December 2003 Update

December 2003 Update

 “Weeping may remain for a night, but rejoicing comes in the Morning”*

 Last Wednesday was the saddest day that we have experienced at the Micah Project since opening our home in 2000.   Around noon, we received news that Jeony’s twelve-year-old daughter Gabriela had died in the main public hospital of Tegucigalpa.   Jeony, the Honduran missionary who works with the Micah Project, is like a father to many of our boys, and Gabriela was like a little sister to them.  She had a kidney transplant a couple of years ago, and had been in the hospital this year since October.  On Wednesday, she succumbed to her illness after putting up a very courageous fight.

             “Brave” and “faith-filled” are appropriate ways to describe Gabriela.  Although she lived in constant pain, she always managed to be a blessing to those around her.  She had a level of maturity that was way beyond her twelve years.  As she began to slip away in the past couple of weeks, she said to Jeony that, if they were thinking of getting her a new kidney transplant, she would rather go home to be with Jesus.   I think she wanted to spare everyone the pain of another surgery.  She had an amazingly generous spirit for such a young child!

              Even so, you can imagine how devastating her death was to her family.   The death of a child is an excruciatingly painful reminder that we live in a broken and fallen world.  While we know that Jesus has won the battle against death and that Gabriela is resting safely in His arms, we also cry out against the separation and tragedy that remain with us until He comes again.  Jeony, who is a loving and faith-filled Christian man, has been living that tension between grief and hope in the last few days.  At Gabriela’s burial service on Thursday, Jeony spoke to those gathered there with tears streaming down his cheeks.   He said that he was going to donate all of Gabriela’s Christmas gifts to the children who scavenge through the dump, the children that Jeony and the Micah boys have been working with this year.   That simple statement brought home to all of us standing around the grave not only the loss of his child, but also the hope that God continues to bring new lives into His eternal kingdom.

             This tension between loss and hope with which every Christian lives has been made very real to the Micah boys in the past few weeks.   The boys have had to say “good-bye” several times recently.  Jeremy, our intern from Wheaton College, left Honduras in November after six months with the Micah Project.  He was truly a big brother to the boys, and had an easy way of relating with the boys that made him an instant friend.  Our Darwin made it a point to give “Jerry” at least six hugs a day!   It was a hard day for Darwin and the others when they took Jeremy to the airport for the last time.

             Also, the day of Gabriela’s funeral was the day that Becca Hogan, Micah volunteer for two years, left Honduras.  In fact, we dropped Becca off at the airport for a subdued send-off en route to Gaby’s funeral.   Becca was also an important part of the boys’ family for the last couple of years.  During her time in Honduras, she was a master at one-on-one conversations, and created a safe space in which the boys and others could open up to her.   She learned Spanish faster than anyone I have ever met.  When I asked her why she said, “there was so much I wanted to say to the boys when I first came, that I had to learn Spanish out of necessity!”  Indeed, she did have a lot to share with the boys during her two years in Honduras, and she will be greatly missed. 

             How are the boys handling so many good-byes in so short a period?  You might think that our boys might be accustomed to loss after surviving life on the streets.   After all, they suffered unspeakable tragedy throughout their childhood.  It may even seem that these current losses are small compared to what the boys lost while on the streets. Yet street life is so heart deadening that it trains those who live it to look at loss without blinking an eye, steeling their hearts to bury any sense of human grief that tragedy should bring.  In the streets, the most common way to deal with tragedy is to laugh it off and to keep moving on.

            I think our tendency at the Micah Project is to want to shield the boys from tragedy and loss.  Haven’t they lived through enough, after all?  Yet I have come to believe that this is not a healthy desire.   Our goal at the Micah Project is not to hide the boys away from real life, to create a protective bubble around them that will keep all painful reality at bay.   On the contrary, if our boys are to be healthy and compassionate Christian adults, they must learn to confront the world with all their heart, mind and soul.   If they are not given the chance to both grieve and express hope so openly, as Jeony did beside his daughter’s grave, then they will live the rest of their life interacting through the tough shell of their defense mechanisms that they constructed on the streets. 

This is one of the many reasons why we involve our boys in ministry, why they work with the children at the city dump and people in desperate situations.   We don’t want them to think that Christianity is only valid within the safe confines of the Micah house.    Their faith must be able to grieve with those who have lost so much just as it must be able to maintain hope in the salvation and future victory of our Lord over sin and death. 

 In these past few days of great loss, I have been able to observe how the boys are reacting to it.  Some of them, especially the younger ones who have been with us for less time, still have remnants of that hardened protective shell that comes with surviving the streets.  As tears welled up around them on the day of Gabriela’s funeral, I could see a couple of them pull into themselves a little bit, withdrawing from the pain around them.  But at the same time, I could see the beginnings of maturity in others, as they met the pain head on.  In one of the most beautiful moments of the day, Cristino walked up to Jeony and put his arm around him as they smoothed over the last layers of dirt on his daughter’s grave.  They stood there arm-in-arm for quite a while.  What a brave, gentle and compassionate thing for Cristino to do!

 Miguel was another who showed signs of growth on that day.  This young man has about the hardest protective armor possible when it comes to shutting out pain or fear.  Since coming to the Micah Project in 2000, he has been one of the slowest to trust, to open up the areas of his heart that he was forced to close off during his time on the street.  That began to change however, a couple of months ago when his mother and younger siblings reappeared in his life after many years of estrangement.  Since the day his extremely poor mom showed up at the Micah house, I began to see a new softness in his eyes that indicated that, possibly, some of those barriers in his heart might be weakening.   Then, as I sat by him for a while at the cemetery after Gabriela’s burial, I could see in his face that he was letting these things reach his heart.  That evening, he went to visit his mom at her shack for the first time in a very long time.  I know it was his sadness and sense of loss that drove him to go to her on the day of the funeral.  But I am also sure that it was his hope, hope for healing and a restored relationship that made him seek her out.  

 While these losses have weighed heavily on the boys hearts in the past few weeks, they have also seen many signs of hope.  Indeed, this year has been one of great hope at the Micah Project.  Even as I write this, for example, the boys are putting a new roof on the Leadership house.  The miraculous way that God provided this new house for the boys as a place where they can make those final steps into manhood has been an incredible symbol of hope to them.  It is a physical sign that God is preparing for them a future of Christian leadership.   They have been given many reasons to believe that God has their future firmly in His hands.

 I praise God for His sovereignty, even in allowing the boys to confront tragedy.  For I believe that the loss that they are feeling currently will add a layer of maturity to their faith.  It reminds them that their true hope does not lie in the bricks and mortar of the Leadership house, or in thoughts of studying in order to live a life of ease and comfort in the future.  These harder times help them to realize that these earthly things will pass away in a twinkle of God’s eye.   They will come to understand that there will always be loss in their lives, and their true hope is not a physical one, yet an eternal one.  There true hope lies in their salvation and their acceptance into their Father’s eternal kingdom!  These are difficult lessons, but it is important that they begin to learn them at this young age.

 This Sunday, we will have yet another chance to live this tension between loss and hope.  Lauri Deniakos, who has also been with us for two years, will head back to the States to start a new life.  Just like Becca, Lauri was a teacher, friend, counselor and big sister to the Micah boys.  Lauri had an amazing way of appreciating the beauty in all of God’s creation that helped the boys open their eyes to the masterworks of our Creator.  At the same time, Lauri’s humble way of living life was a true model to the boys.  We will have yet another aching “adios” at the airport on Sunday!

 It may seem difficult that all of this has happened at Christmas time, which is supposed to be a time of happiness and peace.  Yet I think it is the perfect time!  Christ came into the world to cry with us at the brokenness, to weep at the way sin has mutilated His beautiful creation.  The pastor at Gabriela’s funeral shared the story of how Christ wept at the tomb of his friend Lazarus.  Yet Christ did not come only to weep at brokenness, he came to defeat it.  Jesus said to Lazarus’ sisters, “I am the resurrection and the life.”  New life in Jesus is what we celebrate at Christmas!

 This new life is something that our boys have been able to claim as their own since being at the Micah Project.  I would like to thank you all for your prayers, visits and support, and for allowing us to be a family for these boys, to create a place for them where hope can still reign even in times of loss and tears.  Please pray that God would continue to mold and guide these boys, that they may continue to be standard-bearers for hope in Honduras.

 May God fill you and your family with the light of hope as we celebrate Jesus’ birth this Christmas! 

Your brother in Christ, 

Michael Miller

 Post-script:  Please keep Jeony’s family and the Micah boys in your prayers during this difficult time. 

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