SHIPMENTS OVERVIEW
The AMIGA Ministry was created at OLPH in 2008 to organize and finance an annual shipment to Honduras. It began collecting clothes, medical supplies, and many other items that go directly to support operations during brigades.
A core group of 15 work throughout the year to carefully clean, inspect, sort and box collected items. All medical related items are also looked at to ensure expiration dates are well in range to be used. In addition, we send Handmade pharmacy bags (that are genuinely made with Love put into each stitch) filled with essential items, and medications. We hold monthly work sessions once or twice a month to sort and box items being sent, as well as monthly meetings with updates from each team member that help organize and put all inventory items together or unfinished business. There are also seasonal drives that we have for toothpaste and soap. Plus, we have 1 yearly collection from the parish for AMIGA. These monetary contributions are specifically allocated for the ocean-going freight costs we incur to get all donated items sent to Honduras.
Shipment is our BIG DAY at OLPH; our most current shipments occurred in September 2022 and April 2023. To view pictures from these two shipment days, click on the blue buttons above.
My participation and support of AMIGA – A Mission in God’s Amor, has thus far continued over thirteen years because I agree with how the organization operates. The basic health care and preventive health education is delivered to where the needy are, be it a mountain village, a city slum, or the nearby schoolhouse.
The traveling trained medical teams and supporting staff are largely responsible for their own travel and lodging costs. The mission has no paid staff. Its participants are motivated by their own situations and abilities to help.
AMIGA collaborates with local leaders on the premise that it is better to share knowledge and assets than to seek their dependency. The mission does not evade the most interactable problems such as the infant mortality rate in the indigenous population in the western mountain region and the inherent harms to health where 60 percent of the population lives below the poverty line.
Throughout the organization, fund raising is focused on three major expenditures: purchase of medicines and medical equipment, the cost of shipping by sea and educational programs.
I continue my association with AMIGA because I believe that how one accomplishes something is just as important as what is accomplished. Carlos Salinas
It has been my privilege to work closely with AMIGA for several years as a volunteer from Our Lady of Perpetual Help Catholic Church in Selma, TX. So many wonderful volunteers from AMIGA go to Honduras every year to provide medical aid to so many people who don’t otherwise get a chance to see a doctor. The people who are seen by these volunteers are so grateful and thankful for not only the very much needed medical assistance but also for the things that I and so many of our church volunteers are involved with. From our parish, together with medicines, we collect and send eyeglasses, school supplies, clothing, hand sewn prescription bags, baby clothes and toys, shoes, linens, soap, toothbrushes, toothpaste and knitted and crocheted prayer shawls for the elderly. I am very blessed to have been a part of AMIGA for thirteen years and I am thankful that I’m able to help in this very small way. Ruth Salinas
In addition to the following items, each AMIGA shipment brings love and light where it is most needed.
- Medical supplies and essential medications
- Mobility through wheelchairs (Knights of Columbus) and mobility carts (Worldwide
Mobility) - Thousands of handmade bags for pharmacy (one for each patient)
- Clean clothing, shoes and linens
- School supplies
God brings good out of anything, and He does this again and again in Honduras through AMIGA and the many people God sends into this Ministry. It is with great and humble gratitude that we recognize so many who work year-round to make our annual shipment a success. We recognize Evans and Dixon LLC and our many individual sponsors who continually and generously support this ministry. Thank you to our St. Louis parishes Saint Catherine Laboure and Saint Alban Roe who help us to provide sufficient Vitamins, Tylenol and other needed medications. And much gratitude to our Texas amigos at Our Lady of Perpetual Help and Good Shepherd parishes for your constant and great support and prayers.
AMIGA sent a relief shipment in January 2022 (basic supplies – clothing, shoes, bedding, towels – all of which had been destroyed by hurricanes Iota and Eta). And we continue to send an annual shipment that sustains our ministry and reaches so many of our brothers and sisters in need.
We are so very thankful to The Orden Of Malta (and Marlén E Garcia Aranda) for support and assistance with each shipment, helping us bring HOPE to the poor in Honduras.
Many thanks to our AMIGA colleagues in Honduras for all the work done in this country to unload the container, organize, and assure that the items get to the poor. Special thanks to Ingris Amaya Martel, Aly Gonzalez, Dr. Oscar Aguilar, Dr. Elisa Guerra, Dr. Kevin Sanchez, Rene and Carol Robleda, and Hilda Maradiaga. Their continuous, tireless, and selfless support of this ministry and their country is extraordinary.
With many, we live the mission of serving and shining God’s Love to those that most need it in Honduras. Our shared passion for bringing hope and relief to the poor through this ministry is a blessing to AMIGA, its sponsors, and to all we serve. We look forward to each new year with hope and with a renewed passion for making it better.