AHMEN, Alabama Honduras Medical Educational Network is a faith based charitable non-profit organization with a 501(c)(3) tax deductible status. They have been bringing mission teams to Honduras for over a decade with 10 to 12 mission teams a year. Most of the mission teams are supported by their home church, which are mainly United Methodist churches in Alabama but those from many other denominations and states and even foreign countries also participate. Team members fund themselves and also receive private donations to help with the cost of medical supplies and expenses.
AHMEN teams typically travel to the most remote and poor areas of the country where they hold medical clinics and provide prescription eye glasses. While attending to their physical needs, every team also addresses their spiritual needs through the Gospel of Jesus Christ. AHMEN also supports a hospital and several health clinics. They build and supply libraries in remote areas, sponsor a deaf school, sewing schools, a carpentry school and a computer school. They support the Shalom House in La Ceiba, a home for at-risk teenage girls. They fund and support several feeding programs and soup kitchens for indigent children. AHMEN also holds several annual conferences, one for pastors, another to develop community leaders and a medical seminar in which US, Honduran and Cuban doctors participate.
AHMEN partners with Cruzadas del Evangelio, which has over 200 evangelical churches, mostly in small communities along the north coast of the country. It partners as well with CHIMES (California Honduran Institute for Medical and Educational Support) who build and support hospitals, clinics, schools and libraries here. Last year they began a partnership with SIFAT (Servants in Faith and Technology) http://www.sifat.org/about.html, which is a Christian non-profit organization that provides training to empower people to become self-sufficient. This year they have plans to partner for the first time with Save the Children, a large international NGO http://www.savethechildren.org/.
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We (Brent and Doris Brady) got involved with AHMEN shortly after retiring to Honduras when we met Larry Pitts, a retired Alabama businessman who was living here as the coordinator for AHMEN. Larry invited us to join an upcoming AHMEN team to help as interpreters. After meeting the team and working with them for a week in a remote coastal area we knew God had answered our prayers and we had found our calling. Tragically, Larry died suddenly the following January and we were asked to take over his duties. We now serve as coordinators and representatives for AHMEN and as such work to help the various teams with travel, food, lodging and other logistical needs. We manage the warehouse in La Ceiba where AHMEN stores their medical and relief supplies and join several teams each year as interpreters.
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| LARRY PITTS |
Although all this keeps us busy, we love it and feel blessed that we are able to do what we are doing. We have made many new and dear friends and have been able to travel to remote and beautiful areas of Honduras that we would probably never have seen otherwise. This year we will be making our first extended trip into the Mosquitia (the Mosquito Coast) the most remote area of the country and also one of the most ecologically important regions in the Americas. There are no roads and all travel is by large canoes, thankfully equipped with outboard engines. Although we look forward to and enjoy these mission trips we are always happy to return to our little island "paradise" of Utila where we have ongoing projects.
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| With AHMEN's Director, Dr. Tom Camp |
