MEET THE TEAM
Cory & Vicky Brown
Honduras, specifically La Esperanza, is one of our favorite places to be. It's where some of our dear friends live, home to beautiful scenery and a place we can rest in the fact that we are exactly where we need to be.
We need to be there - perhaps that is a strange thing to say - but we need to see our friends every year (maybe someday more often!). We need to connect with them, we need to see that they are okay, ask them how they are doing, hear them ask us about our lives, too. We love to remind them and to be reminded that God is with us and has not forgotten us.
Honduras is a thin place for us - a place where heaven and earth are not far apart, a place for us to see the face of God and a chance to serve with our whole being. It is emotional, dirty, hard, life-giving, meaningful, deeply spiritual work.
In a place where our efforts seem to range from big to small, we are reminded that everything we do matters and that the people of God are everywhere.
Phoenix Brown
Hey there! My name is Phoenix, and I am so excited to return to Honduras this year. This will be my third year as part of the mission team. I am excited to visit old friends and make new ones, and to see how all of the kids have grown up since we last visited. Building this house is important, but the most meaningful parts of this trip happen in the interactions we have with the community. Thank you for all your support!
Kyle Endress
We look forward to this trip every year, and we’re pretty sure we always end up benefiting more than the folks we go to serve. Granted, a family in need has a sturdy, new home to call their own by the end of the week, and that’s a huge deal when stable housing is one of your major daily concerns. But we get the privilege of meeting and working alongside the people of the “Ocho de Octubre” community, and they are some of the most amazing embodiments of perseverance, hope, and the Imago Dei that we’ve encountered. We carry their stories with us throughout our time apart, and getting to reconnect with them during our annual visit is like sunshine on our hearts.
STEVE & LESLIE HARRIS
Les and I have been going to Honduras each year since 2000, interrupted by covid for a couple years. Progress has been made yet the needs continue. Through the years the Imago team has constructed many houses for poverty-stricken families. Houses that will last for generations.
We have sponsored children, allowing them to get an education and at least making it even possible for them to break out of generational poverty.
We have made abiding friendships with many of the residents in spite of the distance and language barriers. These friends aren’t our “project;” they are our brothers and sisters whom we love.
It’s the houses, the children, the friendships that continue to reassure these families that we have not—that the U.S. church has not—forgotten them.
In enriching their lives even in the smallest way fills our own hearts with joy.
It’s our responsibility to serve the poor and simultaneously our privilege to do so.
Kelly Cohlman
**Online donations are preferred, but if you'd rather write a check — please make it payable to Imago Dei Church, and in the “note section” of the check write the trip member's name, followed by “Trip.” (e.g. John Doe Trip.) Mail the check to: Imago Dei Church, 2221 N. Gale Ave., Peoria, IL. 61604
Any mission contributions made above and beyond the financial need of individual team members will be used for current or future foreign missions of Imago Dei Church.