Micah Project Update:  September, 2001

 Can God take a situation filled with evil, destruction and hate, and somehow bring His good out of it?  In my life, the people most able to answer this question are the twelve boys who live at the Micah Project.   Each one of them has experienced tragedy from the very beginning, when they were born into impoverished and often violent homes.  Each one of them fled their homes hoping to escape this tragedy, only to find a quasi-human, horror-filled existence awaiting them on the streets.  

Yet each one of them thanks God for his life.  How can that be?  How can they not be embittered by the nightmare that has been their childhoods?   Yet each one of them will tell you this:  God’s love is greater than the human evil that put them into the streets. 

Last Thursday evening, as we sat chatting with a guest in the Micah House library, she asked the boys if they were able to forgive their fathers for what they did to them.  An important question, since escaping the alcohol-induced rage of their fathers was a major reason that most of them fled to the streets.  After a few minutes, each one of them began to say that yes, sooner or later he had been able to forgive his father.   One said that he hated his father for many years.  But after he began to understand God’s forgiveness of our sin through Jesus Christ, he was slowly able to forgive his father.   As testimony to that, this same boy gave all of his savings to his grandmother last week so that they could get his dad into a treatment center for alcoholics. 

What an amazing testimony--to see our boys forgiving those whom most damaged them!  To forgive those who have wrought evil in our lives is to truly and radically take on the attitude of our Savior. 

As most of you, the boys and I watched in horror as evil claimed so many lives on Tuesday, September 11.   We sat not wanting to watch, yet not able to do anything else.  For hours we sat, not being able to grasp the truth, even though CNN’s horribly graphic and repetitive coverage slammed it in our faces time and time again.   On the second day, when we began to see the tragedy not as steel and concrete but as human lives, as shattered families and lost friends, we could finally cry. 

Last week, I so wanted to be with other Americans.  I wanted to hug and hold and grieve with people who were asking the same questions as I.  How could this happen to Americans?  How could a band of hate-filled men take away so many innocent lives?  How could they spread so much terror as to be able to destroy our hard-gained sense of security?

 As I talked with the boys about this tragedy, I began to see that their perspective is different from mine.  They agreed that the attacks were horrible...definitely yes; but surprising...not so much.   For our boys have never enjoyed security and comfort, never known what it is like to take peace and prosperity for granted.   In their homes, they never knew when their dads would come home drunk and looking for victims.  On the streets, they learned to sleep with all senses actively alert, ready to jump at run when the nighttime dangers lurked close.  Even in the last month, they have seen gang riots close down Tegucigalpa.  They have seen violent strikes, and a level of crime high enough that the army has had to begin patrolling the streets of their city.  In the last month, one of our boys has had a cousin shot through the back and another sat beside his three-year old sister in a coma in a hospital after a fall crushed her skull in their teetering cliff-side slum.  Yes, insecurity, terror and tragedy have accompanied them through life so as to become a common and not-so-surprising companion. 

Yet at the same time, I believe that they are better prepared than we to see that God’s grace can still shine victorious despite our evil ways.  Our boys, especially the older ones, have an unwavering understanding that God rescued them from the tragedy in order to help them minister to those who are still suffering.   They are beginning to see already that God has transformed the tragedy of their past into a foundation of compassion and love for their present and future ministry. 

 Even Darwin, our little tornado-in-a-bottle so recently rescued from the evil of the streets, shows compassion and understanding that we thought would be impossible after so many years of inhaling brain-destroying glue.  When we walk with him on the streets, he will inevitably give the few coins he has in his pockets to the elderly women and the kids who live on the streets.  Today at church, he won a toy dump truck during a “children’s day” celebration.  He brought it to me for safekeeping, still in its package.  He wanted to save it in order to give it to his little stepbrother when he goes to visit his mom this week.  This is true kindness, from a boy who has never owned a toy truck himself.

 Darwin may not understand everything that is going on around him, but six years on the streets did not wipe out his ability to empathize.  As I watched the tragic reports on the news last week, Darwin came in every so often to sit down beside me, his usual boisterous self quiet.  He did not understand what happened in New York and Washington, but he understood the grief that I was feeling and was able to comfort me with his quiet presence. 

One day when Erin, our volunteer from Chicago, and I were working at our desks in our office, Darwin came in and gave her a big hug.  “Did your mom hold you when you were little?” he asked her.  When she replied affirmatively he thought for a few minutes and replied, “I think my mom did too.”

 Darwin wants to be good and he wants to be loving.  But before coming to the Micah Project, goodness and lovingness were but dimly remembered memories from his infancy.  Thus, he must begin from scratch to learn exactly how to do these things that are ingrained into most of us by at least one nurturing parent.  

 Darwin is in a good place to begin learning these things.  He is surrounded by eleven big “brothers” here at the Micah Project, young men who sincerely want God’s love to reign supreme in their lives.  Darwin is already learning, and I believe that his faith education will be a fast one. 

I have often asked for your prayers, primarily because I have seen so clearly how God’s love has flowed through them.  The victory in Darwin’s life is a direct result of your prayers.  At this time, while I still beg for your prayers for the Micah Project, I also want you to know that we are committed to praying with you.  The boys and I are praying for those who have lost loved ones, and we are praying for the United States.  

May God bless you with his unity, his peace, and his love during this critical time.

 Your brother in Christ,

Michael Miller