaders with lots of experience. The groups this summer will be building houses, working on playgrounds, Vacation Bible Schools, fairs, soccer camps and tournaments, working on schools, medical brigades that will see hundreds of people each day, visiting hospitals and bringing a smile to kids and parents that are in the local hospitals. They will also be spending a lot of time at children’s homes and special needs orphanages. This summer is gonna be a blast. We hope that you will consider going with us an one of our many trips.

Please go to Torchmissions.com for trip information and discover how good it feels to help those in need.

Tim’s forth trip this year has been very fruitful. He had a chance to meet with the new head of INFAH, Suyapa Nunez and had a productive meeting discussing some new opportunities to help various children’s homes in Honduras. The new image of Honduras is changing fast and all for the good. Everything here is back to normal and many new opportunities are available for IRC, TORCH Missions and many other groups working in Honduras this summer.  Also meetings with he Minister of Social Security has been fruitful and we are now able to use their hospitals for doctors to come from the US to perform surgeries here in the country. Tim also spoke to a group of Drs. from the Little Rock area and is trying to partner with them and help them in any way he can. All in all these next four years appear to be off to a great start and we are looking forward to receiving donations that are going to help change the lives of the poor here in Honduras.

Haiti: February 8, 2010

Arriving home from Haiti less than 24 hours ago, I found myself selfishly craving 4 basics of life.  Food that is not in the form of a MRE or trail mix, a hot shower, bed and sleep uninterrupted by heat,  insects, helicopters, military transports and the crying out of people  in the streets of Port Au Prince.   You can’t come home to America and close your eyes without still seeing their desperate faces. The faces of anger, hunger, disappointment and desperation.     Many of the people barely getting by for the last 3 weeks with few resources and certainly an uncertain future.    The saddest of all people were those with no faith which left them without hope.

There are/ were 8.9 million people in Haiti. That computes to 330 people per square Km. Before the earthquake 54% of population had no access to clean water, 65% undernourished, 79% infant mortality rate, 52 % practice voodoo and a life expectancy of 49.5 years.

Although some progress has been made.,,,It is estimated that over 100,000 still lay beneath the rubble.

This was IRC’s 4^th medical team to send in since the earthquake including orthopedic surgeons, nurses, EMT’s and paramedics.  Most of the work is being done at hospitals, or what was left of them.  Medical supplies have been sent with teams and shipped with local resources.  I personally carried 800 pounds of medications and hospital supplies that were either purchased or donated by local pharmacies with me to Port Au Prince. The supplies and myself were brought over the border from the Dominican Republic by truck along with food provided by Manna Global.  Medical needs were met and supplies delivered.  Luc Bouquet, one of our members in Melbourne was thrilled to see some medical supplies as their supplies were exhausted. Luc looked tired from his  efforts but healthy. Within 24 hours of this delivery, our 2 pallets medical supplies shipped with Harris Corporation arrived to Luc as well. This was possible through medical contacts in Brevard County and many coming to my home to sort and pack out the supplies.

Our base was located in Port Au Prince at a friend’s children’s home, Roberta Edwards at the Son Light Children’s home. Over 30,000 pounds of food was packed out by 31 children and those of us that were there working during the time I was there. This food went to local churches to distribute and was distributed to “tent cities” in the evenings. Roberta is well known and respected in the community as a woman who will share what she has with others. The girls and I would spend the day making the food bags. We enjoyed teaching each other songs while we worked. They worked tirelessly, happy to assist in the efforts for their people. In addition to medical supplies and medical care, IRC provided a water filtration system for the house and a charger to keep it going without power. This system will keep germs out of the drinking water giving them safe water to drink. There were relief workers there, repairing the fallen wall and generally repairing damages to the property, each person contributing their gifts where ever they were needed.

One of the boys, 15, was killed by a wall falling during the quake. We had all of the children take turns mixing the cement and make a marker for his grave behind their home with their own hands. We hope this provided some sense of peace for their loss.

As for the country of Haiti. They will need help for a long time to come. One of the older children asked that we not forget them as the time moves along. It will take years to rebuild and deal with the death and destruction that has been wrought by this single disaster.

I was humbly reminded of the fact that we are all the same as God’s children. This was obvious by something as simple as a dwelling place. Tents…

The Churches

The People

The Relief Workers

My Place

Pray for Haiti…. Gayle Davidson