Project trip- "Valley of the Blessings" Danli, Honduras

We arrived in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, Sat. Feb 18, where we met the rest of the eMi team. Our team was made up of 14 professionals who graciously gave up a week of their life - family, career, etc. - to volunteer their services for the eMi project in Danli. This is mainly how eMi functions. Professional volunteers offer their services for a week to gather any needed information about a project and spend the next few months after the trip in coordination with the full-time staff and interns of eMi to produce a complete project.

Tim, Zach, Esther and I are the EMI staff and interns that came from Costa Rica.  The couple in front are the missionaries, Trisha and Marlon. The rest are volunteers who came from all over the world.

The missionaries: My previous blog post shared a little about the missionaries we partnered with in Honduras. Trisha and Marlon Muñoz are definitely a neat couple with an awesome testimony.

Marlon is a Honduran who had a desire to learn about God from a young age. He grew up in the church and loved to serve. He worked for the Honduran government for a while and enjoyed it. But God kept saying, “I want you to serve Me.” Marlon answered, “That is fine God, I am going to keep my job and serve you part time.” He wanted to serve, but didn’t want to quit his job. However, the Holy Spirit kept convicting him and Marlon didn’t have peace in his heart.  Eventually he put his hands up and said “Ok God, I will give up everything and serve You.” He then quit his job to begin serving God full time.

Trisha is an American, a nurse from Louisiana who took several mission trips to Honduras when she was younger. On one of these trips God told her that Honduras would be her home. So she moved to Honduras, leaving behind a longtime boyfriend, a job she loved, and security about the future.  Trisha began her new life in Honduras as a missionary traveling with others to remote areas within the country.

On one of Trisha’s short term mission trips they shared the Gospel with a village, but later, when Trisha and the rest of the team were in their tents, the people of the village came to kill them. They began dragging away Trisha’s tent with her in it. The rest of the team stopped them. At the time Trisha was thinking, “God, is this how it is going to be when go out and tell others about You? I don’t know if I want to do this.” However, one of the men on her team, Marlon, shared the Gospel with the men who tried to kill them. By the end of the night, the men accepted Christ. Trisha thought, “God, if this is what it takes for people to come to You, I’m in.”

After serving for over a year together, Marlon and Trisha finally started to notice each other.  They got married in 2005 and now have a two year old daughter, Madison. They continue to travel to remote villages in Southern Honduras to share the Gospel. The indigenous people in these villages are hungry to know more of Jesus.  God has given Marlon and Trisha a vision of growing their ministry together.

The architect, master planner and me meeting with the Muñoz family early in the week for preliminary programming of the project.

Late night meetings with Trisha and Marlon to show them stages of the design process.

The Project: eMi came to Danli to help the Muñoz family's vision become reality. They had a vision from God to buy 62 acres of land to provide a ministry campus.  We spent one week surveying the site in order to start our design.  


Our plan is divided into two phases.
Phase One:
Mission House
Director's House
Guard House
Water Wells
Storage Building Facility
Community Garden
Outdoor Baptismal Pool
Multi-purpose Gathering Space 
Recreational Facility


Phase Two:
Pastoral Conference Center
Pastor's Vocational School
Long-term and Full-time staff Missionary Cabanas
Medical Mid-wife Training Center

Our surveying team went out to the site every day. The architect, master planner and I stayed in the Muñoz home where we worked on our design concept and started drafting. The other engineers researched local building materials and talked with local contractors about construction methods used in Latin America. 

Our project leader, Tim, talking with a local contractor on construction and building materials.

Utility tables + picnic tablecloth + lots of power strips = EMI field office

The architect, master planner and I worked late hours every night because the architecture work had to get done before the structural engineering work could start.


Our team that week provided architectural and structural engineering services, surveying, master planning, water and waste-water management, electrical engineering, and alternative energy engineering. 


The final presentation to the ministry was on the last day of the trip.  Local pastors were invited to attend the presentation, as they are excited for this vision.  Every member of the team presented their portion of the project and research they gathered that week. We had translators for the presentation.  I was given the design of the Director's House to complete by myself.  So to the best of my ability, I presented the design in Spanish.

Presenting my design of the Director's House in Spanish

One of my favorite things about this trip is that while working, God was constantly reminding me of the greater purpose of the buildings we were designing. Our work will help the Muñoz ministry to further the Kingdom and bring others to Christ.


Thank you for praying for health, safety and unity within the team. God answered these prayers and blessed us immensely our week in Honduras.