Often “mission” trips go something like this… (1) Choose your destination, (2) Raise funds, (3) Go, (4) Do a project… paint, build, dig etc (5) Feel good, and (6) Come home with a sunburn.
For us, the words Go, Learn, Return, Respond echo in our minds even these four weeks after our return.
I will take a moment to tell you about the elements of our trip, and some thoughts I’ve had, and hopefully you will see yourself in the story…
The Micah Project, a home dedicated to building strong, believing young men, from the literal dregs of Honduran society, sits unassumingly on the corner of a typical barrio in Tegucigalpa. It is just a tiny part of the dense mass of the 1 million + souls who share that valley.
Living on less than $1/day, the majority of Hondurans live hand to mouth at best. Hunger is a standard most have felt, or often feel, and the Micah boys were no exception. Many of them were brought into this loving, nurturing environment from a life of addiction, poverty and abuse that comes on the streets of Tegu. How are they selected? Well, God does that…
I think the staff at Micah had expectations that we would be a typical mission team, so projects were lined up – welding for Darin and Tom (because they can do that…) and painting for … well, the rest of us. It was fun spending the time feeling useful, but the boys in the leadership house really didn’t need us to paint their walls – they were very capable. And so I wonder, what do we really bring when we come with our shiny faces to do a job they could do themselves? Somehow that didn’t seem to be the “help” I had hoped we’d be. So one lesson I learned was to not “hurt with my helping”. Don’t do for others that which they can do for themselves. (The welding was different – Darin brought a skill the 18 men in the vocational school could learn from, and take on to the next level of their training).
We were privileged to participate in a Night Strike – Honduran style! Brian Wiggs, who led our own Night Strike here in Portland, moved to Tegu last November, and immediately began something similar, targeting the same street kids who seem to grace the Micah Project eventually. I don’t think this is a coincidence. God loves these kids! Almost all the kids who participate in Night Strike will come high on shoe glue, but I was amazed to see that each one in turn gave up their bottles of glue to Brian, who safely stored them away. The team then takes the first 40 minutes playing a rather aggressive form of street soccer to allow the effects of the glue to wear off, and to show the kids that their life can be good without it. Then, as part of the team prepare to serve a hearty meal, the kids are gathered together and told of the Hope available to each of them. After dinner, many boys take advantage of the foot washing stations, because as you can imagine, shoes are another luxury… At the end of the evening, Brian continues to build trust even as he returns the noxious poison, the closest friend many of these boys will have as they reenter their dark realities.
The next lesson for me came when we went up to the trash dump, via AFE, a school established for the sole purpose of bringing Love, Faith, and Hope. Here, 250 of the 450 children who would otherwise be competing for rotten food with the vultures, or scrounging for something to resell so their parents can buy food, are given two square meals, clean clothes and decent shot at life through education. Children here will graduate with a dream of something better to take with them as they go to college. To my shame, these kids will leave AFE bilingual – and I can’t even get myself enrolled in a language class… In Tegucigalpa, along with most Central American countries, the culture dictates that whatever social status you are born into is where you belong and will stay – so for these kids, AFE is changing their destiny.
These are the words Jeony (AFE Director) spoke, and which I think I will remember always… “When something is revealed to you, you become responsible for what you do with it”. He told us the 1000+ trash dump community does not need pity, they need compassion. And compassion moves us to action. It’s easy to feel good about oneself in this type of environment – handing out bread and water having never known hunger myself… but how will I respond to what has been revealed to me?
The injustices we witnessed in Honduras – forced child labor, lack of education, children left to fend for themselves with no advocacy at all – may seem outrageous, shocking even, but they shouldn’t surprise us. Two thirds of the world see this on a daily basis. What I learned is that I have a responsibility, as Isaiah 1 says to “Learn to do good; seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow”. We can have confidence that He will work on their behalf… “When they cry out to the Lord… He will send them a savior and a defender, and He will rescue them” (Isaiah 19)
I am not sure where this journey of learning and responding will take us, but I am one who says “Here am I, send me!”, and I am glad to be taking this journey together with you!
A footnote of hope: Towards the end of our trip, we found ourselves in the Consul to Norway’s home (palace…) to participate in a presentation of the Micah Project to some of Honduras’s most influential aristocrats. These people had presidents in their families, and own most of the corporations in the six Central American countries. Indeed, Consul Simon Kaffe, encouraged his guests that they hold the keys to changing a nation – by reaching into the barrios, and trusting the character of boys like those in the Micah Project. Buy hiring, and investing in to their lives, and becoming the change necessary. God showed is He does put us before kings – and He will do the work!
Blessings,
