Fall 2004 Update!

Fifteen year old Pedro, one of the Micah boys, describes his childhood in this way: “I stole to eat. I robbed strangers in the neighborhood. I used drugs. I ran with the gang. I fought. I had no contact with my mother because she left for somewhere else. God, life, and the future were nothing to me. I thought somebody was going to kill me. I got sad when I started to think, so I didn’t.”

We form so many of our ideas about life in our childhood. We learn what is good and what is bad, what is safe and what is dangerous. The lessons we learn in childhood are great influences in how our adult personality will take shape. Can you imagine, then, growing up in an environment such as the one Pedro describes? There were so many sinful and destructive forces in Pedro’s young life that it almost seemed pre-ordained that his spirit would be crushed at a young age.

It seemed that the lies lived out in Pedro’s life are given a clear explanation by Jesus in the Gospel of John. Jesus says of Satan: “He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies.” (John 8: 44). Pedro, as with most of the Micah boys suffered the full fury of these lies from his very birth.

In fact, it seems that Satan had a full repertoire of lies with which to wreak destruction on this young boy. Pedro’s mom has been homeless for most of his life. She makes her living as a prostitute, and for many years she sold her body to men on the streets to scrape up enough money to feed her two kids. Before she abandoned him, Pedro and his mom moved from place-to-place, sometimes renting a room in the red-light district and sometimes living on the streets. In that environment, he watched others treat his mom as a piece of meat. Thus, in his early years, “truth” to him meant that life was up for sale, that he and his mom were nothing more than goods to go the highest bidder.

More than that, Pedro’s mom slipped into mental illness throughout his childhood. She would tie strange things around the doorframe of their house to ward off evil spirits; some neighbors began taunting her as a witch. Sometimes, after scavenging for food on the street, Pedro would come back to whatever hovel they were living in and his mom would not even recognize him. Sometimes, she would scream vulgarities at him and tell him to leave her and never come back. At the age of six years, Pedro learned another lesson in the Deceiver’s “truth”: the one person he loved sometimes wished he didn’t exist. His wretched truth blended love and hate to the point which they became indistinguishable.

After hurricane Mitch devastated Honduras in 1998, Pedro and his mom moved into a tent village, a temporary shelter for thousands of people who lost their homes in the hurricane. It was there that his mom, in a fit of rage, tried to kill Pedro’s baby sister by setting fire to the tiny cubicle in which this tortured family lived. His sister survived with severe burns, but she was taken away from his mom and placed in an orphanage. Before the same thing could happen to him, Pedro escaped and began a life alone on the streets. Like most street kids, Pedro became addicted to yellow glue, among other drugs. After getting involved in a gang, Pedro was witness to murder and rape. Survival became his new “truth” and the sad fact was that no one cared about his survival but himself. He learned that it was better to escape reality by getting high on yellow glue...since truth was becoming much too painful to bear.

But Pedro’s story does not end with Satan’s destructive lies Indeed, I tell it so that you’ll know that God’s truth is stronger than even the worst lies that Satan can tell! In fact, in the same chapter of the gospel of John that calls Satan the father of lies, Jesus also says this: “If you hold to my teaching, then you are my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” (John 8:31-32). Amazingly, God had plans for this sad, lonely boy—plans to make him His disciple!

Upon coming to the Micah Project in 2001, Pedro was an angry boy. Often, he sat on a street in front of the Micah house and just stared out at the passing cars. It’s not surprising that he didn’t trust us so much at the beginning. I’m sure he was asking himself: what do these people want from me? What’s the tradeoff? Surely this is too good to last!

But, praise be to God, Pedro began to open up to God’s truth! For the first time, Pedro began to feel what it was like to be loved without having to give something in return. The other boys in the Micah House took on Pedro as a younger brother and began to teach him that God is bigger than all the horrors of his past life. Truly, just as Jesus said, God’s truth began to set Pedro free.

In the three years that he has been in the Micah house, Pedro has grown from an undernourished little kid into a strapping young man. As he began to go to church and live his life in our Christian household, his heart began to change. He became a leader in the house, always willing to lend a helping hand to someone who needs it. In the various construction projects or home improvement projects that we’ve undertaken, he is always the first to get dirty and sweaty in order to help us finish. Pedro has also begun to visit his five- year-old sister in her orphanage, passing on to her some of the love that he is learning at the Micah Project. The first few times he visited, his sister cried and tried to get away from him. Now, she runs to him when he shows up and she clings to him, as they share a newfound love that neither of them experienced as children.

Lately, he has begun writing Christian rap music in Spanish. He’ll sit for many hours with a notebook, writing truth into it as he begins to learn it. He and another Micah boy, Jose, put his lyrics to music, and love performing their raps! In fact, often, I’ll get a call from some church or group that wants them to go and perform! What an amazing transformation: a boy who knew no truth in his childhood now preaches truth to others. Pedro is already becoming a disciple of our Lord!

When I see how far Pedro and the Micah boys have come compared to the bondage of lies that once enslaved them, I continually give thanks to God. Each one of them comes to believe God’s truth in his own time; it takes some longer than others to cast off the lies that entrapped them. On the part of those of us who work at the Micah Project, it takes a patient willingness to continually model God’s love to them even when they are still thinking “it sounds too good to be true.”

If there is one symbol in 2004 that these boys are in the process of turning their backs on Satan’s lies, it is that five of our boys are graduating from high school. After so many years of being told that they were not worthy of an education, they are about to achieve an educational level that most Hondurans do not ever obtain. And through this process, the boys have begun to learn that God wants them to be His bearers of truth throughout Honduras.

Because of this desire, all five of our upcoming graduates will go on to college next year. What they study and where they will study is still unknown; we appreciate your prayers for discernment! Our fervent prayer is that, as these young men enter a university environment next year, that they would continue to “grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ” and that this amazing truth would be the foundation for the rest of their lives. For boys whose foundation was built on lies for so many years, this great hope is truly a miracle and a sign of God’s awesome power.

As the Micah Project moves quickly toward our fifth anniversary in January, I want to take a moment to express our deep gratitude to you all. Your prayers and faithful support of our boys have been instrumental in this process in which our boys have moved from lies into God’s truth! I’d also like to ask you to prayerfully consider continuing your support of these amazing young men. There are many ways to support them as they continue to grow in faith and maturity. Currently, we need funding for our operational budget and for the scholarship fund for the five boys who are going to college next year. We are also praying that God will raise up people to come serve with us here in Honduras for a period of one to three years. And, as always, we are looking for prayers warriors to commit to pray for these young men!

Pedro, the same boy who suffered in so many ways, now says this about his faith: “God is wonderful, beautiful, and deep for me. I never want to leave God. At times I feel alone and see suffering, but I know God will never leave me and that always he will be with me.”

To me, there is no testimony more beautiful than that simple trust that Pedro and the other boys have placed in their Lord! Thank you for being bearers of God’s truth to the young men of the Micah Project!

Your brother in Christ,

Michael Miller

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