Cold nights and changed lives

Above: Hector hangs out with Mocha on a recent Micah outing. Below:
Michael spends some time with Hector during a recent street outreach in
the market district of Tegucigalpa.


To read a printable version of this post, click on www.micahcentral.org/blogs/Hectorblogoct08.doc



As I write this, I have a little street boy named Hector looking over my shoulder. He can’t read or write, and when I asked him for his birthday, he didn’t know. He thinks that he is thirteen, although to look at him, you’d think that he is eight or nine. He just had breakfast with the other Micah boys, and came in to ask me something before our devotional time in a few minutes.

“Michael, can I stay here forever?”

Honestly, I wasn’t too surprised by the question, since he asked me the same question last night before bed. Even so, the question stopped me in my tracks. One answer, yes or no, could determine the future course of this young life. So…what do I say?

We have gotten to know Hector well through our street ministry over the last year. He occasionally lives with his dad, who sells fruit out of a wheelbarrow in the market area of Tegucigalpa, but most of the time, his addiction to yellow glue keeps him on the streets.

As we have gotten to know Hector, both on the streets and through the Saturday outings that he occasionally joins us on, we have found a sweet kid with a pleasant personality. Even so, whenever we have talked to him about joining the Micah Project, he can never see clearly enough through the fog of his addiction to accept our offer. .

Lately, though, his defenses have been lowering little by little as he has come to trust us more. Last night, a “cold front” came through Honduras, with temperatures in the 50s (okay, I know that’s nothing to cry about, but for Hondurans, it’s considered a deep freeze!). Hector came up to the Micah House looking for food in an old battered coat that was about three times his size. After feeding him, we decided to let him sleep in the house so that he wouldn’t have to spend a cold night on the streets.

So put yourself in my shoes. The kid spent a peaceful night of sleep in the Micah House. Now, he has his arm around you, shivering from the cold air, asking if you will take him in. You know that if you say no, or not right now, or we will talk about it as a staff and get back to you, you are sending him back to the streets, and closing this window of opportunity that the cold air has shaken open. So…Can Hector stay with us forever? My answer is: I sure hope so!

Now we are praying that one cold night might be the turning point in Hector’s life. The glue addiction is strong; both Wilmer and little Marvin, who joined us in June of 2007, are still struggling to overcome theirs. To truly overcome the addiction to glue and to street life in general, the following things are indispensable: personal determination, a unified group of people at Micah that are willing to help every step of the way, and a constant sense that there is something better waiting for them in the future. And…of course…lots and lots of people praying.

We’ll let you know how it goes!

I also wanted to update you on the flooding here in Honduras as well. I was just up at the public school two blocks from the Micah House. There are almost forty families in the school that have either lost their homes or have been forcibly evacuated from them because of fear of landslides. Though the rain has pretty much stopped, at least in Tegucigalpa, the ground is incredibly saturated, and anyone who lives in wooden shacks clinging to hillsides, which is a common site in Tegucigalpa, is at risk of a landslide.

We continue to help out the families in the shelter when we can. We have provided dinner at the shelter and continue to provide supplies when they run out. I have talked to several of the families in the shelter, and they are not sure how long they will be there or if they will be allowed to return to their homes once things dry out. Additionally, we have helped two families rent small rooms in order to get them out of dangerous situations. One of the families is Maycol’s mom, whose shack is beginning to tilt dangerously downhill. A few of our guys helped her and her family move to safer ground yesterday. We will see what happens to these families once this time of crisis passes.

This week is the tenth anniversary of Hurricane Mitch’s destructive passage through Honduras. The BBC has written a good report on Honduras ten years after Mitch. You can link to it here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7682412.stm .

I appreciate your prayers for Hector and for the victims of the recent flooding!

Muchas gracias,

Michael Miller