Sooner or later, the questions start coming:  Why did my mom abandon me?  Why did my dad beat me?  Why did I have to suffer so much when other kids had normal childhoods?   These questions are an inevitable part of each boy’s process here at the Micah Project.

            God created the institution of the family and gave it the responsibility of raising children, of teaching them the ways of their Heavenly Father and encouraging them to love Him.  Alas, human sin and rebellion created a situation in which no family does this job perfectly—and some families don’t even begin to undertake it.  In fact, many of our boys became well-acquainted with the dark things of this world before they were even old enough to start school.  Before I reached the age of eight, the most terrifying thing that I had to confront was the occasional bad thunderstorm in the middle of the night.  At a time in their lives in which children still have the right to run into the protective embrace of their mother’s arms when danger approaches, most of our boys were already having to figure out how to face a cruel world alone.

            So along about the age of sixteen, sometimes earlier, sometimes later, the questions start coming.  Usually, they precede a period of depression, sometimes of doubt as well.  The questions may cause the boys to wonder if they are truly loved by us, and truly loved by God.  Philip Yancey, in his book “Where is God when it Hurts?” speaks to this:  “The search for meaning in suffering will always be a lonely search.  No one but I can discern the meaning of my suffering.  And yet by embracing grief and standing beside the hurting person, we can indeed aid another’s search for meaning”  (Philip Yancey, pages 201-202).

            One of the hardest things about working at the Micah Project is standing alongside our boys while they ask these questions.  The painful experiences of their pasts have convinced many of them that they are unlovable.   Others are so scared that their hearts will be trampled on that they never fully open up to love.  We can love them, and share God’s love with them, but somewhere deep inside, they wait for the axe to drop.  They’re sure that, based on vivid experience, all love must have its limits.  Yet we are called to love them, even when they push us away with all their defensive might.

            Anyone who has worked with the Micah Project can attest to a time when this or that boy has done his best to coax us into rejecting him—to prove himself unlovable.  He will occasionally work hard to set his expectations low enough that he will not be subject to the disappointment that seemed to define his young life.  That desperate isolation makes me ache for these broken children even while it makes me angry at the destruction that sin wrought in their lives.  It is also those times when I feel the most helpless; the only thing that I can do is to continue to love and continue to hope that God will break through their thick armor.

            Even so, the Holy Spirit often uses their questions—be they about the certainty of God’s love or the durability of ours—to start a new work in their lives.  It is often during those dark, lonely times that the boys break into tears that dissolve the walls of resentment that they have constructed around their hearts.

            Often people who come visit the Micah Project ask us what makes us unique.  I’m always tempted to answer that it is our tremendously talented staff or our clearly presented mission and goals.  I’ve become increasingly convinced, however, that the best and only answer to that question is that the Holy Spirit is at work within the hearts and lives of our boys.   How can we even dare to hope that these boys will be able to find healing and wholeness after the forces that worked to destroy them at such a young age?  It is only through the grace of God and the work of his Holy Spirit in their lives!

            The third chapter of Titus says that, having been justified by grace, God poured out the Holy Spirit so that “we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life.”  As their earthly inheritance, our boys received nothing but generations of bondage.  Now, their promised inheritance is hope eternal.  And truly, it is only the Spirit’s work in their lives that this hope comes alive to them!

            I’ve been amazed at some of the ways that He has chosen to bring that hope alive in the last few months!  Take Edwin, for instance.  His deepest pain resided in the fact that he had been completely cut off from his family.  You can imagine the questions that total abandonment raises.  Not only “Why was I abandoned?” but also another critical question that arises is “Who am I really?”  It is very difficult to answer questions about one’s identity when one has no heritage.

            Then, after years of wondering, God led Edwin back into the arms of his family.  A while back, we came across a ten-year old report that told us the general region where Edwin’s grandmother lived.  Just before Christmas, on a trip to that region, we ran into a pastor who had worked there for many years.  We asked him if he knew Edwin’s grandmother.  He indicated that he did not, but that he had heard of the little mountain village that the old paperwork mentioned.  He rode with us into the market area of the cowtown which we were visiting and started asking around the buses that brought people into town from the surrounding villages. 

            We approached a bus that had only one passenger; a young woman holding a baby, ready to take the goods she had purchased at the market back to her mountain village.  The pastor asked her if she knew Gloria Fugon, and she said “of course, I’m her neighbor!”  The young lady got off the bus and agreed to accompany us to her village.  We started the bumpy ride up the long and twisted mountain road.  As the young woman held on to her baby, she gave us the entire history of the village.  When Edwin told her his story, she said that if he was indeed Gloria Fugon’s grandson, that meant that she was his cousin!

            We wound our way up and up, surrounded by pine forests.  Finally, a pristine village came into view, clinging to the side of a mountain.  As we bounced through the coffee groves and sugar cane fields beyond the town, we finally came to a stop in a remote spot surrounded by the forest..  We pushed our way through a tattered barbed wire fence; a small, grey-haired woman came out of her little wooden home to see what rare visitor was coming.  We walked up to her and I asked “Are you Gloria Fugon?”  When she answered in the affirmative I pointed to a very nervous-looking Edwin and said, “This is your grandson, Edwin Fugon!”

            “Jesus, Mary and Joseph!” she shouted as she ran up to Edwin and hugged him.  She held on tight to him as she exclaimed over and over again how devastated she was when his mother took him away when he was just a toddler and how often and how long she had searched for him.  She took him by the hand and showed him her humble home, her animals (chickens, pigs, dogs) and all of her fruit trees.  Over and over she exclaimed “The Heavenly Father has brought you back to me!”

            That day, a good portion of that wall of resentment came crashing down, exposing Edwin’s heart to a love that he had not allowed himself to experience before.  Not only did Edwin meet his grandmother; it turns out that he was related to half the village!  He went from being a boy without a heritage to being the long-lost hero for an entire village!

            The Holy Spirit used that amazing moment of restoration to begin a new work in Edwin’s heart.   Time and time again, we’ve seen the Holy Spirit do this in our boys’ lives, whether it be through momentous events like Edwin meeting his grandmother, or smaller, yet equally important moments of healing.

            Last Friday we had another of those moments.  We had a spiritual retreat with all the boys that focused on forgiveness and healing resentment.  A moment came near the end of the retreat in which the boys were encouraged to share with the group about people they needed to forgive.  There was a moment of initial nervousness before the floodgates burst open.  The boys were honest with each other as they had never have been.  Many wept openly as they confessed resentment and sought forgiveness.  A couple had no words; their tears were a sufficient symbol for the resentment they were releasing.  One boy who is normally extremely reserved about opening up unabashedly asked forgiveness of several other boys whom he had hurt.  It was a blessed time of healing, planned by the Holy Spirit when no one else was expecting it.

            Moments like that begin to answer some of the hard questions the boys ask about their lives.  It draws them closer to the point of understanding how much God loves them.  At the same time, however, asking those questions usually leads them to a certain conclusion: the Micah Project is only the second best place for them to grow up.  The best place would have been their family!  Not their family as they existed in their childhood;  rather, their family as it would have been had sin not wrought its destructive work.  The hard truth is that some of them may never enjoy a restored relationship with their family.  And while the Micah Project may be a distant second, the Holy Spirit has knit us together, and has created a place where He can do His healing work.

            Psalm 61:5 says, “You have given me the heritage of those who fear your name.”  The Lord has called us to create a heritage for these boys.  It is a daunting task.  But, as we introduce the boys to their heavenly Father and his awesome love, it is also a holy task.      When you pray for these boys, you become a part of their heritage—a part they so desperately need.  And as that happens, those hard, brutally honest questions that our boys start to ask come to rest in their awareness that they have been adopted into the family of God.

             We appreciate and need those prayers!

 Your brother in Christ,

 Michael Miller

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