Within 10 days in November, two category 4 hurricanes – Eta and Iota – hit Central America causing widespread devastation. The tiny country of Honduras was one of the hardest hit. The storms destroyed bridges, roads, schools and health clinics. Families lost their homes, farms and businesses to floodwaters. Landslides packed small downtown plazas with mud. Hundreds of thousands of Hondurans remain homeless. In the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic, many are crowded into shelters with little or no protection.

Reports of the devastation prompted Dallas Bishop George Sumner to launch a diocesan-wide effort to gather and send hurricane relief supplies to Honduras Bishop Lloyd Allen. In his message to clergy in the diocese, Bishop Sumner said, “I pray we join hands in reaching out to our neighbors in their time of need.” The Episcopal Diocese of Dallas has a long history of working with the Honduras Diocese. Several north Texas area churches have made yearly mission trips to provide medical treatment and supplies, build housing and community facilities, and support education programs for children and youth.

Bishop Sumner asked St. Luke’s in Dallas to coordinate the collection and distribution of the hurricane relief supplies. Rector Mark Anderson, along with Carol Taylor, who has spearheaded the church’s Honduras mission trips for more than 25 years, and Junior Warden Jamey Ryan organized receiving, packing, and shipping the supplies. St. Luke’s volunteers cataloged, sorted, boxed, and weighed the donations, and on Saturday, December 12 loaded a 40-foot container for shipping to Honduras. The container left St. Luke’s for the Port of Houston on Monday.

In all, nearly 34,000 individual items ranging from clothing, cleaning supplies, baby supplies, food staples, sanitation masks, hardware and tools were donated. A complete elementary school classroom for fifty children, including desks, chairs, storage bins, and school supplies was sent to Honduras. Nearly 8 tons of donated goods was packed in the shipping container valued at nearly $40,000. In addition, individuals and churches in the diocese donated more than $14,000 to the effort. The container is expected to arrive in Honduras before the first of the New Year.