The Miracle of Pollito

If anyone were a poster child for project transformation, it would be Pollito. You might recognize him from his picture – four and a half feet of dusty clothes worn too big, and a grimy smile that spreads from ear to ear. I had heard much about him before I first saw him. He is well known among the garbage sorters as the little boy raised in the trash. His mom is a drug addict and he has been in the garbage every day without fail since he was one year old. Now that he is eight, there has never been a harder worker. The older guys call him “Pollito,” which means “little chicken,” because they think of him as sort of a pet. You can see he takes pride in being allowed to hang around them. I suspect no one gives him attention “at home” – wherever that is.

How long, little Pollito, will you grow up in garbage? Will you ever learn to play instead of lift heavy bags twice your size? For seven years, since AFE began, Pollito has been the subject of our hopes and prayers. Every time we encounter him, he promises to come to school the next day. But for seven years, the next day found him in the trash once more. Until last week.
On Monday, and mouths dropped open when Pollito and his little sister walked through AFE’s doors, clean and ready to learn. They were not alone. Their mother, sober for the first time, brought them and enrolled them in classes immediately. Since that day, Pollito and his sister have not missed one class, have arrived promptly every day, and even came to church on Sunday! There is no other explanation than God’s timing, and we can do nothing but thank God for this miracle.

We thank God…but we still fervently pray for Pollito and his family. While he and his sister are enrolled in AFE and showing good intentions to change, it is still an uphill battle to rescue them from the forces that keep generations in the dump. In fact, Pollito has a particular challenge in education since he has never learned the motor skills to even hold a pencil. He is receiving special tutoring for this, but please continue to keep their family in your prayers. We will keep you updated as to Pollito’s progress!

Incarnational Living

In a week we will be able to practice a fundamental law of mission work: incarnational living. It means that just as Jesus put on flesh and moved into the neighborhood (John 1:14), so are we to do everything we can to live with and like the people to whom we minister.

The house in the Miller community will still be a step up from the poverty of the people of the dump. But it will be closer to them, in geographic and economic distance. Electricity comes and goes, and water may prove to be an ever scarcer commodity. It will be much easier for our weekly Saturday visitors (the young people of AFE) to find us and I hope the visits will become more frequent. But just as importantly, it will easier for us to share life with the Honduran community around us. I dream of starting a Bible study for mothers of the Miller community, who will then reach out to the matriarchs of the Tegucigalpa Dump. And I know that Rey is especially looking forward to the Sunday evening kickball games!

I am certain that my family will be tremendously blessed through this move. Children greet Elijah in the streets and we will have the best neighbors ever! (The Ordoňez family). Shane Claibourn once said: “I believe that the great tragedy of the church is not that rich Christians do not care about the poor, but that they do not know the poor.” We feel so blessed that Elijah will have the opportunity to know the poor, who are also our friends. Thank you so much to Michael Miller who has helped us find housing in Honduras, become acquainted to the country and culture, and made this move possible.

First Week of Class

We just finished our first week of classes. It was an incredible experience. We registered 49 news students all connected to the garbage dump. We were all surprised by the sudden interest in many of the new students. To think that these 49 new students will experience love unexplainable and hope of a new future is really exciting. We all believe 2009 will be a pivotal year for the garbage dump. We plan on starting the nursery this year along with a special education class. We will have a fulltime teacher who is helping the children with learning disabilities. We also started 9th grade this year. We have an English class which will help with speaking the language and a new literature class where we will be reading Honduras authors along with classics such as The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and Uncle Tom’s Cabin. We also started another year of our discipleship program called Impacto Total. This program was such a success last year as the students learned how to practically apply their faith to everyday life. The testimonies were so beautiful as many students spoke of incredible growth in different areas.

Along with the 49 miracles God gave us, he provided another miracle for AFE. Due to the increase in our students, we have had to hire new staff. The problem is we do not have any funds to hire new teachers. All of us were feeling the pressure and stress of not having any funds. I would wake up every morning at 5 am with the weight of the world on my chest. Where would we get about eight thousand dollars in such short notice? One of the students saw me worrying and asked what was wrong. I decided to use this opportunity to grow in faith. I told the student, “I am looking for some money but can’t find any. But let’s pray and God will provide for us.” We both prayed asking God to look out for us. That was Tuesday. On Thursday, I got an unexpected email from Mike Douris of Orphan Outreach which is a partner organization. He told me a group from Florida Baptist Children’s home was giving exactly $8000 towards operations! I was stunned. I know all the stories of George Mueller and William Carey praying and living by faith. But this might be the first time I experienced it. It has taken us a while, but I am realizing how much God cares for this ministry.

We have new prayer request so please don’t forget about us.

Graduation 08 - Slideshow

Please keep these students in your prayers.

Josue, Milton, Carlos, Paola

Selena, Jackson, Maholy, Gerson, Edwin, Douglas

Graduation 08

On December 5, 2008 we had a graduation at AFE. Four students finished kindergarten and are moving into first grade. Six students finished elementary school and are moving into middle school. It was the first graduation for AFE I had attended. I was moved by the students who have overcome so many crippling obstacles to reach this moment. Some of the graduates live in the worst conditions imaginable. Others are dealing with serious family problems and abuse. Others have been abandoned by their parents and are being raised by aunts and grandparents. Others have had to work every afternoon in the garbage dump afterschool to provide food for their family. Yet these students have graduated and there were many people congratulating them.

In Honduras, the graduation is dedicated to a person and named after them. The graduation is usually addressed to some who gave a large donation or passed away or did something special for the school. Our graduation was named after Jeki Suge Roca. She is actually a made up person. Instead she is the acronym of all the teachers we have on staff at AFE. This graduation was dedicated to our teachers because for many years they have done all the hard work at AFE. I feel honored to work next to these heroes. For many years they donated all their time to teach our students. They paid for all their material and transportation. This year, we have been able to give them an ‘offering’ for their work. They tremendously gifted and love all our students as if they were their own. These teachers serve as proof that God has the garbage dump in his plans because he assembled an all-star staff of teachers to love and teach these students.

Pride

I was just at a Forum for Injustice in Tegucigalpa Honduras. Pastor Jeony and I were invited by one of the directors of the forum. They had also asked if we could bring a couple students from AFE to share their testimony. We chose Antonio and Rene. They were nervous about having to tell their story before a huge crowd. Rene’s hand was ice cold from his nerves. Yet they boldly stood up before 100 leaders in Honduras, and shared what God had done in their lives. They shared about their past in the garbage dump, their present at AFE, and their future dreams. When they were finished, the audience responded with a thunderous applause. I was in tears.

Antonio and Rene did not share any new information with me that night. I was in tears because I was seeing a dream come true. I was experiencing the hand of God. I was witnessing a miracle. Our mission is to see lives and structure transformed. Both of these young men are transformed. I know they are only the beginning. There are another 170 students who are in the process of transformation and will one day be walking testimony of God’s love. There are another couple hundred still in the garbage dump but I know they are still in God’s plan. I was so moved because these two young men were shining God’s light that evening. I could imagine the pride God felt, in hearing his two children say such wonderful things about their heavenly father. I could imagine the pride Jeony felt, in that he was the first to respond the heavenly Father years ago to help his children in the garbage dump. I felt overwhelming pride, in working next to God and this amazing team, being part of this unstoppable movement. I know that by ourselves, there is so little that can be done against injustice, poverty, and evil. But for the last year I have been part of this team working in Honduras, whose members are in Washington Cathedral, Amor y Vida, Orpan Outreach, StreetKidsDirect, Bethel Church, and so many other places, and I have seen firsthand transformation. I have tangible, empirical proof that God wants to and is going to transform this entire community. And at the end of the day, God will be glorified.

Future Computer Technicians

Today I was typing into an Excel file in AFE´s office when I was surrounded by eager learners. “Did you type in all of that information?”
“How do you do it so fast?
“Can you even type with your eyes closed?”
“Yes”, I replied, “And you will learn how to do it too!”

Thanks to generous donors from Washington Cathedral AFE now has eleven computers in its upstairs room. The children are taking typing classes. Soon they will learn how to use the programs in Microsoft office, and then the internet!

For children whose world does not expand much further than their neighborhood, this is a great opportunity for them, and they are excited!

Little Ivan was amazed as he was given the opportunity to type out his name on the keyboard and see it appear on the screen. “Would you like to learn computer skills?” I asked him. He nodded his head fervently. Someday I believe he will work in an office instead of in a garbage dump.