By Rey Diaz

We were created for community. God placed in all of us a deep desire to belong to a community. We long and even crave belonging. It’s why teenagers receive a beating for 60 seconds--coming within inches of death--to join a gang. Most of us get a sense of belonging from our families and group of friends. If we do not have that network of family friends, God has not left us high and dry. The church is God’s gift to us to who long for belonging and community.

Selena is a 16 year-old girl who does not have a mother or a father. Better put, her dad is a drug addict who lives on the streets. Selena’s mom left with her dad when she was a baby and has never spoken with Selena since. She was raised by her grandmother until last year when her grandmother became too elderly to care for a teenage girl. With nowhere else to go, Selena went to live with her aunt. But in the evenings she heard her aunt and uncle arguing about how hard it was to take her in and she felt like a burden.

Selena is an incredibly gifted public speaker. She is smart and motivated. Selena loves God but wonders why her life has been so hard. With tears in her eyes she told me that she trust God with all her heart but doesn’t understand what it means to be loved and wanted. AFE has been her only family.

Let me pause Selena’s story for a moment. In the meantime, and in another part of Honduras, an elderly couple watches the son they adopted off the streets graduate with a degree in Engineering. Their daughter is now a teacher at a private Christian school. The couple is Pastor Pedro Macion who leads a church in Catacamas with his wife Hermelinda. With both children grown up, the caring couple find themselves as empty-nesters with so much love left to give.

They contacted Pastor Jeony with the proposition that if AFE ever needs a home for any student, they are available. They wanted to unofficially adopt a student who needs love and they would take on full responsibility (even financially) for their care.

So while Selena was in tears asking for someone to love her, God was preparing a family for that purpose. This Saturday, we drove Selena out to meet her new family. Selena was understandably very nervous. What if they didn’t “click”? What if she didn’t like them? Worse, what if they didn’t like her?

When Pastor Marcion first saw Selena, the words spilled out of his mouth: “My daughter. I have been waiting for you for so long.” He gave Selena a big hug and Selena began to cry again. This time the tears told a different story. These were tears of belonging and community. These tears spoke of grace, love, and God. Selena has been adopted into a family that will cherish her and make her feel like the blessing she is, instead of a burden.
One day, we who have placed our trust in Christ, will hear our heavenly father say “My child. I have been waiting for you for so long.”

Several weeks ago Pastor Jeony, Rey and I had the opportunity to visit our former students Katarin and Walesca Mondragon in their new home in Catacamas (a small city four hours from Tegucigalpa). Last June AFE helped these two second graders escape forced labor in the garbage dump and move in with an aunt who would care for them in another city (see: “Valesca and Katarin Find New Home”).

Two years ago we met them…an idealistic young couple with the glint of a dream in their eyes. Like many before them, they told us they wanted to come down and help AFE. Expecting their passion to fade with time, we gave the perfunctorily response: “Sure, sure, that would be great!” But the next time they came down with a medical brigade they were even more determined.

Today AFE is happy to call Adam and Hollie Macenczak part of our family. God couldn’t have chosen a better couple or a better time. Adam’s background is in Christian education – at the junior high level. Hollie has experience in the ER as a nurse. With more and more grades at AFE moving up to higher levels of education, there is a great demand for teachers qualified to teach higher-level courses. With the Miller family’s departure to the United States, a hole has been left in AFE’s health programming. Adam and Hollie couldn’t have come at a better time.

Adam and Hollie first discovered AFE when they came on a short-term mission trip with their friend, Jacobo Solimon. Jacobo Solimon lives in Atlanta and attends Christian Church Buckhead, but he is originally from Honduras. His family, the Solimons, are founding members of AFE’s church, Amor y Vida, and have been faithful supporters of AFE.

Adam and Hollie are supported by their church, Christian Church at Buckhead, and by Snellville Christian Church in Snellville, Georgia. They have come to AFE and Honduras through the missionary organization Soar Ministries in Georgia. Before joining AFE as full-time this January, they studied Spanish in an immersion school in Antigua, Guatemala and La Ceiba, Honduras. They plan to serve at AFE for the next five years and we couldn’t be happier. Pray that God would bless the Macenczak’s for their sacrifice leaving family and friends to invest five years in service to the poorest of the poor in the Tegucigalpa garbage dump. You can follow along with Adam and Hollie’s adventures on their blog, “Poco a Poco.”

2009 was a great year for AFE. We experienced much success with the students we had rescued from the garbage dump years ago. Yet, only four new students from the garbage dump registered in the beginning of the school year. And each time we visited the dump, we saw more and more children working there*. For this reason, in 2010 we tried a new strategy: “Greater Presence in the Garbage Dump.”

By Rey Diaz

Christmas is always a special time in Honduras and especially at AFE. Like many of you, I have helped to raise support for these activities and seen pictures of the events, but never experienced a garbage-dump Christmas first hand. Now that I have, I am so full of gratitude for everyone who helps to support this event!

A week before Christmas, over 700 garbage workers and family members descended the hill from the trash dump to celebrate Christmas with us. Just watching them come, covered head to toe in soot and ash, and arriving in waves like the sea, was an indescribable experience. Jesus died for each and every one of these forgotten-ones. And He was about to share His story and His plan with them through a party!


Several organizations came together in the name of Jesus Christ to make this happen. AFE hosted the event and was support by “Casa de Esperanza” and “Mi Esperanza” among others. Every person who came feasted on a traditional Christmas meal in Honduras and had the opportunity to “shop” for clothes, shoes, and toys in our market. To “purchase” the clothes in our market, each garbage worker received a voucher worth 200L (about $10), which is equivalent to two weeks’ wages for them. I saw moms and dads shopping for their children, and children shop for their parents.

As garbage workers delighted in the opportunity to pick out new clothes, AFE’s children and young adults served them, remembering when they had done the same. They passed out food, helped to pick out shoes, and even prayed for some of the families. It is amazing to see the difference in AFE’s students, who have become servant-leaders in their society, and the people still stuck in the garbage dump.

A week later, we gave AFE’s students the chance to relax and celebrate their own Christmas. The children came dressed in their best attire and eagerly awaiting their chance to come up and receive their present as everyone cheered. Once they heard their names, AFE’s children walked (ran would be more accurate) to the front to receive a hug and kiss from their beloved principal (Jesy Ordonez) and their present, chosen especially for them.

In Honduras, the tradition during Christmas time is for children to receive “extrenos” (new outfits) for the coming school year. This might be the only time they receive new clothes that year and Hondurans, as a culture, take much pride in their appearance. Each child received a new set of clothing including a shirt, pants, and shoes (special thanks to Worthington Christian School, Trash Mountain Project, and Washington Cathedral for fundraising for these items). Thanks also, to the private school in Tegucigalpa, Los Pinares, each child received a shoe box full of surprises ranging from candy to toys and everything in between.

To top off a Christmas of amazing blessings, the Tegucigalpa Mayor’s wife threw another Christmas party for the children of AFE and the surrounding neighborhood. Around 300 children arrived to participate in games, giggle at clowns, and of course, receive a special toy. The Mayor’s wife, Lucrecia, also brought along a couple of famous TV personalities, who were a big hit. However, the best news we received this season came when the Mayor’s wife passionately shared her desire to stop children from working in the garbage dump! This is something we have been praying about for years! Because every time we rescue a child from the garbage dump, a new one enters. Something must be done to prohibit children from working in the garbage dump, and the Mayor’s Office is the one to do it.

When we heard the mayor’s wife express this vision, we were so excited to tell her that this is something we have been praying about and working toward for years! Plans are in the works to solidify this partnership and make child labor a thing of the past. Please continue to pray about this with us.


All in all, it was a Christmas in which we had nothing more to say than: “Emmanuel,” God is with us. If you add up the people served at all parties, over a 1000 individuals struggling in extreme poverty, received food and gifts in the name of Jesus Christ. And to think you are a part of God’s master plan to save and redeem the Tegucigalpa Garbage slum!

Sometimes we underestimate the advantages our children possess by such a simple act as our ability to strap them into the car and take them with us to the grocery store.

The children of AFE (a school Washington Cathedral supports in Honduras) do not have that advantage. They come from a small world that they cannot see past the garbage dump or the ends at their neighborhoods. The younger children do not recognize that they live in Tegucigalpa, the capital of Honduras. Nor have they traveled downtown to see the beautiful remnants of colonial architecture or the brightly colored signs of fast-food chains signaling a larger world of international commerce exists. I always enjoy watching the children take their first step on an escalator when we bring them to the airport to pick up teams. It is a frightening thing to get on a moving staircase and to feel so out of control of your location. We often cause a bit of an uproar as we attempt to travel up to the second level.

These experiences are priceless. They give the children vision, they learn that there is more to life than the garbage dump community. They see people working in other professions, they visit places that are kept clean of trash, and they begin to dream.

Thanks to Washington Cathedral and all who participated in its “Fiesta de Milagros” auction, the children of AFE will be able to travel outside of their dump community much more frequently now. We have purchased a 15 passenger van (roughly 30 Honduran-passenger), which will serve to take classes on field trips. Trips to museums, the zoo, and the universities are planned. The more we can get AFE’s children out into “normal” society, the more they will feel comfortable and become socialized for something more than dump-life.

The van will transport visiting teams as well, though we plan to continue charging a small transportation fee to cover yearly maintenance.

We are excited about the possibilities in store, thanks to all who have given so generously! If you would like to participate in the "Fiesta de Milagros" this year, please contact linda.skinner@wacathedral.org

Dear friends,

This Thursday, the Central American Philharmonic Orcestra will perform a special concert to raise funds for AFE! Please pray not only that pocketbooks would open, but hearts as well! One of our major goals to to increase more local support and action. If powerful Hondurans can catch the vision of no more children in the garbage dump, perhaps they would have the means to make this dream a reality!