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"Marvin's
Impact" Click here to download a printable version of this letter Juan Carlos and Marvin came into my office at the Micah House a few weeks ago with a strange request. They wanted my permission to take a five day trip into the rural mountains of southern Honduras. As they excitedly detailed their plans, I quickly realized that this was no vacation, no week of mountain-climbing or wilderness adventure. No, their desire was to share God’s Word in the region! So determined were they to do so that they offered to use their own savings in order to finance their journey. Marvin Morazán, our guitar-playing, song-singing, heart-always-on-his-sleeve seventeen year old, has a way of getting the Word out. On a post-Christmas trip to visit his father, he had met a pastor from southern Honduras who invited him to give his testimony in his rural church. Upon receiving the invitation, Marvin was ready to go in a heartbeat! Marvin will share his testimony with whoever will listen, at any time and in any place. His schizophrenic home life was filled with abuse and tragedy, and his childhood found him bouncing around to the homes of various family members. His moment of greatest stability was when he was able to live with his step-grandmother, but even she, after a while, was unable to take care of him. Finally, he was able to enter a home run by a local organization, but that door was closed to him as well. Without options, a local pastor took the unfortunate boy into his own home until he could find another place to live. That place was the Micah Project. The problem was, when he came to the Micah Project early last year, we were already full. And while “no room at the inn” is a concept that Marvin was entirely too familiar with in his fractured youth, he had also learned the skill of never taking no for an answer. Over a period of a few months last year, Marvin seemed to move into the Micah House piece-by-piece, until, before we even realized it, he was living with us full time! But Marvin’s testimony isn’t so much about how he was able to survive the tragedy of his past. Rather, it is about the miraculous way that he was able to develop a passionate love for His Heavenly Father even through such trauma. I can honestly say that I have just met a handful of people that have the same passion for sharing God’s Word as he does. It was out of that deep desire to share their faith that Marvin and Juan Carlos boarded a bus a few days after getting my permission in January to undertake their evangelistic journey. I had no idea where exactly they were headed or where they would stay once they got there, but I knew just by looking at Marvin’s eyes that they were following God’s leading. Bursting with joy, our two young missionaries reappeared at the Micah House a few days later. They had visited several poor, rural churches, some no larger than small houses. Some of the youth of these small villages had never heard other teens speak with such authority, and several of them accepted Christ after hearing our young men’s testimonies. Juan Carlos and Marvin also seemed transformed by the experience, understanding even more profoundly how greatly God desires to use them to bring His sons and daughters to Himself. Soon after these two young men returned, it was time to start the new school year (which runs from February through November in Honduras). For the last several years, I have started the first day of our home-schooling program in the same way. Our young men watch a short clip from the movie “The Emperor’s Club.” The movie is about a teacher from a wealthy boys’ school who struggles to help a particular student decide between the importance of the truth versus the expediency of cheating his way to success. At one point, the teacher, whose subject is the classical Greek and Roman civilizations, says these words:
“Great ambition and conquest without contribution is without significance. What will your contribution be? How will history remember you?” It is easy to assume that our young men, who were faced with total despair so often in their young lives, would take the most expedient path to success and comfort now that they have the opportunity. If you have faced hunger over and over again, wouldn’t you make it a priority to do all you can to make sure you are never hungry again? Yet, amazingly, we see examples of our young men making choices not based on ambition, but rather on their desire to make a contribution in their society. Whether it be in the life of just one person or being a witness to God’s truth before thousands, they demonstrate their desire to make an impact. In some tiny mountain village in southern Honduras, there are a handful of teenagers who have a new hope because Marvin and Juan Carlos heeded the call to go and witness to them. That is true, life-shaking, history-transforming contribution. Each of our young men has a long road ahead of him. Five of them, Jose, Daniel, Jerson, Fredy, and Olvin, will graduate from high school this November, joining ten that have already graduated. We appreciate your prayers for them as they continue to strive towards true contribution with the talent and passion that God has granted them. On our website, there is a page that you can print that has each of their pictures and some biographical information. Would you be willing to pray for one or more of our young men? You can transform their lives through prayer just as they desire to transform other lives through their work here in Honduras. God has already heard your prayers in Marvin’s life. He could have easily become a cynical, hardened young man who would use the hard realities of his past to live a life of “looking out for number one.” It is only through your prayers for God’s faithful protection that he has developed such a passionate and soft heart. This is evident through the words of his favorite song to sing and play on the guitar. Called “Todopoderoso,” the song begins in this way: “The only reason for my praise is you, my Jesus, the only reason that I live is you, my Lord…the only Truth is you Lord, you are my light and my salvation.”
Your brother in Christ, Michael Miller
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