His name is Hope. That is how IMI describes the City of Refuge near Comayagua, Honduras: the first, the largest, and the prototype for every City of Refuge to come.
What began in the early 2000s, after Tom and Dr. Teresa Stamman witnessed extreme poverty in Honduras firsthand, has grown into a campus of more than 80 buildings staffed by 100 Hondurans alongside foreign missionaries. Ninety children are housed and educated here, cared for around the clock by tías and tíos, taught by a full school staff, and supported by licensed professionals including a physician, a psychologist, and social workers, plus agricultural managers with engineering expertise.
The City of Refuge is nearly self-sustaining, and that is by design. The farm, the feed mill, and the campus businesses generate food and income that fund the ministry, with a goal that captures the scale of the vision: to feed 10,000 people every day with protein, fruits, and vegetables.
The campus keeps growing. Recent additions include a welding school that teaches a marketable trade, housing for those in extreme poverty, and a grocery store that serves the community while supporting the ministry.
The work has earned national awareness in Honduras. The City of Refuge passes its annual government inspections and exceeds the country’s education standards, and local universities now visit the campus as an agricultural learning hub, studying the very model that keeps the children fed.
Every child sponsored, every mission team hosted, and every gift given builds on this foundation. The City of Refuge: Honduras is what “changing lives, changing destinies” looks like with an address.
