Twenty-five years ago, on a beautiful summer evening in Grand Rapids, ASJ-US held its very first Celebration in my sister Shar’s backyard. I don’t remember a lot about that day, but I do know that what we lacked in experience, we more than made up for with confidence and boundless enthusiasm.

• Here is what I remember about that day:
• Around twenty people came
• Our program for the afternoon consisted of some photos we had hastily taped to the railing of the deck just before our guests arrived.
• Shar had to run across the street to beg her neighbor to take over the grill when her husband Reed, a large-animal veterinarian who was on-call that day, raced off to deliver a calf.
• There were no sign-up sheets and I do remember how much money we raised: zero dollars.
• WE ALL ATE LOTS OF PIE!
• Everyone agreed the event was a huge success!

We have come a long way since that summer day.

What began as a volunteer effort in West Michigan to support the work ASJ-Honduras had begun two years earlier, has grown to include a talented and enthusiastic staff of six people —half in Grand Rapids and half in Honduras— who invite people around the world to join in the effort to do justice in Honduras and in their own communities.

That work has led to an ASJ community that has grown to include thousands who pray, advocate, and financially support ASJ’s work in Honduras, and who volunteer stuffing envelopes and setting up tables, help renovate new office spaces, welcome our Honduran staff when their justice work puts them in danger, and who work together in their own communities to find ways to do justice and to come alongside those whose lives are hardest.

Twenty-five years after that tiny backyard celebration, ASJ continues to celebrate the many ways that God has guided this journey. Working for justice against those who use their authority not to serve but for their own benefit, has at times been dangerous, difficult and sometimes heartbreaking. But even in those times, it has felt like our ASJ community is where it should be—answering God’s call to all of us to do justice.

ASJ-US has grown and changed in the past 25 years, but our purpose has not: to be brave Christians, dedicated to doing justice in Honduras and to inspiring others around the world to seek justice.

Thank you for taking this journey with us and CHEERS for the next 25 years!