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Help Us Love Mercy (This update is based upon the song, Micah 6:8, written by Charlie Hall and most recently sung by Randy Mayfield in his concert to benefit the Micah Project on September 22. I have taken some liberty by expressing the verses out of their original order). Click here to download this update in printable form Click here to purchase a CD of this music to benefit the Micah Project
Forget not
the widow, the orphan, and slave There is no place too far that Your mercy can’t reach…
On a stormy September night in St. Louis, several hundred of you heard these words sung by Randy Mayfield at a concert at Missouri Baptist University . You arrived there to celebrate a miracle; the remarkable transformation of young men who, instead of dying on the streets of Tegucigalpa, are preparing to be the future leaders of their country. You arrived at a concert to benefit the scholarship fund for these young men; but in reality, you saw four lives that are a testimony to the fact that, truly, there is no place where God’s mercy cannot reach.
Help us love mercy, help us do
justly,
During the concert, there was a video presentation by Micah board member Dianne Becker. In it, she interviewed Olvin Funez, one of our sophomores at Missouri Baptist University. Olvin grew up in one of the most desperate neighborhoods in Tegucigalpa, a place where, as he indicates, it is a miracle if you even make it to the sixth grade. Most of the young men Olvin’s age from the Ulloa neighborhood are in violent juvenile gangs…or have been murdered by those same gangs. In the video, though, we see a determined young man who has made it beyond that dream-denying place. At one point, Olvin stated: “What I learned is that a man without dreams is nothing. At least I have that. I have my dreams. One of them is when I finish here, studying, go home and help people in any way that I can…however God can use me.” O Lord, help Olvin’s dreams of justice and mercy produce great fruit in this country!
You could
feed the whole world with the crumbs of old bread
While so many were getting in their cars to head to the concert in St. Louis, the Micah House in Tegucigalpa was a buzz of activity. This is because every Saturday is an intense day of ministry for the Micah boys. On Friday night, Fredy spent several hours frying tortillas to take a traditional snack out to the kids at the dump. When I got up at 7:00 on Saturday morning, Fredy was already back in the kitchen, making the refried beans that would accompany his tortillas.
When they arrived at the city dump that Saturday, he and Marvin prepared a skit for the kids about David and Goliath. A skit about a young, weak, unprepared shepherd boy who goes up against great evil with nothing but “the name of the Lord Almighty” (I Samuel 17:45). As Fredy, Marvin and the other Micah boys head to the dump every Saturday, I see a lot of that courageous shepherd boy in them. They may not have a lot of experience or money, but as they work with these throwaway children in this throwaway place, they do it in the name of the Lord. Did anyone ask them to spend their Saturdays in a dump? No. Did they heed the desire of their Lord when they chose to do this? Most certainly, yes. You, Lord, could do it, but you ask us to go…
For the
children who sleep beneath cities at dark
That is not the only ministry that happens every Saturday though. After lunch at the Micah House, our guys spend an hour packing up fifty or sixty plates of food (this last Saturday, it was Chinese rice). We load up our pick-up and head into the worst parts of the downtown area and the market. Inevitably, we end up near the national soccer stadium, and as soon as we pull up, streams of street children and youth approach us. The song describes them correctly as “children who sleep beneath cities at dark.” These children live in a ravine squashed between the stadium road and the polluted Choluteca River. They have created a shantytown, a place where children raise children, and the fumes of yellow glue drown out the misery of daily existence. Some pretty mean looking characters surface from that ravine when we arrive; the older street youth have been through daily wars, and they have the bullet wounds in their bodies to prove it. But their scarred faces turn into smiles when they see us as they come running up out of that ravine. The leader of our street ministry is Darwin, principally because he lived with this group of youth for seven years. It is because of Darwin that these street youth respect us; it is because of him that they trust us enough to let us into their lives. The approximately fifty kids and youth that live in this shanty town know that Darwin is one of them. Because he lived in this dark space, he loves these kids and he leads us to them, passionately demonstrating His Father’s heart in the process. From this last Saturday’s visit, one image stays in my mind. It of little Maycol, our cherubic looking fourteen year old, sitting on the curb with a ten year old boy named Alejandro, talking with him as he devoured the plate of rice. Maycol had the flu since the previous day and could barely get out of bed in the morning. Even so, he did not want to miss the street outreach and he managed to get himself into the pickup for the ride to the stadium. No one would have blamed him for staying back at the Micah house and resting. At the same time, who would have ministered to that little boy while the rest of us were divided among the almost fifty drugged out youth milling about? Sure, the little boy was high on glue. Sure, all we did was give him food. But in the mysterious scheme of eternity, God chose sick little Maycol as His representative to this little abandoned boy. Had Maycol not gone, who would have shown God’s love to Alejandro? Let love go and touch them with your Father’s heart…
(Above: Maycol and Alejandro on the streets) After our food was handed out and our ministry was done, we prepared to return to the Micah house. Little Maycol curled up in the front seat of the pickup and immediately fell asleep. As I turned to leave, one mean-looking, tattoo-covered tough tapped me on the shoulder. It is a young man that I have known since he was a boy on the streets in 1993. “Gracias,” he said, before he turned and headed back down into the ravine.
Help us love
mercy, help us do justly,
This chorus echoes on. It unfolds in repeating layers, and in the process, more and more people learn to walk with God. Our Father shows mercy to us, his children. Each and every one of you shows mercy to the Micah boys, by your faithful support and prayers. The Micah boys, in turn, show mercy to the forgotten people of Honduras. And the chorus echoes on, because, though our Sovereign Father is capable of doing it himself, He asks us to go. Thank you—gracias—for the faith-filled way in which you have shown His mercy to the Micah boys since 1999. Su hermano en Cristo, Michael Miller P.S. Interested in hearing the song Micah 6:8? Contact Randy Mayfield at (314) 727-2777 or rbmayf@aol.com to purchase his new CD. All proceeds benefit the Micah Project.
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