A full time South Walton resident for just under three years, Jerry Kelly has visited the Emerald Coast many times in the past while on vacation. His wife Pam is the true beach lover in the family and through a series of fortuitous events, the entire family finally settled here by 2013. Their oldest son Nate and his wife led the way in 2013 when he became the Worship Pastor for Destiny Worship Center. A year later, a job offer brought Jerry to South Walton and two months later, his youngest son, Jonathan, who now works for Agency 850, and his wife made the move. With children and now grandchildren here, the Kelly’s are grateful to call South Walton home.
Jerry is a fifth-generation engineer/surveyor whose work has taken him literally all over the world. Before the move to Santa Rosa Beach, ownership of an engineering, surveying and development firm allowed him the opportunity to participate in numerous short-term mission trips including Peru, Argentina, Honduras, Dominican Republic, and others. However, it was through his first mission trip to Peru where he feels that his true purpose in life was revealed. Jerry saw the impoverished conditions that people were living in and knew it could be transformed through simple engineering. He formed the nonprofit, Solution Finders International, and wrote a book titled “Kingdom Engineering,” which parallels engineering/construction and the Christian life.
Jerry made several trips with medical teams where his fluent Spanish enabled the volunteer doctors and nurses to treat locals. However, there were few places fortunate enough to have a facility to see patients. The majority of his trips to Peru became construction based and while some building materials were provided, not were all available. There were no local building supply stores so ingenuity was the only solution. For instance, while in Honduras, he was building the lintels beam for a roof support but they had no rebar (steel reinforcement rods) to place in the concrete. “I noticed a tree,” said Jerry, “that we were able to get dry fiber strands from and stranded together became the rebar.” Poor countries do not have the luxury of building to withstand the destruction of weather, but if the people are taught to use what they have, less devastation would be seen.
Numerous trips revealed the necessity of clean water. It was evident to Jerry and the others on his mission trips that money and equipment can be provided by local governments, or even donated by other countries such as the United States, but it is not being done enough and people are dying from the lack of clean water. One solution Jerry was able to provide in order to preserve the integrity of the drinking water, was to use contiguous dry bamboo and create septic field lines (as perforated black pipes) and place them in a dug trench.
With engineering and construction needs in so many different countries, Jerry decided to do more from home here in Walton County in addition to the trips. Partnering with full-time missionaries, he is designing and preparing construction plans for facilities to house orphans in Honduras and Columbia. Jerry will be travelling to Colombia in May to begin construction of a 150-bed orphanage that he designed. He has also designed a safe house shelter for battered women using box car shipping containers. A trip to Honduras this February will include master planning future developments of “City of Refuge” for Impact Ministries to include a hospital.
For more information on Jerry’s mission work with engineering, please go to www.sf.international or email jerrykelly555@gmail.com or call 251-978-8399.
Author: SWal Life
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