Seeking Justice. Walking Together

November 25, 2024

The beauty of doing justice in community

I couldn’t stop staring at the park across the street.


I saw it when I woke up the first morning in my host family’s home this past summer. They told me that for years, it had been the neighborhood soccer field. But it was often controlled by gangs and not a safe place for kids. So they and their neighbors decided to do something about it.


They partnered with ASJ to draft up plans for a park. ASJ secured funding from private businesses to augment public funds. Neighbors chipped in. Cement was poured, grass was planted, and lights were installed. When it was inaugurated earlier this year–only a month before my visit–it became the only park in the whole neighborhood.


And from my first day with my host family, I couldn’t stop staring at it.

I’ve seen prettier parks. But I’ve rarely been as moved by another park. I think it was what the park represented: a safe place for the neighborhood kids to play. A gathering place from the community to be together.


Most of all, it felt to me like a monument to the power of what can happen when we seek justice together.


One of ASJ’s greatest superpowers is its commitment to doing justice in community.


In Honduras, ASJ has always rejected the temptation to move fast and alone, and has instead embraced the slower task of building coalitions and alliances to advance justice.


In the US, ASJ is a community of over 1,000 donors spread out across the country who are all united in our common vision of a more just Honduras.


Because of ASJ’s commitment to walking the road of justice together, we have been able to achieve amazing results together this past year:

  • Thanks to ASJ’s advocacy, the 2024 school year started exactly when it was meant to on February 1st. As of November 15, Honduras’ 2 million school kids have received 182 of the legally-required 200 days of school this year.
  • For the first time ever, school lunches were delivered on the first day of school this year and kids have had a meal at school all but 35 days this school year.
  • Spearheaded by ASJ, a coalition of dozens of NGOs called the Network to Defend Democracy was launched in September and is committed to voter education and election monitoring in the run up to Honduras’ national elections in November 2025.
  • After significant pressure from ASJ, the government placed its first order for medications in 2024 much earlier than in previous years. As a result, ASJ surveys have found that 80% of patients are receiving all of the medications they need–an increase from 59% in 2023.

One of ASJ’s organizational values is to acompañar, to “go together”. All of the success we have been able to achieve this past year is only possible because we–you and me–have pursued it together.

You’re receiving this letter in the wake of our own election in the US. We know from past experience that US elections have consequences for Honduras, and for ASJ. That’s why ASJ-US has set a goal to double our financial support for ASJ-Honduras over the next 5 years in order to insulate our work from political pendulum swings and to set us up for long-term, sustainable growth. Because whoever is in power in Washington, we know that the real power to drive transformation in Honduras rests with you–our community.


Will you continue to walk the road toward justice with ASJ by making a year end gift today?
I hope you will, because there is much more road to be walked. The journey toward justice is long. But when we walk it together, it is also beautiful.

Donate Now

Toward the end of my time in Honduras this summer, my wife and two boys came to join me from the US. One evening soon after they arrived, my host family had us over for dinner. Like me that first day in their home, my six year old also saw the park across the street. And he desperately wanted to go play on it. So the father of my host family took him by the hand and led him to the playground.


And they played. Together.


Onward,



Rev. Kyle Meyaard-Schaap

Executive Director, ASJ-US

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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.
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