Since then, the Bridges have made more than 35 mission trips outside the U.S. Most have been to Honduras, and the vast majority either there or elsewhere in Central America. They went to Thailand in response to the tsunami of December 2004. They went to St. Kitts, a small island in the Atlantic, to reroof buildings after a hurricane.

Their first two trips were as part of a group led by the Rev. Terrell Ruis, but after that Bridges formed his own team. Mostly they do construction work, especially for churches.

Under Bridges’ direction, volunteers from the United States and labor from the native congregation pour concrete floors, erect concrete-block walls and put a roof on, usually of metal. In the construction trade it’s called “drying it in.” After that, the volunteers’ work is done and the congregation does whatever it wants to the building, which usually includes plaster on the inside and out.

“Eventually they come out with a beautiful structure,” Bridges said.

There is a cost attached, but it’s not for labor.

“We don’t give them a church,” he said.

Bridges takes with him a contractor, who gives an estimate of the cost of materials. Volunteers pay their own way and donate toward the materials, but the congregation has to put a specified amount of money in too.

“You get in on the ground and you get to see what’s going on,” Bridges said. “What makes me so happy is I’m in the middle of it!”

He said the people are “so appreciative” of everything done for them because they have so little. He told of a child at the dedication of one of the churches he’d helped build. The little boy, about 8 years old, came in clutching a shoe box to his chest — a Christmas gift from the Samaritan’s Purse organization.

“That’s the only thing that child had that was his,” Bridges said.

Bridges said that during a presentation at a Colquitt County church, he heard someone ask, “Why are we wasting our money in these other countries when there are needs here in America?”

“I didn’t get mad,” Bridges recalled with some pride, “because I’m doing all I can do.”

Since 1994, Bridges has worked with Georgia Baptist Builders, a loose-knit group of men who build about a dozen churches a year. While no member goes to every site in a year, Bridges has worked on churches throughout the state.

For years, both he and Ruth have worked with Georgia Baptist Disaster Relief. They’ve made 12 trips to Bay St. Louis, Miss., as the Gulf Coast continues to recover from Hurricane Katrina. In fact, they were among the early relief teams heading to the region right after the disaster.

“We couldn’t even get to where they were going to send us,” Ruth Bridges recalled.