Our ASJ Building in Honduras Is Paid Off

August 24, 2026

A Blessing We Didn't Know We Needed

By Jo Ann Van Engen

If you had asked us 38 years ago if doing justice for the most vulnerable in Honduras would require us to work out of a big, beautiful office, both Kurt and I would have rolled our eyes. Of course not! That would be the opposite of what justice work looks like.

Well, we were wrong. And it isn’t the first time our vision of what it looks like to do justice has been way too limited.

When we decided 26 years ago to move to Nueva Suyapa—a neighborhood of Tegucigalpa infamous for its violence and poverty—we were deeply committed and also certain that the only plus side of living there would be knowing we were doing the right thing. As we prepared to move we worried constantly about being victims of violence and made elaborate plans for how to stay safe. We fully expected to feel afraid all of the time.

We had gotten it so wrong.

From the beginning, our life in Nueva Suyapa felt like a privilege and a joy. It has helped us better understand what life looks like when jobs don’t pay enough, schools don’t have enough room, and hospitals are unreachable. But mostly it has given us friendships and a deep community that we had been seeking. Moving to Nueva Suyapa was one of the single best decisions we have ever made (which is why we are still there).

You might think we would have learned by now not to jump to conclusions about what following God’s call to do justice looks like, but when our ASJ-US board started talking in 2015 about building a new office, we had serious misgivings. Granted, our staff had long outgrown the small office we built in 2002 and was (much to their dismay) scattered across four additional houses we rented nearby. We were also painfully aware that our work speaking up against injustice had brought very real security risks. One of our lawyers, Dionisio Diaz Garcia, was killed in 2006 because of his work defending security guards who were being treated unjustly. Carlos Hernandez, ASJ-Honduras’ executive director, had received multiple death threats over the years. We knew we couldn’t stay where we were. Even so, the design for the new office seemed too nice, too big, too much for hard scrabble justice workers.

It turned out we were wrong again.

The new office has met needs we didn’t even know we had. It has provided our staff a safe, bright, open space to dream and carry out so many creative plans for doing justice. It has enough room and parking for us to hold all of our weekly press conferences, which has saved us tens of thousands of dollars we used to spend renting conference rooms in upscale hotels. It is incredibly energizing to see our media room filled with reporters and cameras, all gathered to record our latest investigation so they can share it on the evening news, morning newspapers, and popular talk shows.

Most importantly, whether they like us or not, our two-story office with its three levels of parking sends a clear, unshakeable message to the Honduran government: we are here to stay. It stands as a physical promise that we will continue to speak out against corruption and incompetence, and that we will keep presenting solutions to improve Honduran schools, healthcare, and public security.

Paying off this building a year early, especially in the context of massive cuts to US aid that have decimated so many NGOs in Honduras, is more than just a financial milestone; it is a blessing and a marvel. We understand now that this building that provides a lasting, secure shelter for justice isn't a compromise of our values—it is the ultimate fulfillment of them. We are here for the long haul, rooted as deeply as the foundation beneath us.

And we are so grateful for all the people who convinced us the office was a good and necessary next step in ASJ’s story: Staff, board members and ASJ supporters who invested hundreds of hours, hundreds of thousands of dollars and so much creative energy so our staff could work in this amazing space. ASJ would not be the organization it is without each of them.

Without each of you.