Since 2006, our parishioners of all ages have made annual mission trips to Our Little Roses Home for Girls in San Pedro Sula, Honduras. OLR is a refuge for destitute girls living in Honduras in the midst of abject poverty, abuse, disease, hunger and illiteracy. Our trips have led to significant funding and other support for OLR. Our visitors have also developed mentoring and personal relationships with the OLR girls as they have matured emotionally and grown intellectually into well-educated, productive citizens of this impoverished country.
For more information about OLR, please visit their website at ourlittleroses.org. If you would like to volunteer on the mission trip or support the mission team, please contact Marggy Ells marggyells1@gmail.com or Mandy Minger MMinger@drf.com.
In their own words
What I found behind the high and guarded walls of the orphanage was love. While overwhelming at first, the smiles of so many precious girls instantly breaks the ice and their wonderful energy and sisterhood is contagious. I soon learned that the lives of all 76 girls (ages 18 months to 24 years old in the case of those in college) are funded by Episcopal Churches and private donors in the US. It was clear that St. Thomas’ and its annual contributions of time, money, and love are contributing greatly to this impactful ministry. A highlight of the week for many of us was the opportunity to take a group of 18 girls on a school bus to the OLR Retreat Center in Puebla Nuevo, a mountain village two hours north of San Pedro Sula. The poverty I witnessed outside the bus windows along the drive to the center was something I’d only seen on television. The living conditions were hardly that – there is a world of people out there just trying to survive. Seeing it with my own eyes was hard to process. There was a constant reminder of how we are all God’s children and that it is all of our responsibilities to help people less fortunate than we are.
-Mandy Minger, OLR Mission Team Member
