April 2002 Update

Dear friends, 

Young Darwin can be seen as a symbol for the last few months of the Micah Project.  The watchword for these months could be “maturity,”  both in the boys and in the project itself! 

Darwin has definitely matured physically since he left six years of street life last August.  Gaining at least thirty pounds and several inches, Darwin now looks every one of his fifteen years.  He has also become quite the academic in the past couple of months.  Last Thursday, Darwin finally learned the entire alphabet, thanks to the creativity and long-suffering patience of his teacher, my co-worker Erin MacLean.  Darwin made sure that everyone knew of his victory over the alphabet, going from room-to-room during the school hours of our home-schooling project to show everyone the alphabet he had written out.  That night, he forewent T.V., soccer and other free-time activities in order to write the alphabet over-and-over again until his 9:00 bed time.  The next day, he was able to read the word “mariposa” (butterfly) without help! 

But it was last month that our maturing Darwin made me “burstingly” proud.   For the third year in a row, the high school and college groups from my home church, the Central Presbyterian Church of St. Louis, Missouri, came over their Spring Breaks to support the Micah Project.  As is our custom, we spent some time on the streets ministering to the street kids.  This year, instead of visiting Darwin on the streets as we had in the past, he was the one chosen to LEAD the group to minister to his friends still living on the street corners and in the alleyways. 

Darwin was so proud to be the leader of the group.  At times  he walked a block ahead of the group, only to stop and wait anxiously for the group to catch up.  Finally, he reached a corner where eight or nine street kids were inhaling glue in various states of consciousness.  For years, this group of kids had been Darwin’s family—or as much of a family as a group of broken and lost kids could put together.   Any time a group of Americans walks through the streets of Tegucigalpa, it is bound to draw attention, but this time, the kids gathered around Darwin.   Is this “La Chancha?” they asked incredulously, using his street name—“Little Pig.”   They spent several minutes looking over their friend, who seemed to have grown up over night.  One of them lifted up Darwin’s shirt to make a comment about the meat on his bones! 

Darwin helped to pass out some food to his friends.  At the same time, he encouraged them to stop using drugs and to follow in his footsteps by leaving the streets.   One of the boys, Juan, split apart from the group to talk to us alone.  He lifted up his own shirt to show us a festering, infected stab wound on his chest.  He told us about the juvenile gangs who roam the streets, often attacking the street kids.   After a few minutes, he looked at Darwin and said, “Don’t leave the Micah House.  Don’t ever come back to the streets.”  He said it sadly, a little longingly, but what courage and compassion it took him to say it to his longtime friend!  

So far, Darwin has followed Juan’s advice.  He is already planning his party for his one year anniversary this August (he wants a party at the beach on Honduras’ north coast!).    Darwin is not the only Micah boy who is maturing, however.   While they suffer through many of the adolescent “crises” as any normal teen would, we see them clearly moving toward an adulthood in which they will “stand firm in all the will of God, mature and fully assured”  (Colossians 4:12). 

Sometimes, however, maturity comes at a price.   One of my most important jobs is to convince the boys to stay in school, to focus on their goals and not waver to the right or left, although many of them are several years behind in school.   Currently, we have three seventeen year-olds studying at a ninth grade level.  Although they were in the fourth grade three years ago and have been able to advance at a faster pace in our home-schooling program, they will still be twenty  or twenty-one years old when they graduate from high school and begin their higher education. 

Will they be able to delay gratification, to avoid the temptations of the world around them and to see their educational course through to the end? 

Most of them most assuredly will.   They have begun to form solid goals, and they realize how vital a good education is in order to achieve a life of service and leadership--a life dedicated to their Lord.   Oh, but what a long wait, when adolescent passions and energy are urging them to run forward at full speed! 

Last week, Noel weighed the options in his life, and he left the project, choosing instead the faster—yet illusionary—way to success.  Nineteen year-old Noel was the most behind in classes, having just finished sixth grade last December, and having only learned how to read the year before.  Add to that the fact that six years on the streets and on drugs, a much longer period than most of the boys, left Noel struggling both academically and emotionally.  For that reason, we decided with Noel to enroll him in a technical school this year to learn carpentry.  For a couple of months, he seemed to enjoy the technical school, and the sense of responsibility  and maturity that it gave him.  But, he also came home occasionally frustrated by how difficult some of the classes were for him. 

Noel began to listen to the wrong people.  They talked to him about ways to get-rich-quick in other countries—no education or preparation necessary.  And one day last week, Noel left the Micah House to go to school, and never came back.   After doing some investigative work, we found out that he and a couple of other young men from his school were headed out of the country. 

It is hard for us to know that our love, encouragement, teaching, and support were not enough for Noel to stick with his path.  But, as our oldest and farthest behind, he would have been 24 by the time he had graduated from high school.  He did the math, and to him, it didn’t add up. 

The other Micah boys are very sad for Noel; they believe that he closed the door on a unique and blessed opportunity in his life.  Thankfully, Noel’s hasty departure seems to have made the other boys even more determined to continue striving towards their own goals and not fall into the same trap that he did. 

Noel is the first boy who has left the Micah Project on his own volition.  As difficult as that is, Noel’s departure has helped us to mature as well.  For it has reminded us that we can only raise these boys for the time that God has placed them in our lives; ultimately, it is up to them to follow the calling that God has placed on them, or, to follow their own path.  Sometimes, their paths may not be as straight or as smooth as we would wish them to be.  But, as a dear friend so gracefully put it when I wrote him about Noel, “thankfully, we have a God who does not despair of prodigals.”  We must pray that Noel is one prodigal who will one day find his way back home, and who will learn his lessons from life astray. 

Noel’s departure also came in a week of intense spiritual warfare for the Micah Project.  It was a week in which the project itself was taking a step of maturity.   As I wrote last week, the Micah Project hired Jeony Ordoñez to begin a ministry with the children and youth of Villa Linda Miller, the community that we founded for 165 families that lost their homes in Hurricane Mitch in 1998.  You may recall that we felt that this ministry would participate in spiritual warfare.   The alcoholism, abuse, and familial disintegration in Villa Linda Miller are signals that Satan has his claws deeply imbedded in this community.  Thus, we had planned a prayer vigil for last Wednesday evening, to ask God’s protection and blessing in this spiritual battle and in our new ministry at Villa Linda Miller. 

The night before the prayer vigil, the Micah boys were playing soccer at their usual time and place.  Halfway through the match,  Danilo ran into another player and broke two of his fingers.  Fifteen minutes later, as Danilo was headed to the emergency room, Harvin ran into another player and broke a finger on the same hand as Danilo, in the exact same place!  After staying in the hospital to the wee hours of the morning, Jeony and the boys returned exhausted to the Micah Project to begin a day that would end with the prayer vigil at Villa Linda Miller.   Since the boys play soccer every day without breaking bones (ok, MAYBE one broken bone a year!!!), we believe that this “coincidence” was Satan’s way of trying to distract us from the mission at hand that night at Villa Linda Miller. 

Despite that fact, the prayer vigil was an extremely powerful time.  I will honestly tell you that it was the most intense and powerful time of prayer in which I have participated for many years.  I believe that it was the perfect way to inaugurate our ministry in Villa Linda Miller.  And, as one fruit of those prayers, we are already working with over 150 children each week in programs that Jeony and our boys have initiated at Villa Linda Miller. 

The day after the prayer vigil, however, is the day that Noel disappeared from the Micah Project. 

I believe that the battle lines are clearly drawn.  God has graciously used our work, and your prayers, to bless the lives of the Micah boys, and to begin blessing the people at Villa Linda Miller.   Satan, however, would love nothing more than to distract us from this purpose.  As the Micah Project and our ministries mature and reach more people, we will need your prayers ever more urgently, that we may “be strong in the Lord” and “take [our] stand against the devil’s schemes.” (From Ephesians 6:10-11). 

It is my prayer that you will be blessed by the victories that your prayers are working in the lives of our boys and those to whom we minister, and that those setbacks and challenges that we encounter will urge you to keep praying! 

Thank you for your willingness to pray and support the Micah Project’s ministry! 

Your brother in Christ,

  Michael Miller

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