Preparations are underway for the Church of St. John the Evangelist in Duxbury to launch its first adult mission trip, Oct. 12-19, 2013, to El Hogar in Honduras. A service team of nine adult members of St. John’s will travel to Tegucigalpa, Honduras, to work with the children at El Hogar primary school.
Service teams come to El Hogar most weeks of the year to help with projects such as landscaping, construction and painting. But more importantly, a service team comes to be present with the children and teachers, to learn from them and to build relationships with them.
El Hogar Projects, founded in 1979 in the capital city of Tegucigalpa, is a mission project of the Episcopal Diocese of Honduras, providing food, clothing, shelter, education and Christian development to some 250 children, aged 5-18. El Hogar’s website is elhogar.org.
St. John’s, claiming one of the largest youth programs in the Diocese of Massachusetts, has a long history of mission team work with high-school-age members, focusing in recent years on working in New Orleans, providing post-Hurricane Katrina assistance. This year’s trip is a new venture for the adult members, and has been a great learning and bonding experience for the team members, according to the parish.
St. John’s has worked with the diocesan global mission staff and granting program, and with local representatives of El Hogar Ministries in Winchester to plan the trip. Transportation cost is a large part of the mission trip budget, and funding for this cost is primarily through personal donations from individual team members; in addition, they also hope to make a sizable donation to El Hogar. The group has received a diocesan Mission Tithe Matching Grant, funded through the Together Now campaign, and is in the process of raising the necessary matching donations. El Hogar also relies heavily on donations of supplies, which the service team will take with them to Honduras.
For information about the trip or supporting the effort, visit www.stjohnsduxbury.org or call the church office at 781-934-7811.