DALLAS (BP)–Texas Baptists are delivering water purifiers, generators and more than three tons of food and medicine to hurricane victims in Honduras.
Flooding and mudslides caused by Hurricane Mitch, the worst storm to hit Central America this century, claimed an estimated 11,000 lives in Honduras and Nicaragua.
John LaNoue of Lindale, Texas, and Mel Goodwin of Longview, Texas, left Dallas Nov. 3 aboard a DC-4 cargo plane filled to capacity with food, more than $50,000 worth of antibiotics and other medicines, three generators and three water purification units.
The three units combined are capable of purifying 24,000 gallons of water per day. All three units were purchased by the International Mission Board. Much of the medicine was donated by Baylor Health Care System of Dallas.
A ton of rice, 2,700 pounds of beans, 500 pounds of powdered milk and other food were loaded on the cargo plane from Arizona, secured by Southern Baptists’ International Mission Board through GraceAire Ministries of Corpus Christi. Texas Baptists were sending in another 2,600 pounds of beans on a commercial airliner.
The plane was scheduled to land on Nov. 4 in the capital city of Tegucigalpa, Honduras, where the Texans were to make contact with Tim Patterson, representative from the International Mission Board, to survey needs and determine additional responses.
Once the supplies arrived in Tegucigalpa, they were to be distributed by smaller aircraft to Baptist-designated points of need by Taca International Airlines. Scott Dickson, an executive with the airline and member of First Baptist Church, Richardson, Texas, arranged for Taca to make the planes available.
After the DC-4 was unloaded in Tegucigalpa, it was then slated to fly across the Gulf of Honduras to Belize City where Belizean Baptists were putting together a planeload of food. Texas Baptists currently have a missions partnership with Baptists in Belize.
Georgia Baptists were slated to deliver another planeload of supplies to Trujillio, Honduras, and Mississippi Baptists were flying in food disaster relief goods to LaCiba, Honduras.
Officials with Texas Baptist Men have been in daily contact with David Harms, a Baptist medical missionary serving in Trujillio, Honduras.
Harms reports a desperate need for beans, rice, tortilla flour, powdered milk, sugar and cooking oil throughout Honduras, as well as anti-malarial medication, antibiotics and drugs to combat diarrhea and parasites.
In relief allocations, the International Mission Board has released $178,000 from Southern Baptists’ World Hunger Fund for relief efforts in Honduras, while the Baptist World Alliance has released BWAid grants of $5,000 each for relief work through the Baptist conventions of Honduras and Nicaragua.
