April-May 2003 Update |
| Dear friends, Our home-schooling program offers a blessed routine for the thirteen Micah boys and the five neighborhood boys who join us every day. After the chaos of street life, the comfort of routine is like a security blanket in which the boys can wrap themselves. Our five hours of school are the most intimate time we have with the boys. The phone goes unanswered, the front door stays closed; it is just us and the boys every morning. It is a time, to quote the lyrics of Fernando Ortega, when the worried world stays far away and small. During our hours of class, the violence and strife that you hear about on the streets of Honduras is as distant from our boys as it is from you. We do not use
these golden hours to rush through our official
home-schooling curriculum so that we can get on with the
rest of our day. Especially for me, who teaches the
older boys, our mornings in classes represent the
precious and ever-dwindling time we have left to help
form and prepare these boys. Going beyond
“reading, writing and ‘rithmetic,” we
strive to use our classes to open their eyes to the world
that God has created and to begin to paint a picture of
how they can be leaders in it. I have a
self-imposed goal as a teacher: to inspire my
students on a daily basis. Whether it be discussing
the symbolism in a masterful novel or creating a debate
over a certain topic, I want my students to lose
themselves in the world of knowledge for at least a
little while everyday. Recently, our five
tenth-graders, Olvin, David, Marvin, Tino and Harvin have
been reading Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn.
You might ask what a 19th century novel about
a sleepy Mississippi river town has to do with modern
urban life in Honduras. But as we began to read
about Huck’s drunk and violent father, his
subsequent escape from society, and his long journey to
figure out his place in that society, suddenly this
masterful novel seems to be speaking directly to our
boys. There is a part in Huckleberry
Finn in which this young boy has floated down the
Mississippi to a small town, in which he observes the
death of a drunk street man at the hands of one of the
wealthy shop-owners who was tired of the drunken antics
of his victim. As Huck observes the entire town
pushing and shoving in order to gawk at the body,
suddenly, in a mob action, the town members decide to
lynch the shop-owner who killed the drunk. When
they arrive at his house in the unthinking frenzy of a
mob, however, he stops them with these words: “The pitifulest
thing out is a mob…they don’t fight with
courage that’s born in them, but with courage
that’s borrowed from their mass, and from their
officers. But a mob without any man at the head of
it is beneath pitifulness.”
A few days after reading this section, there was a minor
traffic accident in front of the Micah house in the
evening. One of the parties involved was drunk and
a fairly loud argument ensued. The drivers
decided to wait for the police to arrive, which took
almost two hours. While they waited people began to
crowd around the two drivers. Soon, there were
almost sixty people crowded around, gawking at the
accident, laughing and talking and enjoying this
evening’s entertainment.
Later in the evening, I
walked into our library and saw Miguel staring out the
window at the mass of people. I asked him if he was
gawking at the accident and he replied, “No,
I’m looking at all the people crowded around to
stare at the accident. They’re just like the
mob in Huckleberry Finn, aren’t they?” That spark of insight is why we pour so much of ourselves into educating the boys: we want them to be able to stand apart from the unthinking mob in order to make clear-minded decisions about their lives and their role as sons in God’s kingdom. For a young Honduran male, following the crowd too often means dropping out of school, joining a gang and glorifying the violence that is the Honduran street. Young Hondurans are surrounded by example of people who have destroyed their lives by following that crowd. Giving our boys the thinking tools and the vision necessary to step above that life and see it for what it’s worth will enable them to become the leaders that can begin to transform that “pitiful” crowd. The decisions that our
boys are making convince me that our focus on education
and discipleship is beginning to have a profound
influence in their lives. Last Friday night, The
Honduran National Symphony Orchestra had a free concert
in the central plaza cathedral. Since a musician
has been coming to the Micah House every Friday to give
the boys music classes, we decided to invite them to go
with us. While most teens would be hesitant
to give up their Friday night for a classical concert, a
few of our boys chose to go with us. During the
concert, they sneaked up to the front to get a closer
look at the different instruments. They enjoyed the
concert and pumped us with questions and observations
afterwards.
While the concert shows
that the boys are on a quest for knowledge, even more
importantly, they are beginning to put their knowledge
into practice. A couple of weeks ago, we invited
ten boys from Villa Linda Miller to spend the weekend
with the Micah boys. The boys that came, many of
whom are not Christians, know the Micah boys enough to
know that they are unique. We spent all Saturday
with them at a beautiful park in the mountains, playing
soccer and swimming. Then, they spent the night
with us at the Micah house. During that time,
Jeony, our ministry coordinator, began to plant a vision
in these ten boys’ hearts that they, too could be
leaders in their community. Several of our
boys’ shared what it means to be a leader of
character and strength. By the end of the weekend,
it was obvious that many of the boys from Villa Linda
Miller saw something in the Micah boys that they, too,
wanted for themselves. Many people are seeing
this difference in the Micah boys. Just last week,
an orphanage called two of the Micah boys, Marvin and
Harvin, so that they would go and share their testimony
with the eighty boys at the orphanage. They
ended up spending over two hours talking about their
lives and answering questions that the boys from the
orphanage asked. When they were leaving, they were
invited back to speak next month! It is their
chance to pass on to others what God is teaching them. Mark Twain once said “One gets large impressions in boyhood, sometimes, which he has to fight against all his life.” Our boys were definitely filled with some pretty dark impressions by the daily nightmares of street life. But it is our hope and prayer that the picture we are painting for them at the Micah Project will create an even larger impression: that of a loving Lord and Savior who wants to use each one of His sons and daughters to advance His kingdom. It may be ten or fifteen years before we truly know if all of the passion we have placed in raising them and educating truly helped them to live extraordinary lives as Kingdom servants. But it is already clear that the education they are receiving and the goals they are setting for their lives set them apart. I am convinced that your prayers are a hedge around our boys, allowing them to keep focused on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith. Our boys are works of art in progress; the prayers and support with which you cheer them onward are vital so that this good work may be completed in their lives. Your brother in Christ, Michael Miller P.S. We have begun a capital funds campaign in order to purchase a home for the new phase of the Micah Project, the Leadership House. The Leadership House will provide a place for our older boys to live while they finish their college education. It is the last step in this process of forming Christian leaders! Your support for the Leadership House is much appreciated! Please view our website at www.micahcentral.org to learn more about the Leadership House. |