June Photo Album

Honduras is an extraordinary country. It's rich and diverse natural beauty matches a culture and a people that share a strong cultural heritage. It has been my honor and deep privilege that Hondurans have allowed me (Michael) to live among them for the last eleven years. The people that have allowed me to call them my friends have been deep in faith, resilient in spirit and sacrificial in the way that they treat their friends...and even towards a stranger like me. Though I came to Honduras to dedicate my life to working with street kids, what I have learned from Hondurans and received from them far outweighs what I have given.

Despite all of its beauty, Honduras is still a poor country and has been prone to political instability throughout its history. Another round of upheaval began on June 28, when the army arrested the sitting president and removed him from the country. Since then, there have been daily protests as the powers that be are divided on the best course for the country. As I publish this (on July 8), there is as yet no solution to the political conflict. Please join me in praying for Honduras; that God's justice would reign in the hearts of her leaders and that the people, who have so much to overcome on a daily basis anyway, would experience peace rather than escalating conflict.

Above: one of many breathtaking vistas just outside of Tegucigalpa. Below: Some beautiful children from the Villa Linda Miller community smile for the camera in June.

Below: A group of friends from the First Presbyterian Church of Houston joined us for a weeklong mission's trip in June. This is the ninth year that folks have come from FPC and many on this trip have come for several years in a row. This year's trip was particularly special because three of our dedicated board members joined the trip as well. Here: they pose in front of the church in Villa Linda Miller after Sunday services. Pastor Jeony Ordonez is in the back in the blue shirt facing left.

Below: Micah board member Mary Floye gets a hug from Hector on the way to a fieldtrip with the Micah families. Behind them is Jose Daniel, a boy who lives on the streets. Mary Floye has been a longtime member of the Micah family!

Below: Tino's back!!! Tino moved back to Honduras in June after graduating from Missouri Baptist University. We are very happy to have him back! Please pray for him as he begins to look for a job and an apartment. Currently, he is living in the Leadership House while he gets re-acquainted with his country. Above: we had a welcome-back party and a graduation party for Tino when he got back!

Oscar and Marvin drove up to Chicago in the beginning of June with Micah board member Dianne Becker (not pictured) in order to see the U.S. play Honduras in a World Cup (soccer) qualifying match. Below: Oscar and Marvin (both in blue jackets) smile with Micah board member Erin MacLean in front of her city's skyline. Above: Marvin prepares to root for his team at a packed-out Soldier's Field in Chicago. Sadly, Honduras lost to the U.S.

Below: Marvincito kicks a ball around during a Friday soccer practice. Marvincito has struggled with his addiction to yellow glue since joining the project in July 2007. On June 26, he left the Micah House to go back to the streets and to his yellow glue. Thankfully, he came back to the house a week later. Please pray for this 14 year old as he continues to fight against his addiction.

Below: The Micah Project's activities' coordinator Roger Figueroa has developed a soccer tournament at Proyecto AFE at the city dump. The boys play in an official game every Saturday and practice on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Fridays. They have also invited some of their friends from the neighborhood to be on the team. The Micah boys pictured are: Back row, far left: Axel; fourth from right: Jason; third from right: Axel's brother Joel; second from right: Fabian; far right: Cristofer (goalie). Front row: far left: Wilmer, third from left, Hector (goalie), third from right: Maycol; second from right: Miguel, far right: Pedro Luis.

Below: Maycol, Jason and Wilmer pose with Megan Yarrington after dinner at the Micah House. Megan has a beautiful voice, which we found out when she sang a very soulful rendition of "Amazing Grace" at the Villa Linda Miller church for their Sunday service. She grew very close to the boys during her week here!

Below: The FPC team visits Gloria, a longtime friend of the Micah Project who owns a souvenir shop near the Micah House. Left-to-right: Susan Ray, Sonia Townsend, Gloria, Mary Floye, Jan Parks, and Luke Townsend.

Below: John Yarrington, the director of music for First Presbyterian Church, leads the children of Villa Linda Miller in a song (Dios es mi roca...) at the Villa Linda Miller church.

Above: The FPC team spends some time in the bustling market district of Tegucigalpa while on their way to visit Axel's house. Left to right, in front: Dianne Yarrington, Susan Ray, John Yarrington, and Jan Parks.

Above: One of the projects that the FPC team undertook was to begin to build the wall around the Villa Linda Miller school. They worked hard under the hot sun (and sometimes in the driving rain!) to get the wall finished. Here, from right to left, James Kearly, Bill Marshall, Becca Herbold and (at far left) Chris Herbold work on the top layer of the wall.

Above: Maycol takes a nap on the bus after a long day of ministry with the FPC group!

The last night of the FPC team, we had an open mike night at the Micah House. Above: Jose sang one of his best songs, "Dreams". Below: Danilo sings a popular praise song for the group. Danilo was home on a short break from his studies in Costa Rica.

Update on Marvincito and Hector

Above: Becca smiles with Marvincito during an outing earlier this year. Below: Marvincito and Hector share a hug during a trip to Valle de Angeles in June.

Below: Hector inhales yellow glue from a bottle after having returned to the streets last week.

This note was written by long-term Micah missionary Rebecca (Haver) Bell on June 30:

Today John, Jose, and I went looking for Marvincito and Hector in the market area... mainly just wanting to tell them again that we love them and are praying for them. We got soaked in a rainstorm, talked with a LOT of friendly street kids, but couldn't find those two. Finally, as we headed over the last bridge... there was Marvincito, standing under shelter next to a street vendor, puffing away on his yellow glue in his shirt. He stared at us, and let me hug him.

I just kept telling him that we love him, that God loves him, and that he's NOT alone. (He so quickly believes the lies that he has been abandoned once again, and is the little boy that no one wants and no one takes care of...) I had written him a letter telling him the same things, and had a Christian necklace that somone had given me for him, so I gave them to him and asked him to take care of them and read it later. He was pretty out of it, and quickly hugged us goodbye and stumbled off, staring at the letter in his hand. We left with sad and heavy hearts... praying for the boy we've loved for exactly two years now.

Then tonight at 7:30 Marvin showed up at the Micah House door... still high, still dirty, but saying he's ready to go spend a few days at Flora's house in Villa Linda Miller to show he wants to come back to Micah (that is the rule that had been set for him this time). Since there continues to be a 9:00 curfew because of political unrest, John and I grabbed some of his stuff and a mattress and raced out to VLM... as the glue wore off, he began to smile about how much math class Paty (Flora's daughter, and his math teacher) was going to give him.

PLEASE pray that he would wake up tomorrow with the desire to move toward life. That there would be a BREAKTHROUGH in these days - in his spirit and his attitude, and a marked difference in his actions. Before he comes back to Micah, we are going to need to have a very serious meeting with him, and explain that we are done playing this game, and give him some ultimatums. Pray that we would be wise, and that it would push him toward God and good choices.

Also continue to pray for Hector... the street kids say that he was with his brother and his dad today, and wasn't inhaling glue... so pray that this is true, and that they will be able to convince him to rejoin us and give us back the joyful and loving boy that we all miss so much.

Continue to pray for our beautiful country Honduras as well, that God's will would be done and that HE would be glorified in the midst of political upheaval.

Much love from Tegucigalpa,

Becca

Pray for Marvincito and Hector

Above: Marvincito jokes around with Micah board member Chris Herbold during a Micah House dinner in June.

Even as we continue to celebrate Wilmer's accomplishments (read yesterday's blogpost, below) we ask for your prayers for Marvincito (14) and Hector (13), both of whom left the Micah House and headed back to the streets this afternoon. For both of them, it is the fourth time that they have run away this year. For a deeper background on why this happens, read the blog I wrote about Marvincto here: http://micahcentral.blogspot.com/2009/04/coming-home.html.

It is devastating for us when the guys choose the path of destruction and darkness. We try to give them tons of examples of what can happen when they keep trusting God to move forward along the path that He has provided for them. Every one of our older guys is a living testament to that. We try to love them into a place of spiritual and emotional health. We try to provide rich and varied experiences on a daily basis so that they don't have time to dwell on their addiction.

Even so, the anxiety to consume drugs comes roaring back. Sometimes, certain things are triggers for the guys, such as seeing another street kid or smelling fumes from others solvents like yellow glue. But at other times, the triggers are deeper, more internal...urges from their past that creep back into their consciences and call them to go back to the streets and the glue. When these urges come on full force, it seems to alter the guys completely. No longer is Marvincito a happy and curious little boy who is fully engaged in all around him. He gets a different look in his eyes, a brooding and darkened one, and he wanders around as if he can't quite figure out how to settle himself down.

Marvincito has been ready to explode for a couple of days now, wandering around the house like a caged lion, picking fights with anyone near and getting in trouble in all of his activities. We tried all we could to intervene; long talks, encouragement, prayer, fun and engaging activity...but nothing seemed to settle him down. Today, he just couldn't take it any more and, instead of getting into the Micah van to head to soccer practice, he talked Hector into heading back to the streets.

Please pray for both of these little ones. And pray for wisdom for us as a staff as we decide how to re-encounter these lost sheep. In the past, we have gone after them immediately and talked them back into the house. As they spend more time with us, though, we feel that they need to begin to take more responsibility for their decisions (a tough call, though, since they will be so high on yellow glue for the next few days that decision-making becomes something of a moot point).

Pray for wisdom, love and safety for them as we make decisions in the days to come!

Muchas gracias,

Michael

Celebrating Wilmer

Above: Wilmer unmasks his spider man costume on his 15th birthday so that he can open his presents! Below: Wilmer smiles for the camera on his birthday on June 11.

Below: Wilmer, dressed as Spiderman, takes a hit at the Spiderman piñata we got him for his birthday!

To read this post in printable form, open it at www.micahcentral.org/blogs/Wilmerjune09.doc

Wilmer celebrated his 15th birthday on June 11. While that may not seem like a huge milestone for your normal teenager, it certainly is for Wilmer when you consider that it is the first time he has ever celebrated his birthday! Until last year, he had no idea what day or month he was born in; so limited was his education, in fact, that he really didn’t even understand what a month was.

Wilmer will pass another milestone in July: his second anniversary at the Micah Project. This is nothing short of a miracle when you consider that this little boy spent most of his life on the streets. Having a dad in jail and a mom with limited mental abilities left Wilmer in the dubious care of his older brother…the very person that introduced him to the addictive fumes of yellow glue when he was just nine. When we found Wilmer living with the other street kids under a bridge in the market area of Tegucigalpa, he was still just a little boy who loved to play with the toys and games that we brought to the bridge. In fact, the only difference between him and any other little boy is that he could only play the games we brought with one hand; he was unwilling to let go of the bottle of yellow glue that he clutched with his other one.

What makes the changes in Wilmer’s life so miraculous is how impossible that change seemed in the beginning. Going cold turkey off yellow glue left him with bouts of anger and great anxiety. He left the Micah House for weeks at a time during his first year with us, always going back to his bottle of yellow glue and his life on the streets. When he was in the house, his education was so painfully difficult that we wondered if the glue had permanently damaged his brain. Our patient teachers went through the ABCs with him for months, with absolutely no progress.

And then something clicked. Even as his body began to put on muscle and take the shape of a teenager, almost overnight he began to attach letters to sounds, sounds to words, and words to meaning. When he finally “got it”, he became a voracious reader, reading anything in sight. Every night before bed, he’d come into my office and read a few pages out of the children’s Bible that we had bought for him. Just a few months later, he was reading a real adult Bible in our devotional time with the other Micah boys!

Wilmer seems determined to catch up for lost time. He applies all of his energy and concentration to everything he does. He loves going to church, and has been memorizing Bible verses every week. On his soccer team, he is nick-named “the Meteor” because of his ability to run and run without getting tired. Last year, our musically-gifted Marvin Morazan helped Wilmer record a simple song about life on the streets; now Wilmer keeps asking when he can record ten more songs so that he can produce his first album!

Besides having great bursts of personal growth lately, Wilmer has also become an empathetic and caring young man. Every week, he helps his mom purchase groceries so that his toddler siblings don’t go hungry. He also goes with the other Micah boys every Tuesday to spend time with abandoned senior citizens at a nearby shelter.

Because all that has happened in Wilmer’s life lately, we wanted to make his 15th birthday a big celebration. Since we had a group of friends and supporters in from Houston, we asked them to bring lots of decorations. We hung up a Spiderman piñata, and had a raucous and fun party! Halfway through, Wilmer donned his Spiderman outfit so that he could do a better job of whacking the candy out of the Spiderman piñata! I think that’s one thing I love the most about Wilmer: even as he quickly grows into manhood, he still has the sparkle of an innocent little boy. After the chaos of the piñata, he sat un-hooded in his Spiderman outfit and eloquently thanked everyone for helping him get off the streets and changing his life. I could hear in his words the budding wisdom of a great man of God coming from the heart of this amazing fifteen year old second grader, just two years removed from the dark blankness of street life.

At the end of Wilmer’s birthday party, I called out what I traditionally do: ¡un abrazo cada uno! (A hug from each one!). With that, fifty of Wilmer’s biggest fans smothered him with hugs and words of congratulations. And as we hugged him, I think most of us realized what a blessing Wilmer is to us! His life is a clear example that God can redeem anyone, no matter how much darkness has threatened to rob the image of God from them.

Please pray for Wilmer in the months and years to come. It’s easier to be a fifteen year old second grader than it is to be an 18 year old sixth grader! Pray that Wilmer will continue to be patient with God’s plan for his life even when he is not changing and advancing quite as fast as he is now. And pray that he would know how much we love him and much we are celebrating what God is doing in his life!

Muchas gracias,

Michael Miller

May Madness!

Gosh, is it June already? Sometimes ministry here in Honduras is so intense that we forget to stop and communicate what God continues to do through this ministry. May was an especially intense month of ministry, from golf tournaments in Houston to street kid soccer by the river in Tegucigalpa. Take a look at the pictures below to see all the ways that God was able to use the Micah Project in May. We so appreciate your continued support and prayers and He continues to expand our ministry!

Click on each picture to see a larger version.

Above: Axel (12)and Juan Carlos (17) joke around in the Los Dolores market while waiting for burritos to take on our street outreach.


In March, we helped Edwin's family rent a room in our neighborhood after we discovered that they were living under a bridge. Now, Edwin's younger siblings come to the Micah House daily.
Above: Cristofer (13) manages to hold onto to the triplets (3) while their older brother Manuel (7) perches above him! Although, Cristofer is not related to them, he is really gifted with younger kids!



Another recent blessing is the way our ministry to our single mom's has progressed. Most of our boys' moms come from extremely impoverished situations. Last year, thanks to project supporter Jo Bewley, we began to teach sewing skills to the moms. This year, Micah missionary Kamia Paul has organized events for the moms every Wednesday and Saturday. We have been able to hire a sewing teacher to work with them every Saturday at the Micah house. Above: Maria (Erick and Cristofer's mom in blue shirt in foreground), Telma (David and Pedro Luis' mom, black shirt in foreground), Daisy (Daniel's mom, green shirt) and Aleyda (Maycol's mom, black shirt in background) work on patterns for dresses that they will be making under the tutelage of the sewing teacher.


On May 22, we received a team from the Memorial Drive Presbyterian Church in Houston. They came for a four day "vision trip", which was a chance for them to immerse themselves in our ministries and to learn about what the Micah Project does. It was a real blessing to meet new friends and to catch up with old ones! Above: the Memorial Drive groups visits with Pedro (21) in his room at the Leadership House. Pedro is in his first year studying civil engineering at a private university in Tegucigalpa. He is enjoying all of the classes except calculus!



Below: Memorial Drive team members Anne and Melody pose with Jose Daniel (14) during street kid soccer. We have been working with Jose Daniel for almost two years in the hopes that he will joing the project! Please pray for him!



Below: Memorial Drive team member Dick takes a moment to pose with a street kid named David (13) while visiting the market district in Tegucigalpa; Howard stands in the background. We hope that David will join the Micah Project some day!



Below: International School teacher Jenna Miller takes a minute from street kid soccer to chat with a street girl named Rosita. Jenna will be joining the Micah Project full time in August. We are excited to have this wonderful addition to our staff! She also took the photos (below) of street kid soccer.

Every Friday, our street ministry coordinator Dan Paul rents a soccer field downtown by the river. Between 15 and 20 street kids and youth show up for an hour of soccer. We have also been blessed by volunteers from the International School, teachers that come on Friday after classes to play soccer with the kids. This has been a great way to develop our relationships with the street kids! Below: Jason holds tightly onto his glue bottle as he gets ready to make a shot on goal during street kid soccer.

Below: Jose Daniel holds his glue bottle while playing defense during our Friday afternoon soccer outreach.

Below: Our street ministry coordinator Dan Paul meets with the street kids to plan their teams for an afternoon of soccer.

On May 13, our supporters in Houston held the First Annual Micah Project Golf Tournament. About 85 golfers turned out, along with 20 volunteers. The tournament netted over $19,000 for the Micah Project, which is a huge blessing in a year in which our donations have been down. Tournament organizers Tina Val, Jeremy Summers and Chris Herbold did a wonderful job in getting everything ready! Micah missionaries John and Becca Bell flew up to Houston for the tournament.

Below: John Bell lines up a shot during the tournament. Many thanks to all who participated, and to those that donated their time and money to make this tournament a success!

Below: David (24) came to Honduras from Costa Rica for a few days in May on a break from his classes. He is in his third year in San Jose studying psychology at the Universidad Latina. He also teaches Sunday school at his church in San Jose!

Below: Marvin Morazan (19) continues to study music at Instituto CanZion in San Jose, Costa Rica. Recently, Marvin wrote a letter to all of the Micah guys in which he said: "I have a thousand and one reasons to be thankful to our heavenly Father and his angels. And who are those angels? All of the people that get up every morning and give the best of themselves for us! Truly, each one of us has been chosen for a purpose."

For more information about the Micah Project, check out our website at http://www.micahcentral.org/ .

Graduation

Above: Cristino lived in a couple of different institutions before joining the Micah Project in 2000. This photo was taken in 1996.

Above: I ran into Marvin on the streets of Tegucigalpa the day before leaving Honduras after my six-month internship in 1993.

Above: Marvin and Tino graduated from Missouri Baptist University on April 28, 2009.

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I’ll never forget the day in November 1993 when I left Honduras after completing a six-month internship through Wheaton College. The day before my departure, I was walking through Tegucigalpa one last time and I ran into a boy on the streets named Marvin. He was sitting on the street corner, selling little packets of peanuts. I took a picture of that moment (see above) but there wasn’t need; that encounter was burned into my heart for years afterward.

I had met Marvin months earlier in a group home where I was doing my practicum with street kids. He was an incredible kid: smart, funny and a true leader (ringleader?) among the other boys in the home. But after getting to know Marvin for a few months, his old patterns took over—patterns molded during years of violence and abuse on and off the streets—and he hopped the wall one night an headed back to the streets. So there he was, on the day before I was to head back to Wheaton College, back on the streets. Stagnating…with no hopes or dreams greater than selling a few little packages of peanuts in order to buy beans and tortillas that night. This little boy’s dirt-stained face would haunt me for the next four years. It seemed that his life was destined to be brutal, hopeless and short.

On Tuesday, April 28, 2009, that same Marvin, along with Cristino Hernandez, made the long walk down the aisle of the St. Charles Family Arena to graduate from Missouri Baptist University. No, they weren’t outside the arena, begging for food from those came for the graduation. They were among the black-robed graduates that filed onstage to receive their diplomas.

Marvin’s story did not end on that street corner in Tegucigalpa. His heavenly Father moved in many hearts so that we could start the Micah Project in 2000. And though their families could never raise them, it was through the Micah Project that they met their true family: the church; a large and loving family that would pick them up, brush them off, and set them on their feet again. Thanks to that family, they would begin to walk forward, step-by-step, with increasing confidence. And, while they sometimes stumbled during their years in the Micah House, they learned to pick themselves up and keep moving forward, rather than fleeing back to the horrible yet familiar life on the streets. As they became increasingly sure of our love for them, they became increasingly sure of His love for them. And they began to sprout wings.

On Tuesday night, as they marched down the aisle in order to receive their diplomas, they did not do it as little, scared street kids unsure of their place in society. Rather, they did it as men of God, confident in His love and in His good purposes for their lives. I wish each and every one of you could have been there, for this is your victory as well. You did not give up on them, even in those times when their own faith faltered. You are the church--their family--and your consistent prayers and support for them gave them the confidence to keep looking forward.

That night was your victory as well. A street kid graduating from college? Surely there was a rockin' celebration in heaven over that.

Keep the faith because this is just the beginning!

Su hermano en Cristo,

Michael Miller

Two important links

Above: Marvin Morazan is studying music ministry at Instituto CanZion in San Jose, Costa Rica. He is already a gifted songwriter and musician!

Dear friends,

I wanted to share with you two important links regarding the Micah Project:

1. Some dear friends from Houston, Texas have been planning the 1st Annual Micah Project Golf Classic on May 13 in order to support the project. You can find out more about the tournament by clicking here: www.micahcentral.org/MicahGolf09.pdf. Please contact Jeremy Summers at j_summers@msn.com or Chris Herbold at cjherbold@gmail.com if you are interested in supporting the Micah Project by participating in the tournament!

2. Marvin Morazan, our talented young man that is studying music ministry in Costa Rica, has just produced a short music video of one of his songs. You can find it at this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMyp5ZtNei0 . The song is called "Madre" and he wrote it and produced it with a friend from another project (Proyecto Manuelito) named Brian Chavez. Marvin is the one with the braided hair that sings the chorus. The song is about growing up without their mothers. I've translated the words of the song here:

Chorus (Marvin):

Mom, mom here I am.
Mom, mom, here I am ready to ask for your forgiveness.

Verse 1 (Brian):

Mom, I'm 19 now and I'm not the same boy,
I don't run the streets any more creating disasters,
I go to church now and I spend my time praising Him,
writing for Him because He is the one who filled my heart with love;
and I know that in the past I have failed you, and I ask your forgiveness.
Mom, I love you, I love you so much that one day I want to be with you
at the throne of the Sovereign One.

Chorus: Mom, mom, here I am. Mom, here I am ready to ask for your forgiveness.

Verse II (Marvin):

Tell me how many times I cried, how many times I desired your hugs,
How many times I was alone and I shouted your name,
Wanting to see your face...
I cried, I cried,
even when I was little, I woke up hoping to see you the next day, mom...
with tears running down my face, I shouted
that I needed you, every night I needed a kiss from you.
I waited and waited every night,
and I prayed to God while I waited...
that He would take care of you,
and that one day you would come looking for me,
I didn't every want to be separated from you, but that was God's will
so that I could some day show you all of my love.

Chorus: Mom, mom, here I am,
Mom, here I am asking you to forgive me.