Uriel's Miracle

For the last two years, Lake City Community Church in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho has been sending mission teams to Tegucigalpa to work on the Learning Center for AfE’s church (see previous article). The teams have partnered with Honduran construction workers on AFE’s payroll to labor together and put up the walls, slowly but surely.

One of the construction workers they met and became fond of over the years is Ozman Uriel Medina Lagos. Uriel’s story was not unlike the stories of many other young men in Honduras.

Uriel’s father abandoned his family when Uriel was young. His mother, without skills and education, scraped by making and selling donuts, and tried her best to feed her three children. The youngest brother, William, was sometimes mock

ed in school for wearing Uriel’s old shoes, which looked like clown shoes on his feet. When Uriel was old enough, he dropped out of school so he could work in construction and help put food on his family’s table. Years went by. The Medina Lagos family became strong members of the Amor y Vida church in the Miller, where they live. Pastor Jeony learned of their situation and looked for opportunities to hire Uriel and help this family in any way he could.

Soon Uriel was a regular member of AFE’s construction staff, but he secretly dreamed of continuing his education someday. Then he encountered the members of Lake City. Another they lived in a land far way, the people from Lake City took immediately to Uriel with his cheerful disposition and humble attitude. They noticed how intelligent he was and became curious why he was not furthering his education. When Pastor Jeony relayed Uriel’s story to the team, they decided they would chip in together to provide a scholarship for him.

When Rey Diaz (AFE’s U.S. Liason) told Uriel the team from Lake City wanted to meet with him, Uriel’s first response was: “Oh no, did I do something wrong? Am I in trouble?” Rey drove him to the team’s hotel where they had dinner and Uriel was very nervous.

Pastor Jeony asked Uriel to share his story with the group and asked him if he had a life dream. Uriel replied shy, “I would love to go to a university someday , study engineering, and attain a career to better support my family.”

At this point the team shared with him: “Uriel, God wants to make your dreams come true. We would like to give you a scholarship to study at a university and a stipend to take care of your family’s living expenses while you are studying.”

Uriel did not utter a word. His mouth dropped open. The group waited in joyful expectation. But Uriel did not say anything. He looked around the room, confused, perhaps searching for the signs of a joke in the team’s faces. When he saw nothing but smiles of excitement the truth set in. Then the tears came, flowing down his face in joyful grattitude to God.

“For the LORD your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who shows no partiality and accepts no bribes. ¹⁸ He defends the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and loves the foreigner residing among you, giving them food and cloth” (Deut 10:17-19)

Thank you, Lake City, for serving as the instruments of God to make one young man’s impossible dreams come true.

Replicating AFE

The situation in the Tegucigalpa Garbage Dump is not unique. Other garbage dump communities exist in Choluteca and in San Pedro Sula, Honduras….and in many other places of Central America. If a town in poor country like Honduras does not have an organized trash dump, it still has children scavenging the streets to survive.

AFE’s success in rescuing children from the garbage dump has been tremendous and inspiring. And when God began opening doors for AFE and Pastor Jeony, the question arose: how can we replicate what God is doing at AFE in similar situations of children at risk in Latin America?

It wasn’t long before God called and formed a team for this vision. Three years ago Lake City Church in Coeur D’Alene, Idaho visited AFE and shared their heart: “We are interested in training church leaders to meet the specific needs of their contexts….especially if that context is extreme poverty.” Then Pastor Jeony was awarded the position of mission coordinator for his denomination. He began speaking about AFE at many different churches in the region and after his talk the line to speak to him was long. “How can we do what you are doing at AFE in our own communities?”

The vision for Amor y Vida’s Learning Center was born.

The idea is that pastors from poor communities without a lot of training would come to the learning center (beside AFE’s church in the Linda Miller community) to receive practical training in how to reach their communities and maybe even a trade with which to survive. (In these poor communities pastors cannot live on the offerings of their church and must be bi-vocational). The focus will be on how to manifest the transformational gospel in their community to meet the needs that arise out of extreme poverty.

The dream for the Learning Center is in the same stage and the actual building of it. The structure and frame is set-up, but it is not finished.
Would you pray for this vision, that God would guide the planning process, that He would bring the right people onto the team, and provide funds to finish the building?

$3,000 (at least) is needed to finish construction. If you would like to be part of this project in any way, please contact reyangeldiaz@gmail.com

A Tale of Two Communities

It is a little known fact that AFE is not an island in Honduras, an organization floating by itself, trying to rescue children from the garbage dump (with financial and prayer support in the United States). Although AFE came first, it is actually the social action project of a Honduran church, Amor y Vida.

When Jeony Ordonez received the vision for AFE, he was the mission leader at another Amor y Vida (“love and live”) church in a different part of Tegucigalpa. This Amor y Vida church was the mother church of four satellite churches planted throughout Honduras. One of Jeony’s mentors (and boss at the time), Michael Miller of the Micah Project, encouraged Jeony to plant a church to support AFE. This was Michael Miller’s advice because the ideal situation is for social action to launch out of a local church, and to be supported by a church.

Thus, five years ago with his senior pastor’s blessing and a seminary education under his belt, Jeony Ordonez moved from his middle-class neighborhood to the poor community of “Linda Miller” and began visiting families to start a church. Today, seven of AFE’s teachers come from “Amor y Vida” in the Miller. They found Christ in that church, underwent discipleship, and now are reaching out to children from the garbage dump. Pastor Jeony is smart. By himself, he can only reach so many children from the garbage dump. But if Jeony can reproduce his missionary-heart, he can reach so many more.

The Amor y Vida church in the Linda Miller community supplies AFE with teachers. It provides an avenue for AFE’s children to worship weekly, participate in Sunday School and youth group. It has planted one Bible-study group among garbage working families, and hopes to grow more.

Despite this excellent involvement in the garbage dump community, Pastor Jeony’s began to wonder, “Could this church do more?” Many of AFE’s children have been abandoned by their parents, face the danger of abuse by family members, and are in desperate need of substitute godly families. Legal adoption is hard in Honduras. What if the families of the Amor y Vida church in the Miller could fall in love with the children of AFE? What if they became substitute grandparents, uncles and aunts, maybe even fathers and mothers to the children who have no one?

For this reason, Pastor Jeony recently launched the campaign in the Amor y Vida church, “A Tale of Two Communities.” This campaign teaches about some of the needs in the world, and God’s call for the church to be an active agent of change. We are excited to see what comes out of it and how God moves in the Miller community. Will you pray for us?

Addendum: Last Sunday, in the continuing theme of Churches in Action, Pastor Jeony led a panel discussion to highlight what other communities are doing to reach their context. Volunteer Paul Sloan shared about his home church's efforts to reach the homeless in Waco: "Church Under the Bridge," and Rey Diaz shared about his home church's dream to "build the greatest caring network the world has ever seen." Follow the links to be inspire!

Daisy Accepts Christ!

To all who faithfully follow AFE's blog, thank you for your prayers! The week after we posted the story about Danilo, Isis, and Dulce Maria ("New Babies Come to AFE"), their mother, Daisy, came to church and accepted Christ!