Micah Project

Summer 2004 Update

             Dear friends,

             Greetings from the Micah Project and our sixteen young men!   Though I haven’t written in a while, I don’t feel too out of touch…since over a hundred of our U.S. friends and supporters came to Honduras this summer on various mission’s trips!

               The three groups that we hosted this summer had diverse goals, but they had one thing in common:  they were a great blessing to the Micah boys and our ministries.  The mixture of new friends and old faces (some of our visitors were on their fourth or fifth trip to Honduras!)  made the Micah boys feel very loved and supported.  When our last team left last Saturday, the Micah house seemed awfully empty!

             Our first summer mission’s team was the medical team from the First Presbyterian Church of Houston.  Besides seeing hundreds of patients in a makeshift clinic in Villa Linda Miller, they also participated in our children’s ministries in the city dump, at Villa Linda Miller and in our neighboring community, Villa Madrid. One of the things I most appreciate about this group is their gift for nurturing.  They love on the Micah boys as if they were their own sons, and the boys respond in kind!  The boys think of them as extended family that usually loves them from a distance, but gets to come once a year for a happy reunion!

             The second team that came to visit us this summer was the youth group from the Memorial Drive Presbyterian Church of Houston.  This group of almost sixty allowed us to expand our ministry to the Micah boys’ families in a way that we never imagined possible.   After identifying the extremely impoverished situation of Miguel and Jefferson’s family, the group chose to build them a beautiful three-bedroom home!

            Miguel, who has been with the Micah Project since the very beginning, and his half-brother Jefferson, who has been with us since January, come from an extremely poor barrio.   Miguel was on the streets at an early age and never really lived at home.  Jefferson was on and off the streets until joining the project this year.   When you see where they used to live, it is not hard to imagine why they fled from the desperate poverty of their family life.  The shack in which their family lives is eight feet by ten feet in area, housing their parents and four children.  There is no running water, sewage or electricity.  Every time it rains, a stream of water runs through the cracks in the wooden walls and inundates the house.  The youngest kids are often victims of scabies because of the lack of water to create sanitary conditions.  Every so often a large truck comes around to fill barrels and buckets with debatably drinkable water, but sometimes the family cannot even afford that.

             What a blessing that the Memorial Drive team could build a house for this family!  As we mixed cement and hauled concrete blocks, I felt that this team of young people from Houston were providing hope for a family that has been so beaten down by poverty.  I also felt that this home will create a place of stability for this family, so that Miguel and Jefferson’s younger brothers will not need to make the same choice that they did.  Instead of having to flee to the streets to survive, they now have a safe place to finish growing up, something that Miguel and Jefferson never had the luxury of doing.

             Besides building the house, the team from Memorial Drive church also helped build a large retaining wall in Villa Linda Miller, where erosion had badly damaged the land.  After so much building, I think the team left with more muscles that it came with!

             Our last mission’s team of the summer was the youth group from the Greentree Community Church of St. Louis.  This was their fifth year to come to Honduras!  They came at a great time, because they were able to donate the funds and the manpower to finish up some aspects of Miguel and Jefferson’s house that we had not yet completed.  By the time they left last Saturday, the house was pretty much completed!  Please pray for the family next Wednesday, August 18^th, when we will be inaugurating the house and they will be moving in!

             One of the Greentree group’s main purposes every year is to minister to the teens at Villa Linda Miller.  Although Villa Linda Miller is a beautiful community, many of the families are very broken, and a portion of the youth is involved in drugs and other destructive behaviors.  This year, the Greentree group ran a weekend sports’ camp for about forty VLM teens.  During the rest of the week, some of these teens worked with the group on the construction projects they undertook.  At one evening meeting led by Greentree, several of the VLM teens accepted Christ!  It is amazing to see the impact that this group has on these teens’ lives on a yearly basis!  Please pray for the VLM youth as the Micah boys continue to minister to them through a weekly Bible study every Friday night.

             As you can see, this summer was full of ministry opportunities!  At the same time, the boys continued to study hard in our home schooling project.  It is still hard for us to believe that five of our boys will graduate on November 13^th!  As their main teacher, I’ve been stretched in the last couple of months by having to teach philosophy, psychology and physics!   That’s a lot for a guy who has his degree in elementary education!!!

             As we wind down the school year, we hope to take our older boys to Guatemala in a few weeks in order to take the GED high school equivalency test.  Several of the boys have expressed an interest in studying in the U.S. because of some problems with the Honduran university.   They will need to take the GED in order to be accepted in U.S. universities.  Please pray for discernment and wisdom as we help the boys make these big decisions!  Since this is a time of great change for them, they need as much support and prayer that we can offer them.

             This summer has also been a time of change for the Micah Project.  Our Leadership house coordinator Matt Darr moved back to the States this week to prepare for his upcoming wedding.  Our missionary Becca Haver will take over the Leadership House coordination for the next few months on an interim basis.  One of our other volunteers, Lauri Deniakos, who spent two years with us and came back for two months this summer, also left this week.  Finally, Erin MacLean will be finishing three years with us in November and will be returning to the States.  We wish all of these fellow missionaries many blessings as they begin new stages of their lives!

             At the same time, we are beginning to look for new volunteers for 2005 and beyond.  If you think that God may be calling you or someone you know to spend a year or more serving the Micah boys in Honduras, please let me know by writing me at micahproject@hotmail.com !  We need volunteers for the Micah House, the Leadership house, and our ministries in the city dump and Villa Linda Miller.  I promise you that it will be one of the most challenging and transforming experiences you will ever have!

             As I close this letter, I would also like to ask you to prayerfully consider making a financial commitment to the Micah Project if you have not already.  Since opening the Leadership house in February, our operational budget has increased, and we are finding our operational funds to be somewhat low.  In order to continue our ministries at the Micah and Leadership houses, at the city dump and Villa Linda Miller, we will need to boost our operational funding.  Additionally, we are beginning to raise funds for our scholarship program, which will assist our five graduates as they move into college next year.  We would be extremely grateful for your support in this exciting new stage in their lives!

             After such an exciting and busy summer, it is always good to hear how the Micah Project is impacting people’s lives.  We know that teens have accepted Christ in Villa Linda Miller, that sick people have been healed, and that a home has been built.  But it is also extremely encouraging to hear that our boys are impacting the lives of those who come here to visit as well!  One of the mission’s trip members wrote the following letter to the Micah boys after her visit this summer:

                “I can truthfully say that my life will not be the same after doing ministry with you in Tegucigalpa.  It was an experience that I will never forget and I pray I get to repeat many times.  To see all the miracles of God living in the Micah house and the Leadership house was a tremendous blessing. Sometimes living in the States, at least for me, I might not look on my salvation as much of a miracle as someone with the testimony that you all have. But not only was I blessed by listening and seeing your testimony, but you were able to remind me that God has done a great big miracle in all of us:  transforming us from our selfish flesh to children of God.

                “You were all such a blessing!  You welcomed us and served us with such vigor that it made me strive to be a better servant.  It was so great how you all welcomed us with such love and friendship.  You truly worked with us like the Body of Christ should.  We all were able to incorporate our gifts with yours to show others the love of Christ.  I know that the Lord was smiling on our work there that week!”

             It is our prayer that the work that God is doing through the Micah boys will be a true blessing to you as well!

 Thank you for keeping them in your prayers!

 Your brother in Christ,

 Michael Miller

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