Sunday, Feb. 22, 2009 Santa Ana, Honduras Billy Harper (center) with his pastors “Corazon” My favorite Spanish word A few thoughts on the life and death of Billy Harper My friend Billy Harper arrived back in Louisiana today. When I left him a week ago in Honduras, we agreed to visit in a week. However, his flight into Houston was …

I left my heart at the Tegucigalpha Dump These two pictures are from the city dump outside Honduras’ capital city of Tegucigalpha. Over 300 adults and children live among the dump eking out a living from digging in the trash. Shown above are the crude lean to shacks built by the dump-dwellers. As buzzards circle, people scrounge and fight over …

The Honduran flag’s two blue stripe represent the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. The five blue stars are for the original Central American countries: Honduras, Costa Rico, El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Guatemala. Back from Honduras . . . with lots of stories. We had a great week of being in Honduras. As always, the best part was being with the wonderful …

The Door is Open To be invited into an Honduran house is a great honor and is always a favorite part of any trip. The hospitality of folks in other countries is so wonderful. It seems like the door is always open to visitors . The sweet lady, Reina, holding the picture told us, “Our home is humble, but Christ …

The Humility of Travel Santa Ana, Honduras “I’m a thousand miles away from home, Standing in the rain. A thousand miles away from home, Just waiting on a train.” -Jimmy Rogers “Waiting on a Train.” Travel—especially travel internationally—builds humility. In a foreign land, you’re off your own turf, you’re bad at the language, ignorant of local customs and culture. You’re …

Roy Greene’s Door This is a warning: Be careful with the doors at the Lake Charles Civic Center! I was there last week and as I entered the men’s room, I recalled Roy Greene’s story. The Lake Charles Civic Center opened thirty years ago. Amazingly, it was constructed on sand pumped out of the adjacent lake that gives the city …

Why I write I write for influence. The written word can travel into places– and hearts– far away from where we are. This is a picture of Josh Miller, a great great great great grandson of Joe and Eliza Moore. Josh is a student at Pitkin Elementary where I visit yearly for their Family Reading Day. Josh is looking over …

Another Iles comes home to Sugartown My Iles ancestors came to what is now Beauregard Parish in about 1819. Before you begin to think I’m puffed up about that, remember this: Most early settlers of this part of Louisiana called “The Outlaw Strip” were runninElg from the law. William Iles and his family found a home among the pine forests …

“A Hand up… not a Handout” From the book, Hearts Across The Water by Curt Iles Background: After the devastating Indian Ocean tsunami of Dec. 26, 2004, I traveled there with a medical group. In a small village called Garut, I listened in on the conversation told in this story. One of the Displaced Person’s Centers along Sumatra’s (Indonesian) Northern …

76 years of marriage—no, make that 77. They were always together. In my fifty years of knowing them, I can seldom recall seeing one without the other. And that’s how Uncle Gordon and Aunt Letha will live on in my heart. With the recent death of my grandmother’s last living sibling, Letha Reynolds, a marriage bond of 76 years was …

“You’re the Man” I wonder if they’ll give Captain Sully his “Broken Wing” award. It’s a special aviation award for safely landing a disabled aircraft. As you are aware, Chelsey B. “Sully” Sullenberger III is the pilot who saved the lives of 155 passengers of US Airways Flight 1549, when he safely landed the large jet in the Hudson River. …

This is an excerpt from my third book, Wind in the Pines. As I watched today’s inauguration of Barak Obama, I was reminded of an estimated one- million- man crowd I was a part of on the National Mall. This is a story of what God taught me there. “From ‘Big D.C.’ to ‘little d.c.’” …Sometimes the best place to …

Where is your prayer tree? Jesus, in His sermon on the mount, talked about having a place to get alone with God. In the older Bible versions, He called it a “closet.” The New International Version states it this way: “When you pray, go into your room, close the door, and pray to your Father, who is unseen.” Matthew 6:6 …

Thoughts from Curt Iles I’ve made a new friend via the Internet, Doug from Canada. He had several questions on self-publishing and perseverance. Here are some of my thoughts. On Rejection: Rejection is the badge of honor of any writer working hard to be published. In spite of the success God has blessed me with (sales of over 20,000 cumulative …