But in the end, they gave in to another temptation: They flew down to Central America to care for 11-year-old mothers and to feed children so malnourished that their hair had lost its color and their teeth had begun to fall out.

The Comptons are freelance missionaries. Their lives revolve around the charitable enterprises they have established in one of the poorest areas of Honduras.

They travel there once a month. They home school two of their children, Camry, 14, and Brent, 8, so they can come along. So does a grown daughter, Lauren Keck, and her husband, Josh.

They operate a feeding station in La Cieba, near the northeast Honduras coast, providing daily meals for scores of impoverished children. They are building a pregnancy shelter for girls 11 to 14 years old who are victims of domestic violence. They also are creating an orphanage that will house 80 homeless children.

"The Bible says that to whom much is given, much is asked," says Barry Compton, a 47-year-old Osceola County developer who specializes in building small retail centers.

The retail centers are thriving, and Compton has funneled a good portion of his own wealth into the family's nonprofit enterprise, Open Door Ministries (online at open-doorministries.com).

Sometimes the money goes to hospitals: The family donates medical supplies to hard-pressed, impoverished nations' health-care centers. Sometimes it goes toward what Barry Compton calls "microeconomics" -- buying a man a burro to help him farm, funding a primitive fish farm, or purchasing a half-dozen bicycle taxis, so young men can make a living ferrying customers to and fro.

Sometimes the money goes out to a cause the Comptons simply cannot ignore.

Gerson's story

Last September, on a trip to the feeding station, they noticed a small boy whose wrists were heavily bandaged. Questioning him in their pidgin Spanish, they learned that his name was Gerson Garcia, that he was 8 years old, that his parents were dead and he was living with his grandparents -- and that, two days before, an old man, angered because he thought the boy was stealing, had attacked him with a machete, intending to cut off his hands.

Doctors at a rudimentary Honduran hospital had stitched up the wounds but had been unable to do the microsurgery necessary to repair severed ligaments. The boy's hands were useless weights.

Threading their way through reams of red tape, the Comptons received permission to fly Gerson to Orlando to have the operation.

"We have a three-car garage," says Barry Compton. "The way he looked around, when we pulled in, I had the feeling he thought it was where we all lived, and he was pretty impressed."

Jewitt Orthopaedic Clinic's Dr. Mary Lynn Brown donated her services as a surgeon, as did the anesthesiologist, Dr. Suresh Kannan. Florida Hospital provided the surgical suite and other services.

"It was an amazing thing to be a part of," says Penny Compton, 45. "It was very emotional. In the hallway at the hospital, all the nurses were crying."

Thanks to the surgery, Gerson recovered much of the use of his hands. The Comptons flew him back to his grandparents' home.

Breaking down walls

The Comptons trace their endeavors to save children such as Gerson back to the loss of a child of their own.

In 1986 they had a son, Branden, who was diagnosed with Hurler's syndrome, a crippling, incurable genetic disorder. In 1993, a year before Branden died, Penny Compton was standing in her kitchen late one night when, she says, God spoke to her, telling her that he wanted her to become a missionary.

"Here I was with a very sick child, and I was going out of the country? I was confused. I couldn't understand it. I didn't tell Barry for weeks. When I did, he just said, 'Maybe we are just supposed to increase our donations.' "

She persisted. That same year she went on a mission trip to Vietnam. Later the couple became friends with Rob Helmer, a former pastor of Heartland Community Church in Kissimmee and a pilot who often ferried missionaries to remote locations. Helmer was killed in a plane crash four years ago. But by then, the Comptons were well into developing a mission of their own.

It has called for them to learn how to operate in an environment where commerce and basic governmental services are often corrupt, threadbare or nonexistent.

One of their missions involves a poor district on the outskirts of a city, filled with those who live in extreme poverty, in primitive shelters. The place is called Los Dos Paredes -- meaning "the two walls," after the two barriers the government erected to keep impoverished squatters out of sight.

The Comptons are committed to penetrating those walls.

"This family, the clearest way I can describe them, is to say that they are very free people. They give of themselves, whatever they have, freely, and completely," says the Rev. William Kenna, pastor of Faith Harvest Worship Center in Kissimmee.

Kenna, who has known the Comptons for 15 years, is a fellow missionary, having helped establish a school and a church in Ecuador.

Last month, he traveled with the family to Honduras. He returned convinced that the situation in Honduras is the worst he has ever seen.

The Comptons are undeterred.

Penny Compton likes to tell a story about a man who is walking along a beach with a friend. The beach is littered with dying starfish, washed up on the tide. Now and then, the man leans over, grabs one of the creatures, and hurls it back into the sea.

"Why do you bother? You can't save all of them," says his companion.

"No," the man says, flinging another starfish into the waves. "But I just saved that one."

Michael McLeod can be reached at mmcleod@orlandosentinel.com or 407-420-5432.