These students had spent their first full day in Honduras trudging through the busy streets of Tegucigalpa to encounter the street kids.  Walking along the banks of the putrefying and trash-strewn Choluteca river, they found kids amidst the filth, kids who were slowly destroying themselves on the fumes of toxic glue.  Yet not only in the hidden places, they also found kids using that same glue on those teeming streets, where thousands of shoppers, students and professionals passed by without even blinking an eye.  Or if they did look, it was to stare at these strange foreigners who were wasting their time talking to street kids.

The groups quickly discovered that these weren't the happy-yet-poor kids whose winning smiles and shining eyes are used to win hearts in t.v. and magazine advertisements for relief organizations.  Rather, when our visitors reached out to the street kids to take the hands and look into their eyes, they saw...emptiness, a young, damaged soul  lost in some foggy, drug-induced other-world.

Seeing a street kid face-to-face teaches a hard lesson to every visitor who spends time with us:  this is indeed a broken and corrupted world in which we humans have done much to wipe out all signs of God's beautiful creation.   How can we sit by and let kids kill themselves?  How can we politely walk around them as if they didn't exist, like the Levite in the parable of the Good Samaritan?  How can we bear children doomed to such misfortune?

These are the hard questions that the groups ask themselves when they spend time with us here in Honduras.  Yet the lessons do not end there.  The deeper they understand the horror on the Tegucigalpa streets and the powerful hold that the Kingdom of darkness has on these boys lives, the greater they are impacted by the redemption that God has worked in the lives of the Micah boys.

One of our greatest challenges with visitors is to help them realize that each one of our boys walked on the edge of that same chasm; that they were very nearly victims of these same soul-robbing streets.  They see our boys now, full of youthful energy, robust personality, and a true thirst to know and serve their God, and it just doesn't compute.  How could these be the same as those boys who are rotting on the streets this very minute?

That is the miracle!  Christ's redeeming love can overcome all the darkness and sin that we can throw at it.  He reaches into that other-world where these street kids have hidden themselves from the terror of their reality and He finds his sons and daughters again.  

As impacted as our visitors are by the streets, they are invariably more impacted by God's hand on the Micah boys' lives.  It is beautiful to see our boys work on the streets.  Often as we trudged through the streets, we adults became little more than bystanders as our boys sat down in the trash and had heart-to-heart conversations with the street kids, imploring them to follow the same path that they themselves followed to redemption.  It was amazing to see diminutive Nelson get in the face of a tatooed street kid who was twice his size and tell him how God can rescue him from the streets.  Who better, though, to reach into that hidden place where the street kids live, than the very boys who have learned the way out?

I mentioned how hard it was for our American visitors to believe that the Micah boys were once street kids.  I have to admit, though, that if it weren't for the pictures I have in the Micah House office of our boys when they were on the streets, it would be awfully hard for me to remember as well.   One reason that I appreciate the groups that come to visit us is that it gives me a chance to see this work through fresh eyes, to remember not only the tragedy, but also the miraculous change that God has wrought in the boys' lives.

Two incidents during the group visits helped me to remember this transformation.  As the college group from St. Louis sat in a circle in the Micah Project living room talking about their experiences on the streets one afternoon, Miguel wandered into the Micah House.    Freckled and gaunt, this twelve year old street kid stumbled into the midst of our meeting so high on glue that he could barely stand up.  We all sat speechless as he fell to the floor giggling and mumbling senselessly in the middle of our circle.

At that very moment I was talking about street kids with the group, giving statistics and talking about the characteristics of street children in Honduras.  Miguel's sudden presence in the room was an overwhelming dose of reality to underline the facts and statistics.  Here was a little boy who, in a few minutes, would leave the Micah House and have absolutely no place to go, no one to care for him.  Even though I have been around this for a long time, experiencing Miguel's presence that day in the Micah House brought home to me the anguished reality of our boys' pasts and so many kids' present reality.  

Two weeks later, we arrived at the dusty, remote women's prison with a St. Louis youth group.  We sent the Micah boys in ahead to set up the sound equipment for our program.  After a few minutes, Noel came out crying.  He informed us that he found his cousin, whom he did not know was incarcerated.  She had recently been sentenced to a 15-year term in the prison.

Walking into the room where over a hundred women were gathered, Noel asked me if he could give his testimony during our presentation.   As he took center stage a few minutes later, he began to talk about his life.  He talked about both times he almost died, once at the hands of his own step-father.  He talked about living on the streets, using drugs and stealing to get the money to pay for them. 

Suddenly, he stopped, overwhelmed by tears.  He told the women that there was someone else in the room who needed to know God's love.  Saying this, he asked his cousin to join him on stage so that he could pray for her.  In tears, she put her arms around Noel.  He began to pray, but  tears once again  overwhelmed him.  He and his cousin stood arm-in-arm, sobbing.

After a minute or two of silence, first Marvin, then Cristino, then Nelson, then the rest of the Micah boys, approached Noel and his cousin on center stage and encircled them in a hug.  Marvin began to pray for both of them as the boys laid hands on them.  As Marvin prayed for healing and transformation, the Holy Spirit was a palpable presence in that jail.  I looked up after the prayer, and every woman in the jail was weeping along with Noel and his cousin.

That moment will live forever in my memory.   One brave Micah boy faced his past, and indeed, his present anguish with an open and honest heart and through that one act, offered God's healing to many people.  At the same time, I watched the other Micah boys, prompted by no one but the Holy Spirit, become true ministers in a time of great need.

I praise God for not letting me forget that his love is capable of overcoming all the corruption and sin we can spread through this world.  I praise him that the Micah boys are living reminders of his grace.

One final question many visitors ask during their visits:  why are some kids transformed by this grace and other left in the darkness?   The answer they take home with them is this:  the harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few.  Indeed, many of them leave Honduras after a week ready to be used by God in a new way to do His work among the lost!

I ask for your prayers in this.  Pray that God would raise up workers here in Honduras to reach these kids.  Pray for the more than eighty American visitors that spent time with us in March, that lessons He taught them here would translate into a new work in each of them life.   Finally, pray for the Micah boys.  Satan would love nothing better than to get back these souls; he must be quaking when he thinks of the powerful ways God will use these young men in the future!  Pray for protection,  growth and continued healing for the boys. 

This is a transitional time for the Micah Project.  My co-founder and dear friend, Aminah Al-Attas, returned to the States in April to pursue new paths that God is opening up for her.  At the same time, we are beginning an intense strategic-planning process, to explore the avenues of growth that God has planned for this project.  We are formulating plans for a community library and study center in the Micah house, which will be used as an outreach tool for neighborhood children and teens.  We are also developing a college scholarship endowment fund in order to begin to prepare for the boys' future!  I'll send more information soon regarding these new projects!

It is my sincere hope that these letters help you to experience some of the joy that I experience as I watch our Lord move in our boys' lives and in the Micah project.   I hope you can use these letters as a tool to know how to pray for the boys and the project.  I also hope that they bless you with the testimony of God's grace in the boys' lives.  Please understand also, that your prayers and support are also tremendous blessing to us!  Thank you!
 

In awe of our Lord's grace,

Michael Miller

[The Micah Projects exists through your generous contributions.  To donate to the project, please write a check to "The Micah Project" and send it to the following address:   The Central Presbyterian Church, c/o Mr. Randy Mayfield, Missions Director, 7700 Davis Dr., Clayton, MO 63105.  For more information, please check out our website at www.micahcentral.org, or write me at migsmil@micahcentral.org.]