Micah House

Idealistic behavioral science majors dream of freeing people from the chains of their own history. The practicum of life may disabuse them of possibilities for radical change, leaving them with more modest adaptation goals for their clients. Who can possibly escape the scars of physical abuse, rejection, poverty, and forced independence before one’s teen years? Isn’t modest independent living—scraping by with whatever means become available—more than one could imagine for homeless children, abandoned to the streets closer to their weaning age than to puberty? The litany of hard street living in developing countries presented by the media includes searching the trash for food, begging, stealing, police harassment, prison, drugs, glue, and disappearance and death.

After 3 previous class trips to Honduras, I knew that serendipitous meetings would provide unexpected lessons about our class content—social inequality. One only has to be open to what might happen—to whom one might encounter on the street—and pursue the conversations where they may lead to capture the perquisites of serendipity.

We run a low-budget class trip. We stay in cheap hotels and eat meals at “typico” restaurants, with occasional jaunts to more exotic eateries. Copan Ruinas, our last location for the 2005 trip, is a tourist town with expensive hotels. However, I found lodging on the internet for minimal rates--$5.00 per person per night if we were willing to live in dormitory-type space with shared bathroom facilities. When we arrived in Copan, a pickup truck driver offered to take us into town, suggesting accommodations at one of the hotels. We said we had reservations at Iguana Azul. His response, “Iguana Azul is bad,” made me wonder if I had bargained too low for our final days. But he took us to the Blue Iguana and we found delightful accommodations. Clean, spacious rooms with good beds, hot water showers, and private toilet stalls nicely decorated in colorful tile just outside the rear door, and a large central lounge allayed our initial fears about quality and facilities accessibility.

I wanted to contact a friend from prior visits as soon as possible. Four Honduran young men waited at the door to Iguana Azul as we first approached and I asked if they knew Manuel Guerra. No, they said; they were visiting from Tegucigalpa and were staying in one of the 5 rooms in our dormitory facility. We arranged our luggage in our rooms, and spoke briefly with the young men before leaving for dinner. Their stories emerged during the next few days. The common theme in their stories involved breaking a cycle of oppression. All four were street children, abandoned or abused by parents and left to fend for themselves.

“How did you get food?” I asked.

“We searched through trash cans, stole it, or begged,” he said. Rotten food was better than no food, and when hunger was too strong, fifty cents from begging got them enough glue to take away the emptiness of stomach and soul.

In drunken stupor, Tino’s father beat him for no reason. Tino hated his father and left home for life on the streets. But the beatings now came from others on the streets. The police picked up Jarvin about 10 times and placed him in jail before sending him to an overcrowded orphanage. He repeatedly escaped the sure food and shelter at the orphanage, seeking in desperation to fill a hunger that food alone couldn’t assuage. All four men had similar stories. Street kids—street smart! Sniffing glue, stealing, scavenging, and barely surviving in Tegucigalpa—the capital of Honduras. But the cycle of desperation ended five years ago. In 2000, a young man who had volunteered at the orphanage some years earlier,

By age 15, we generally assume that personality is well-formed and the course of a person’s life is established. With parental models of drive and purpose, such children may have already internalized these patterns, filling in only the words to articulate their goals as their own. Without parental models and with experiences of survival through necessary theft and scavenging, we expect a life of cycling in and out of the criminal justice system. Can the cycle be any different?

At the end of the semester in General Psychology, I once asked students the most important lesson they had learned in the class. During the semester we reviewed the family cycle of violence and a distressed student had asked, “Does the cycle have to go on?” I had replied that the good news—the Gospel—was that it didn’t have to be so. That student cited that lesson as most important. Yesterday I sat with four examples of that same good news. Tino, Jarvin, Olvin, and David proclaimed what they had learned at “Micah House”—their home. I knew what was coming because of the prophetic reference in the house name, and I predicted to them why they would say the house had its name. “What does the Lord require of you? To love justice, do kindness, and walk humbly with your God.” (Micah 6:8).

“That’s our verse,” they said. And the rest spilled out. “I feel very special because I found what every boy wants—love,” said Tino. “I came to forgive my father and love him,” he added. In November, 2004, all four graduated from high school—no small feat for Honduran children who do not grow up on the street. Tino works on the web site for Micah House and wants to study computer science so he can operate an internet site in Honduras. Olvin wants to study electrical engineering and work with Tino, or go into dentistry to serve the needs of Honduran underprivileged. David and Jarvin both want to study psychology and sociology to work with the thousands of children who still need what they found.

Here are four young men with tremendous self-esteem, goals for their future, and insight we can hardly imagine for high school graduates. Regarding goals, Jarvin said, “You can’t go through to another state if you forget the past.” And he had forgiven those who had made his past hell. I described to three of them Paolo Freire’s concept of appropriate pedagogy. Instead of an enslaving hierarchical teacher-over-student model, Freire describes a teacher who is still a student and a student who is also a teacher, working together to identify problems and seek their solutions. Olvin summarized Freire’s argument in two incredible words—“That’s synergy!” and I found myself the student to his insight.

Freire also claims that the oppressor cannot free the oppressed. It can only happen the other way. The oppressed have the possibility to free themselves and their oppressors only if they recognize that they carry the oppressor in themselves. If the oppressed strive to be like the oppressor, people only switch roles—there is no transformation.

In these four men, I see transformation. Why were they in Copan? They were translating for a medical team. One worked with a dentist, another with the pharmacy, another with a general surgeon, and the fourth with the children. One person from our group asked whether this is how they made some of their money. “No,” said Tino, “”we are volunteers.” And all four are committed to study abroad so that they can return to Honduras, a country in the grips of economic and political oppression, to spread the freedom they have received through God’s grace.

My soul rises up in celebration of their liberation. I cry with joy for the inspiration they give me. I pray that God will bless them richly.