Dear Friend,
The boy could be forgiven for being terrified.
His father had just shared that, as a result of his work, his life was in danger. The boy was only six, but he was beginning to comprehend the meaning of the word “death”, with its terrible, irreversible finality. But fear, though present, was not his overwhelming emotion. More than the terror for his father’s life, the boy was indignant that his father was in danger simply for trying to make his country a better place.
The father could be forgiven for being terrified.
The death threats had been coming in steadily, and he had to prepare his family–young as they were–for what was possible. He had lain awake nights, agonizing over whether to continue the anti-corruption work he had dedicated his life to, but which now threatened to widow and orphan his family. How was he possibly supposed to balance the dual responsibilities to his family and to his fellow Hondurans? He had done the math in his head a thousand times as he lay sleepless, and it never added up.
As Carlos looked around the dining room table at the faces he loved–faces processing the news he had just shared–his youngest son suddenly shot to his feet. “No!” he shouted. “We won’t stop.
We have to keep moving forward!”
I haven’t been able to shake this story ever since Carlos Hernandez, ASJ-Honduras Executive Director, shared it at our Celebration of Stories events in Chicago and Grand Rapids earlier this spring. More than anything, the simplicity of it keeps pulling me up short.
On any given day, I can list a dozen reasons before breakfast why the world is irreparably broken and why the logical choice would be to curl back up under the covers. But ever since I heard the defiant words of Carlos’ son, they have reached across the intervening decades, grabbed me by the lapels, and still haven’t let go. They have forced me to recognize that, despite all the reasons to the contrary, there are so many reasons to keep moving forward.
And that’s why I want to take this opportunity to thank you for continuing to move forward with ASJ.
I hope you will decide to keep moving forward with us because the truth is that we–all of us–can be forgiven for being terrified.
The world is in turmoil. Wars rage. Politics poison. And injustice persists. It can feel hard, sometimes, to find hope to keep going. At least, it can for me.
But whenever we feel the temptation to fear and despair, let’s remember the words of a boy who chose defiant hope over fear.
Let’s choose to keep moving forward together.
Onward,
