165 tough-looking teenagers awaited us as we entered the Honduran national juvenile penitentiary on Easter Sunday. Of all the schools, orphanages, churches, and other sites to which we have traveled for ministry, the eight Micah Boys were most impacted by the juvenile prison. After our first visit, they asked to return on an ongoing basis. Assuredly, our boys see themselves in the incarcerated teens; they must remember their days on the streets using drugs, stealing, and surviving by whatever means possible. They must know that they could have just as easily ended up in the juvenile prison as in the Micah Project.
On Easter Sunday, they did not enter the squalid and inhumane prison to serve time, but rather to preach freedom--the freedom from sin bought so dearly through our Savior's sacrifice. Through powerful dramas and testimonies of how God rescued them from the streets, our boys proclaimed the truth to the hardened young prisoners. And because the boys in the jail also saw themselves in our boys, they saw hope, many of them for the first time, and they listened to our boys with undivided attention. After the presentations, the juveniles approached the Micah boys with many questions. One of them even asked one of our boys to pray with him, which they did, arm-in-arm.
Is it possible for a street kid, a drug user, a thief, to become a leader in ministry in God's kingdom? That is the miracle that we are seeing in the Micah Project! In Ephesians, Paul writes about "him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us." God has shown us the truth of this verse through the Micah Project; although we thought we were dreaming big as we planned the project last year, God has accomplished so much more through the project than we have ever dreamed!
In January of this year, we opened the Micah Project in Tegucigalpa, Honduras in order to provide a Christian residential program for rehabilitated street kids. While there are many orphanages and other programs for street kids in Honduras, we wanted to create a place where the boys could develop the calling that God has placed in their hearts.
Through the faithful support of many friends, God provided us with a beautiful facility in Tegucigalpa that has ample space for all aspects of the Micah Project. It includes a residential area where the boys and the staff live, and an educational area that we use for classes, ministry, and recreational purposes! He also brought to us four Christian Honduran staff members who love the Micah boys as much as we do and are sacrificing much to help raise them.
One of the Micah Project's goals is to provide these boys with the best formal education possible. We have classes every day in the project, in which we integrate Biblical studies with a full academic curriculum. In addition to formal education, we have implemented a Christian leadership program, in which the boys can learn to be servant-leaders through study, reflection, and service opportunities. The prison outreach is one of the early fruits of this program.
Whatever profession or ministry that our boys may choose in the future, it is our goal that they use their talents and skills to glorify God and become leaders in His Kingdom. This is the work of the Micah Project!
God has also been our Provider in the financial aspects of the project as well. While we have little institutional financial support and while we spend very little time fundraising (it is too much fun spending time with the boys!), He has faithfully provided us with the financing we need to run the project in these first months. We would like to thank all of you who have been supporting us both financially and in prayer! You are helping to fertilize a powerful work here in Honduras.
We would also like to ask you to consider supporting the Micah Project on a monthly basis. We have a monthly budget of $4,000 which includes staff, house upkeep, the boys' living expenses (clothing, food, medicine, etc.), education, activities, service and outreach ministries, our leadership training program and scholarship fund.
Would you like to take an on-going part in this work that God is doing? If so, please fill out the form on the enclosed brochure and send it back to us.
One of our favorite activities is writing about our boys. We will send your stories of the triumphs, of the growing pains, and of the way our Lord is moving in these boys. We think they will be a blessing to you just as they are a blessing to us!
On behalf of the Micah boys and of those whom they will impact here in Honduras, muchas grácias!
Michael Miller
Aminah Al-Attas
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