3 Americans on mission trip identified in fatal Honduras crash

<p>Perry Goad and Richard Mason loved mission work.</p><p>Their eyes lit up when they talked about their trips to help build houses and set up latrines in impoverished Honduran villages, their family and friends said Wednesday.</p><p>Goad, 45, and Mason, 58, were killed _ along with Martha Aline Fuller, 66, also from Georgia _ when a truck filled with charity workers overturned Tuesday in eastern Honduras.</p><p>The truck the group was riding in flipped over in rugged terrain in eastern Olancho province near the border with Nicaragua, said Honduran police spokesman Jose Andino.</p><p>Those killed and injured were part of a group of 28 adults from four church groups. The short-term trip was organized by Decatur-Ga.-based Honduras Outreach Inc.</p><p>The organization said that about 10 others on the mission team were injured, "ranging from head injuries to a broken femur as well as other non life-threatening injuries."</p><p>They were airlifted by the U.S. Army to a Honduran hospital, the group said.</p><p>Goad and Mason were members of Tabernacle Baptist in Cartersville, and Fuller was a member of Newnan First United Methodist Church in Newnan, according to Honduras Outreach.</p><p>Tabernacle pastor Don Hattaway said the church is working with the funeral home and embassy in Honduras to bring the bodies back.</p><p>He also said two other Tabernacle members, Carey Roth and David Apple, sustained minor injuries and are expected to return home in he next few days.</p><p>Ledy Pacheco, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Embassy in Honduras, told the AP the Embassy would return the victim's bodies to Georgia as soon as possible, but she did not give an exact timeframe. The injured were rescued and taken to private hospitals by U.S. military helicopters stationed at the U.S.-owned base in Palmerola in central Honduras, she said.</p><p>The flag at Tabernacle Baptist flew at half-staff Wednesday. The church, which has about 1,200 members, held a vigil Tuesday evening.</p><p>"We were stunned. We were shocked. But we are hopeful. We trust the Lord," Hattaway said.</p><p>At Goad's home in White, a crowd of family and friends gathered Wednesday.</p><p>Goad owned his own heating and air conditioning repair business and loved to work with his hands, family members said.</p><p>"He was a fix-it person," said his brother, Danny Gibson, of Dalton. "That's why they liked to take him on mission trips. Perry has always been inspired by helping others." Gibson said Goad often described Honduras as "where my heart is."</p><p>This was Goad's third trip to Honduras. He paid for all the trips out of his own pocket.</p><p>His daughter, Kendra, a 20-year-old sophomore and basketball player at Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College in south Georgia, said her father had always been her coach.</p><p>"It's going to be hard playing basketball and not having him there," Kendra Goad said.</p><p>Mason, 58, was executive director of The Etowah Foundation, a nonprofit that raises money for college scholarships for Bartow County students. This was his fifth trip to Honduras.</p><p>DeeJay Jackson, program director at the foundation, said her boss often talked of his trips there. When he returned last year, he said some of the villagers had recognized him from previous trips.</p><p>LaDonna Jordan, chairwoman of the foundation, said Mason was involved in nearly every aspect of the Cartersville community, serving on boards and volunteering his time. Before coming to the foundation, he owned several restaurants in town.</p><p>"You name it and he had either done it or was doing it currently," Jordan said. "That was his whole life: church, family and the community."</p><p>Fuller coordinated all mission trips for her church in Newnan. The trip was her seventh mission trip and her third to Honduras, but she had told the church she would retire from doing missions abroad after this trip.</p><p>Med Roach, senior pastor at First Methodist in Newnan, called Fuller "an inspiration to all of us."</p><p>"She believed in mission work and put her heart into it," Roach told the Times-Herald in Newnan. "It takes a special gift to do that. Some people talk about faith, but she was living out her faith."</p><p>Honduras Outreach chairman Jerry Eickhoff said in the statement, "We are devastated that this tragic accident occurred with the heartbreaking loss of three members of this outreach effort. Our hearts go out to the families of these individuals."</p><p>The group's short-term mission teams help bring fresh water to villages, build chimneys and concrete floors in Honduran homes and construct latrines.</p><p>Approximately 1,110 people take part in short-term mission trips organized by Honduras Outreach, Inc. each year, the group said.</p><p>Honduras Outreach describes itself as a non-denominational, Christian organization "dedicated to building life-changing relationships between the people of the Olancho province of Honduras and caring North Americans."</p><p>In addition to Tabernacle Baptist and Newnan First United Methodist Church the churches sponsoring the trip included First Baptist Church of Newnan and Cornerstone United Methodist Church in Newnan.</p><p>___</p><p>HASH(0x1cdeef8)</p>

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