Miguel Angel Biography!

The miserable-looking street boy who spoke these words to us in early March, 2010, was 12-year-old Miguel Angel. Sitting in our dining room by the front door of the Micah House, clutching his bottle of yellow glue, Miguel Angel looked to be on the verge of tears. He had come to the Micah House with Axel, a street boy his same age. Though they came from similar circumstances, Miguel Angel seemed more desperate than Axel; while the latter had an impishness of a boy who knows how to run the streets, Miguel Angel seemed to be a lost soul terrified by his plight.

The problem with Miguel Angel’s plea to become a Micah boy was that we were full; in fact, in our ten-year history, we only rarely have a free bed. So on that first visit, we let Miguel Angel and Axel eat lunch with us and then ushered them out the door and back to the outdoor market where they would try to survive another day. But over the next couple of weeks, Miguel Angel kept coming back, sometimes with Axel and sometimes alone. His plea to us was always the same: "I want to live at the Micah House."

As a ministry surrounded by poverty and brokenness, we have to make hard choices every day. We have a stream of young men, from a variety of backgrounds and for a multitude of reasons, that show up at our door every week asking to be given a chance. But the urgency in Miguel Angel’s plea was different. As he persisted over the following weeks, we were reminded of the gospel story of the four friends that tore open a roof in order to lower their paralytic friend to Jesus when the surrounding crowds prevented them from getting near. He saw their faith, forgave their sins and healed their friend. Miguel Angel was showing the same persistent faith as these four friends, and we just couldn’t keep saying no. He moved into the Micah House on March 21 (and his little friend Axel moved in a few days later!).

The day he moved in, Miguel Angel brought his mom Kenia to the house so that she would know where he lived. This quiet and respectful 30-year-old lived in a condemned building in the market area that had been partially destroyed by Hurricane Mitch. She sold candy and cigarettes out of a little crate as she walked through the market area, trying to earn enough money to raise Miguel Angel and his teenage sister. When she came to visit the Micah Project, she thanked us again and again for helping to get her son off the streets.

In April, Kenia began to come to the Micah house a couple afternoons a week to join our Micah Moms’ sewing ministry. Several times, though, she complained of severe stomach pains and had to leave early. By May, her pain had become so severe that she could barely walk. Our director of operations, Becca Bell, decided to take her to a hospital to get some tests. The results were shocking: advanced, inoperable cervical cancer.

Kenia never left the hospital after that. Becca and some of the moms in our sewing ministry visited her almost daily, but her health grew steadily worse. Becca also took Miguel Angel with her several times, and he came to understand that his mom was dying. On June 15, she passed away after a few last agonizing days. Rebecca was able to take him to the hospital the day before, and he knew enough to say good-bye.

The days since his mom’s death have been sad ones for this little boy. We have stayed close by his side and have encouraged him to talk about his sudden loss. At the same time, we are awed by a heavenly Father who knew that his little son Miguel Angel would need a safe place to live, and would need it soon. When Miguel Angel came to the Micah House time-after-time and pled "please take me in", it had to have been the Holy Spirit moving him to us. And even as several drunken relatives dug his mom’s grave and lowered the casket down, Miguel Angel clung to us at the graveside, safe in the knowledge that he would be protected and loved.

~ June 2010


Above: Taken in March 2010, this picture shows two Axels (left) and two Miguel Angels (right). We snapped this pic just a few days before Axelito (far left) and Miguelito (far right) joined the project.			Above: This is the same group of boys taken exactly one year later, in March 2011. It's surprising how they've grown!