In 2001 Amy and I started Louder Than Words Mission Adventures.  We left our church job and set out on a new journey to mobilize people to be strategically involved in international missions.  Our primary missions focus over these past 10 years has been Honduras.  The name “Louder Than Words” came from Matthew 5:16.  The “missions adventures” came from the fact that our mission trips have at times been a little adventurous.

In a few days, LTW will take our name to a new level.  We will set out  from the small village of San Nicolas, Intibuca, Honduras (basically at the end of the road) with a group of 13 North Americans on a journey that will take us into 5 unreached Lenca villages.  A little over half of the team members are college students from Mars Hill College (my alma mater).  The remainder of the adults are from North Point Baptist in Weaverville, NC and Bethlehem Church in Gastonia, NC.  This trip is a part of an ongoing LTW strategy to connect churches with approx. 200 Lenca villages in Honduars.  You can read more about this particular trip in an older post here.

Since 2011 I have led about 50 mission teams to Honduras, but this one has to be the most adventurous.  Not only is it the sense of the unknown, but the fact that we have trusted our  national Honduran missionary partners with lining up all of the details.  Yes, I’ve been on mission trips to Honduras where our national partners did all the pre-logistics, but we were going to one place and staying for the week.  On this trip we will be going to places with whom we don’t have relationship and we’ll be sleeping in a new village each day.  The trust factor is a great thing for LTW and for our national ministry partners, but I confess it has left me feeling a bit out of control.  I guess that is a big part of the “adventure” and the faith building journey of leading this ministry.

If you have read this far, thanks for your time and interest in this missions adventure.  If you are the praying type, I would invite you to join us on this journey through your prayers.  The overarching goal of this trip is to share the Good News of Jesus with the Lenca people.  We would be honored if you took the time to lift up the prayer points below:

• Pray for physical stamina.  We will be hiking several hours each day in elevations over 5,000 ft.  (I’m a little concerned because I’m the oldest team member and probably the most “out-of-shape” . . . even though I did lose over 20 lbs.)
• Pray for the team members by name:  Mark, Chris, Vollie, Ben, Andy, Jonathan, Brady, Caroline, Megan, Rachael, Matt, Jon & Gerald.  Many of these are college students as well as first time missionaries.
• Pray for our Honduran missionary team by name:  Erick, Daniel, Armando, Jorge & Roy
• Pray for the villages of Piedra Rayada, El Naranjo, El Venado, La Chorrera & Santa Ana to be open to the Gospel
• Pray for our housing each night in each of the villages.  We have plans to stay in the local schools.
• Pray for our families in NC while we are in Honduras.
• Pray that the enemy’s roadblocks would be leveled by the power of God and that the Truth of the Gospel would be shared with boldness.

We plan to send out updates from the trail periodically.  If you would like to follow along you can do so here.  Thanks in advance for your prayers for our team and the Lenca people.  I’ll certainly update when we return.