November 12, 2025
Dear friend,
I couldn’t stop looking at the picture.
Of course, there had been plenty of inspiring photos from this summer’s Prayer Walk for Peace and Democracy. The sea of blue and white rising and falling as hundreds of thousands walked the Honduran hills through Tegucigalpa, flowing like a never-ending stream. Catholic nuns praying their rosaries alongside Pentecostals dancing in the streets.
But the picture that still knocks me flat is the closeup. The one of the two men standing side by side (picture enclosed). They are exhausted, and the shorter collapses into the taller. The tears mostly hold joy and relief, but they are mingled with something darker. After all, there had been threats—promises of harm done to themselves and their loved ones if they led their followers through the streets of Honduras in prayer.
Despite the fear and intimidation, Pastor Gerardo Irías and Monsignor José Vicente Nácher forged ahead. They knew Honduras needed unity and, above all, prayer before the looming November 2025 presidential elections.
As an ASJ supporter, you know that these kinds of threats aren’t out of the ordinary, and your support has helped slow and reverse violence in Honduras. Today, I am writing to share a way you can continue standing with brave Hondurans like Pastor Gerardo and Monsignor José in hope.
The Evangelical pastor and the Catholic archbishop put the word out as widely as they could to their churches, hoping to mobilize 20,000 to walk and pray. Instead, an estimated 230,000 walked in the capital of Tegucigalpa alone. It was a historic moment. And without your past support for ASJ, it may have never happened.
After all, two years prior, Pastor Gerardo and Monsignor José didn’t even know each other’s names. They first met in 2023 at ASJ’s offices. They were two of many civil society leaders convened by ASJ to discuss safeguarding democracy– especially before the election in 2025. It was at that meeting that they shook each other’s hand and learned each other’s name. It was at that meeting–and many subsequent meetings–where old religious prejudices began to be replaced by trust and mutual affection.
So, when the moment came this summer to act, Pastor Gerardo and Monsignor José knew what they had to do. And they knew that they had to do it together.
That took a tremendous amount of hope. Hope that people would turn out. Hope that the death threats would ultimately prove hollow. Hope that the government wouldn’t resort to violence. Hope that any of it would ultimately make a difference.
I don’t know about you, but I can find that kind of hope difficult to muster. And I think the Pastor and Monsignor probably did too. Hope is not a superpower that we can will ourselves to feel despite the circumstances. It’s a muscle that needs to be exercised. It takes practice and intention. Sometimes we’re sore and exercising hope hurts. Sometimes we need a friend to hope on our behalf, because we just can’t gather the strength to do it ourselves. Sometimes that friend needs us to do the same for them.
Alongside Pastor Gerardo and Monsignor José, ASJ is choosing to practice hope. And we need you to practice hope with us.
I’m writing this letter a month before millions of Hondurans will go to the polls on November 30. ASJ has been working tirelessly to ensure that it will be an election free from fraud and abuse. We have been exercising our hope muscle by:
- Recruiting over 8,000 local election observers, with the goal of 10,000 by election day.
- Walking alongside 300,000+ in prayer for peace and democracy.
- Tracking and publishing dozens of data points related to the state of democracy in Honduras on our online Democracy Observatory platform.
- Conducting and publishing independent, high-quality polling in the run up to the election.
- Meeting with presidential candidates to present them with a roadmap toward justice and steps they can take on Day One should they win the election.
- Driving forward the powerful alliance of civil society that is shining a light on Honduran elections like never before.
Would you make a year-end gift today as an act of hope alongside our partners in Honduras as they prepare to work for justice with a new presidential administration in 2026 and beyond? If so, your gift will have double the impact thanks to two generous donors who have agreed to match all year-end gifts up to $100,000!
Election day in Honduras is Sunday, November 30. It’s the first Sunday of Advent–Hope Sunday. That’s no coincidence.
The hope of the Incarnate and Risen Christ is already going ahead of us–into this election and into the next administration. Our job is simply to follow. To walk together in hope.
Onward,
Rev. Kyle Meyaard-Schaap
Executive Director, Association for a More Just Society-US
