I recently met Margarita Benitez one day when we went to visit her at her house in a community called Cantarranas. She is an older lady of 45 years with dark skin burned by years in the sun. During the day, she dedicates herself to making bricks from clay to support her children. During the night, she prostitutes herself to earn a little extra money to be able to give her smallest children milk in the morning. Each day, she makes about 50 adobe blocks and sells them at 2 lempiras a piece. Daily, she makes about 100 lempiras. With 100 lempiras she supports her 11 children which she started having at age 15. One hundred lempiras will sometimes buy enough beans and eggs for them to eat three times a day when possible, other times, which are more common, they can only eat twice a day. These 100 lempiras do not cover clothing, medicine, or the chance to study.
For this reason, the government decided to take 5 of Margarita’s 11 children. Three are with us at JEC and two girls are in another children’s home either in Valley of the Angels or close to the airport. She is not sure where her girls are. Margarita’s house is one room with a dirt floor and an antique weaved roof where you can clearly see in the rainy season where water leaks through. The roof is literally stars and the sky.
This one room is the living room, the kitchen, the bedroom where they all sleep, and the dining room. The room is separated by a wall made from sticks and newspaper which is locally known as a newspaper screen.
The day I visited her, she was in the middle of making clay bricks to sell. She quit working to attend to me and started to cook an egg. It was the only egg she had in her small kitchen. One of her daughters, 9 years old, was behind the newspaper screen wall looking at me with a look of sadness and shyness. The girl was barefoot and I could see from her muddy feet that she too had been making clay bricks.
Margarita began to speak to me about her children with nostalgia. She asked me about Francisco, Julio, and Mario. She misses them greatly. After a few minutes she took out a plate and set the egg she had cooked on it. She invited me to sit on one of the clay bricks she had made that was ready for sale. She then brought me the egg she had cooked to give me for lunch. I couldn’t believe that the only food she had for both her and her daughter, she was giving away to me. I couldn’t contain my tears. This was a blow to my pride. This humble woman, a prostitute, was giving away freely her only food to share with a stranger, someone she only knew as the director of JEC.
This happened to me yesterday. But this is happening everyday for many Hondurans who dream the same as the American dream, they dream of a better tomorrow. They go to sleep hungry and wake up hungry hoping that God will bring them a miracle and send a caring soul to give them a hand.
In Honduras, poverty has many faces and many names. Señora Margarita is one of those names. At JEC we have 60 different names of poverty, I can mention a few: Jimmy, Marlon, Heriberto, Luis, Julio, and little Alexander. Poverty causes them to be abandoned and abused by the people who brought them into the world.
In Honduras, each day there are more and more abandoned children begging for a piece of bread. Manuel is one of those cases. His stepmother forced him to work and if he didn’t bring money home she would punish him unmercifully. One day when the hunger was too much for him to bear, Manuel bought a hamburger with the money he had begged for that day. When he arrived at his house with no money, his stepmother punished him by beating him in such a cruel way that it killed him. He had many hits to his head and in his anus they found a piece of a stick with nails in it. Today this devil of a woman is in prison.
I was lucky enough to meet Manuel before he was killed and I was very proud to try to bring him to JEC. I am sure that here at JEC he would have been one of the happiest boys on earth.
It is true that today, JEC is a respected institution in the country of Honduras . JEC has a capable staff that stands for the needs of the weakest. Today, JEC is not a place that simply feeds and houses kids. Today JEC emphasizes values, the word of God as our supreme guide in our walk and way of life. Today JEC has a life plan for each child. We work on this plan from the boy’s entrance as a child until he leaves as an adult from JEC.
We receive children from 3-8 years old and carry them through until university. If studying is not the child’s gift, we train them in a technical career on our campus so that they leave as a professional of refrigeration, computation, electricity, welding, or as a tailor. The licenses we offer are recognized by the government of Honduras so that they will be able to work in any business with honesty and confidence.
We have added to our philosophy of teaching them to fish instead of giving them a fish, only one ingredient. We desire to give them the necessary tools to start their own micro business so they can, by themselves, keep moving forward and be a blessing to their families, their neighbors, their communities and their country.
JEC has taken very seriously the task of rescuing, protecting, and training the abandoned children in all of Honduras. Today, JEC is a formal and professional program that harbors children in social risk. We are not simply improvising. We are not creating programs just to create them. We are not simply drifting. We are moving forward with a purpose, with goals, and with a hopeful future for our boys.
Today at JEC, we have the best plan for the child in social risk in all of Honduras . I have no fear of being mistaken, and God forgive me if I am sinning the sin of pride, but it is true. There is not another center in Honduras that has a life plan for their kids. The majority of these institutions only have the purpose of giving food and shelter to their kids. We have broken away from this system and have gotten past the act of improvising and we are now in the business of making plans. Our God is a God of order, a God who has plans for his children.
All of the loving people who have contributed , the board of directors, and my family from Brentwood Hills Church, with your unconditional support, your prayers, and determination, have been able to make this center the best place of refuge for the abandoned children of Honduras.
Today JEC has left the past behind and is heading toward a future full of triumph and victory. We cannot be distracted by the small things and we cannot conform.
With all my heart, I am convinced that the moment has arrived for us to grow and expand. JEC cannot simply stay with only 60 kids and 3 houses. We have the ability to open JEC number 2, JEC number 3 and 4 and to help 500 abandoned kids who wait for the hand of a friend to reach out and pull them from the suffering they are living in, in this very moment. Mark Chapter 6 : 35-37, the disciples said to Jesus : " This is a remote place and it is already very late . Send the people away so they can go to the surrounding countryside and villages and buy themselves something to eat. But Jesus answered:
“YOU GIVE THEM SOMETHING TO EAT"
In 1990, I had the opportunity to meet Mr. Sam Walton, founder and creator of the famous supermarket WalMart. He took us to see his first store in Arkansas, which today is a museum. He explained to us how it got started and how he had to get past many obstacles in the founding, but he always dreamed of there being many stores that provided the customer quality products and good prices with honesty.
Mr. Sam Walton had an impact on my life since that day. Today, I want to dream like he did. Today, I dream of opening more JEC centers where we can teach kids the values of honesty, generosity, kindness, and discipline and offer these abandoned children and love, education, and eternal security with our eternal God in Heaven.
Dios les bendiga.
Su hermano,
Ronald Millon
JEC Director
El Zamorano, Honduras .
Central America.