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These
days, in order to get work done at my desk at the Micah House, I have to
dig out my computer! Our
new boy, Darwin, who spent six years on the streets with nowhere to keep
his meager possessions, loves to stockpile all sorts of trinkets on my
desk. On any given day, I
find simple woven bracelets (of his making), puzzles, balls, pictures,
shirts and a variety of interesting objects hidden away behind my
computer monitor and on top of my printer.
I guess, at this point, there’s no safer place for Darwin than
on my desk. To see the difference between the Darwin of the streets and Darwin in the Micah house is to see God’s hand at work! On the streets, Darwin’s emotions, intelligence and spiritual striving were honed down to one basic concept: survival.
Now,
as Darwin completes his fifteenth week at the Micah House, he becomes
more and more a part of our family. Besides losing the gaunt, sunken-in
look of a starving child (he’s gained twenty-five pounds!!!), we have
seen the visages of the streets begin to fall away from him.
He has thrown his creativity into crafts...his current kick is
making Christmas ornaments, and he reminds me at every opportunity that
it is almost time to get the Christmas tree out of the closet! Last
week, I feel that he finally began to trust me fully.
One day, as I walked into our little storage area, I tripped over
a ping-pong table that we have stored there.
Suddenly, I heard a little giggling voice behind me; there was
Darwin trying not to laugh at his not-so-coordinated Project director!
In retaliation, I started a tickle war, which we are still
battling out to this day. While
Darwin is still learning the ins-and-outs of human relationships, he is
doing remarkably well, considering his six-year hiatus from society. It
hasn’t all been straight uphill, though.
One day, during my three-week trip to the States in October,
Darwin got sent to his room for playing too roughly with one of the
neighborhood boys. Instead
of going to his room, he got angry and headed downtown, back to his old
haunt on the street and back to his precious drug. Imagine...after
all he had gained, all that he had been given... he was ready to throw
it all away to get high on a thirty-cent bottle of shoe glue.
But when you have lived in survival mode for your whole life, how
do you learn to think through consequences, to make decisions based on
your long-term outlook? In
Honduras, when a street kid chooses to leave an organization, he has
every right to do so, and the organization cannot hold him against his
will. When Darwin hit the
streets, however, the love that our boys felt for Darwin mattered more
to them than the law. With
Roger, our group home educator, the boys hit the streets in search of
Darwin. For two hours, they
visited all of Darwin’s old haunts. Finally, they found him in a little park in front of the
Honduran National Congress building. Darwin was well into his first bottle of yellow glue when the boys found him. They tried to reason with him, but his first response was to ignore them, then to get angry. Finally, after pleading with him to consider his future and all that he was leaving behind, he seemed to listen. But about that time, a group of older street kids gathered around and began to goad Darwin on. He resisted our boys, then ran. At
that time, the boys made a decision.
Should they let Darwin be free to make his own decisions about
life, or show him the true meaning of tough love?
They chose the second option.
The boys ran Darwin down and tackled him, leading him kicking and
screaming to our waiting van. Things
could have gotten very ugly at that point.
A crowd had gathered, including two policemen who walked up to
see what all the commotion was about.
It’s obvious that angels were surrounding the Micah van at that
point, because when Roger and the boys explained Darwin’s situation to
the police, they gave their blessing to the little “search and
rescue” operation, instead of charging them with kidnapping, which
would have been well within their rights. When
I called from the States a few hours later, Darwin seemed to have
forgotten the whole incident. Talking to Darwin on the phone is a lesson in patience, since
he needs long pauses in the conversation to process what you are saying
and to respond. It’s
more fun talking to him in person, when you can see the whole process at
work. When asked a
question, he crinkles his eyebrows, shifts from foot-to-foot and wrings
his hand while he forms his thoughts into words on brain cells that are
still struggling to get free from the effects of the glue.
Talking with him that night,
however, I was assured that he was going to make it.
He told me that he was happy to be back at the Micah House, and
promised not to leave again. After making me promise to bring him a
teddy bear, he disappeared from the phone line, not yet grasping
concepts such as “good-bye.” Fifteen
weeks off the streets would not have been possible without the support
of the other boys. As we finish up our school year this week and enter our
vacation period, we are focusing on two themes:
radical love and total honesty.
During the planning of our ministry and educational experiences
for the vacation months of November and December,
we are also challenging the boys to plumb their motives to make
sure that they are based on love, not obligation. How
different this is from the environment that surrounds the boys!
Honduras in recent years has been swept up in violence and
senseless bloodshed. The
reason? Thousands upon
thousands of teens and young men are joining gangs, trying to find some
source of community and meaning in their lives, which otherwise are
beaten down by a sense of hopelessness and a lack of options.
Gang violence surrounds us:
we have already painted over gang slogans on our house’s
outside walls three times this year. In March, a boy was killed in a gang fight two blocks from
the Micah Project, and in August, all of downtown Tegucigalpa was shut
down one day because of a gang turf war. In
the midst of this desperate environment,
isn’t it amazing that twelve young men are exploring how to
live a life of radical love instead of
“nothing-to-lose” violence?
I praise God as I watch our boys make decisions in their lives
based on their Savior’s love… Jarvin comes into my office to
talk as I finish this report. He
talks about his work at the crisis center, how much he loves the kids
there, and how much he is learning about God’s love by having to
display it day-after-day to a group of otherwise unloved children.
As he talks, his brother Darwin comes in with a band-aide and
asks his brother to put it on his hand (he has been hoeing corn rows all
day at the boys’ church and has developed a blister).
Jarvin continues talking about a couple of the street girls at
the crisis center as he doctors Darwin’s hand. Darwin wanders out and wanders
back after a couple minutes. He
is in a quiet mood tonight. He
hugs his brother from behind, resting his chin on Jarvin’s head.
They both talk—Jarvin about his work and Darwin about planting
radishes at the church land today.
I know I’ll soon forget what we were talking about, but I am
also just as sure that I will never forget the love that passes between
these two brothers as they enjoy each other’s presence after having
been apart for so many years. Last Saturday, Marvin sang at a
Mission’s conference held by a church here in Tegucigalpa.
One of the songs he chose to sing ends in the following manner:
“Whom will I go to in my need?
Whom will I go to in search of peace?
Whose love will change me for an eternity?
No one but you, Jesus, no one but you.” When I think about how many of
you are praying for these boys, guiding them to His peace, my heart
wells up with joy! I
encourage you to keep praying for them!
Starting this week, you can find our current prayer requests on
our website (www.micahcentral.org)
so that you can continue to keep up with us in prayer. I would also ask you to consider
supporting us in 2002. We
are excited by the ways that God will increase our ministry next year!
Even as we continue to disciple our boys, reach out to the kids
on the street, minister kids throughout Tegucigalpa with our community
library, and begin our scholarship fund, we know that God will continue
to expand our ministry in ways that we can’t imagine. It is our hope that, as you
support us, that you will also be blessed by what our Lord is doing in
these boys’ lives and ministries! May the love that God has poured
out on these boys also abound in your life this season! Your
brother in Christ, Michael
Miller
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