10 • Spurs & Feathers
May 27, 2015
Taylor touching thousands of lives in Honduras by kyle heck Reporter
Jeffrey Taylor had always thought about doing missionary work, he just didn’t know how to get into it. He got his opportunity 18 years ago when his church in Fort Mill, S.C., Grace Presbyterian Church, went on a medical mission to Honduras. While he was not involved in the medical field, he used his computer and project management skills to help out the missionaries. A couple of years after that first experience in 1997, he and some others sat down with the people in Honduras and asked them what they could do to really help them. While the medical missions showed the people that someone actually cared for them, it was really just “BandAid” medicine, according to Taylor, and didn’t help them out in the long-term. The response was houses. Most of the people they interacted with lived in huts that couldn’t quite be described as houses. Most were made of sticks and had dirt floors. So Taylor headed back to the United States to try and figure out the best course of action. After a few years of planning and gathering people who wanted to help, Taylor led a group back to Honduras in 2004 with the goal of building houses. However, that wasn’t all Taylor and his people wanted to do. They wanted to go even further and teach the Hondurans how to build houses so that they could pass the knowledge around. “Our goal is to go in and empower the people and to teach them how to build their own house so that when we leave, they can continue to work,” Taylor said. Unlike other organizations that target people that already have land, Taylor’s group targeted the “poorest of the poor” who didn’t even have that. The people that Taylor were working with were initially not allowed to own any land period. However, they were eventually able to work it out to where the community could own land, but not an individual. With land to work with, Taylor and his people began to build houses for the village. As they worked more and more with the people, their work spread to other villages in the area and soon, Taylor was leading regular mission trips. “We’d take anywhere from 15-25 people on a mission trip and go down with two or three master masons that go with me,” Taylor said. “So I’m taking skilled labor all the way down to people that don’t know anything about construction but they have a good heart and are willing to work hard and hand in hand with the Honduran people.” 11 years later, Taylor is still leading mission trips down to Honduras one to three times a year. However, instead of just building houses, the group has started to build schools and even
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Pictured on one of the trips is Jeffrey Taylor in the village of La Gloria in Trinidad de Copan in Honduras with 90-year-old Carlos. hospital facilities. One of the mayors in the area was so impressed with their work that he asked Taylor if he could build schools. However, just like in the beginning when Taylor went above and beyond to teach the natives how to build their own houses, he wanted to do even more than just build a school. “A lot of the groups go down there and they’ll build a school without building the houses,” Taylor said. “If you can’t feed them and make them comfortable, it doesn’t matter if there’s a school they can go to. You have to start with the basics of having a roof over their heads and clean water.” Along with the building projects, Taylor helps to send back money to Honduras when he is in the U.S. to help support the people, whether that is getting teachers to put in the schools or providing scholarships for the kids. It’s a lot of work, but the reward of seeing the gratitude of the Hondurans is more than worth it. Taylor quoted an old saying when describing how important it is to do these trips. “When a lot is given, a lot is required,” Taylor said. “So it’s very important for us to do this. We know we’re not changing the world, we know we’re not even changing Honduras, but
we are making a difference in Honduras one family at a time. We’re just going to plant that seed to grow bigger.” Over the 11 years, Taylor and his group have built over 500 houses, half a dozen schools and two hospital clinic buildings in Honduras. Taylor has gotten help from people all across the country, from California to North Dakota to Virginia, along with the two churches in South Carolina that help out, Grace and Mt. Pleasant Presbyterian Church in Mt. Pleasant, where Taylor currently resides. “I didn’t dream of it getting this big,” Taylor said. “Over time, the word has just really spread and the work we do is very, very rewarding. People like the way we do these trips.” As a 1975 graduate of the University of South Carolina, Taylor is a lifelong fan of the Gamecocks, attending as many sporting events as he is able to. Along with building schools, houses and hospitals, Taylor brings a full bag or suitcase of clothes every time he goes down to Honduras and you can bet there is some Gamecock stuff that makes it down. “Every year, I have pictures you can see of me and guys down there with Gamecock hats on and then I pass out the hats that I have,”
said Taylor, who is in the process of rounding up extra clothes that the Gamecock Club can provide. After he retires, Taylor is hoping he can travel down to Honduras around six times a year rather than the one to three trips he takes now. His goal is to get other groups involved and help even more people around the country. What started out as a medical mission trip has now blossomed into something that has touched thousands of lives in Honduras. Taylor has seen and heard the gratitude of the people living in the villages that have new houses and schools and understands the kind of impact that it has on their lives, recounting a conversation he had with one of the leaders of the villages. “He said when we first moved in to this area, we really didn’t have any hope. We were just scratching around. And now that we have the houses and clean water and are working to have cattle and livestock, now we have hope.” “Without hope, you’re nothing,” Taylor said. “But with hope, you can do anything.” Please email Jeff.Honduras@yahoo.com for more information. Contributions can be made to Mt Pleasant Presbyterian Church (MPPC) note Honduras building. 302 Hibbens St. Mt. Pleasant. SC 29464.