Here in Honduras, it’s easy to be hopeless about healthcare and public hospitals. In 2013, an ASJ report revealed that for decades medicines were being stolen from public hospitals. It provided proof that millions of dollars’ worth of medicine were being robbed from the state-controlled Central Medicines Warehouse, possibly to be sold on the black market.
Sharing Hope Like Drops In The Ocean
December 6, 2016
By Natalie Acosta
Every time I open my news feed on Facebook I read hopelessness everywhere. Publications from the most popular newspapers and the comments people make on them all reflect a very common sense of despair about the situation in Honduras.
Whenever I talk with a taxi driver, or the lady that sells groceries at her “pulperia” (Honduran word for mini market), I get a feeling of how much they’ve lost their faith in change. And I don´t blame them. Despite the fact that statistics show that corruption and homicide levels have decreased in Honduras, people don´t feel like it´s actually happening.
Turning on the radio station to listen to politicians while they promise “Honduras is changing” seems quite discouraging when you don’t feel safe while you walk on the streets or whenever you still hear about small businesses forced to close their doors due to extortion from gangs.
Often this hopelessness is based on the reality that people are living.
How can we call a woman hopeless when she’s a single mother with five children to feed and can’t find a job anywhere? How can we call a young migrant hopeless when he leaves the country to save his life from gangs who threaten to kill him? We should ask ourselves, am I just preaching hope, or am I doing something to bring hope to people? What am I doing to bring hope to their hearts?
Whenever people ask me what do I do for a living and I tell them I´m part of a Christian NGO called the Association for a more Just Society (ASJ, formerly known as AJS), I receive many different reactions. With all the difficulties in the country, some think our cause is very unrealistic.
Working for a more just society in a country with so many inequalities must be tough, crazy or impractical. But my favorite part of my job is telling people that it’s possible.
Once I start giving details about our programs and the impact they’ve had in thousands of lives around the country, people’s perspectives slowly start to shift. Suddenly, our “unrealistic mission” as brave Christians leading changes to make Honduran government systems work becomes appealing. I bet there´s not a single Honduran who despite their personal experience or distrust in government systems, wouldn’t feel more optimistic once they hear our stories.
Patients died because they did not get the medicines they need. In other cases they were forced to pay for treatment at private clinics because the system wasn’t able to help them, endangering the lives of untold numbers of poor Hondurans and others who needed medicine the most.
But after ASJ revealed the extent of this corruption, changes started to happen. Thirteen people were charged with crimes and the Director of the Central Medicines Warehouse was arrested. Now, medicine purchasing is done through the United Nations Office of Project Services, which helps to make the process more transparent. There is still a lot of work to be done in the Honduran healthcare system, but we are seeing that change is possible.
It can also be hard to be hopeful about public education in Honduras. For years, the schoolchildren of Honduras came in dead last in international tests of academic performance. No one expected them to top the charts. Still, parents and activists wondered why Honduras’ 75,000-odd public school teachers couldn’t do at least a little better.
Through investigations, we found out at least one of the reasons why: some 15,000 of those teachers weren’t actually working in the schools they were assigned to. Some had died, and their kids were still cashing their paychecks. Some had moved to the United States. Some were collecting pay for working in rural areas even though they had taken other jobs in cities, leaving rural kids with no teachers. That revelation came courtesy of a coalition of civil society organizations led by ASJ, called Transformemos Honduras, or Let’s Transform Honduras (TH).
We published this information on our website, encouraged parents, and volunteers to check up on whether teachers were at their jobs or not. As a result, for four years in a row we have celebrated more than 200 days of class and now estimate that less than 1% of “ghost teachers” remain in public schools.
These examples are more than statistics, they represent real people with real stories.
One of these stories is my own: in 2009, my own family suffered a tragedy. In March of that year, two of my uncles, both brothers of my mom, were killed because of an alleged attempt to rob them. I can remember perfectly the terrible pain my grandmother went through and the fact that the corresponding authorities did nothing to investigate the crimes. My family is still outraged about this. Because I have experienced personally how much violence can affect the lives of the people around us, I feel very touched whenever I think about how many families in my country suffer this sort of loss and the impotence of not having enough trust to do something as simple as calling the police to receive their assistance.
But we have been working hard to reform security in Honduras. Recently, Honduras has witnessed an unprecedented reform via the much-lauded police purge and reform commission, led by four members of our ASJ Board. In only seven months, the commission has dismissed more than 1,651 officers and referred more than 600 of them to the Attorney General’s Office for possible criminal prosecution. Our country has spent years with sky-high homicide, corruption, and impunity rates. But the trends are beginning to turn. Bold initiatives like this one give hope for a different future, one where citizens trust the police, where criminals face justice, and where all can live in peace.
Tragedies have a way of going viral; good news, not so much.
Sharing hope means working to improve the lives of our neighbors, but it also means sharing these stories so others can understand why we’re hopeful. Just as the example of the single sheep that got lost (Matthew 18:12), each person who feels safer and more hopeful is worth the effort we put in our work.
“Sometimes we feel that what we are doing is just a drop in the ocean. But the ocean would be less because of that missing drop” said Mother Theresa. Even as we feel that what we do won´t make much difference, it does. I see it in the faces of people who, after hearing our stories, feel that there really is hope for Honduras. Then together, we can leap from hope into action.
Natalie Acosta was born and raised in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, where she currently works as a Development Officer for the Association for a More Just Society, a Honduran peace and justice organization. Her accomplishments include organizing Honduras’ largest annual bike ride, launching a national prayer campaign, and drinking a mocaccino in every coffee shop in Tegucigalpa (probably).
Hondurans cast their ballots during the November 30, 2025, general election, which saw historic voter turnout and a peaceful process supported by more than 12,000 national and international election observers working to safeguard transparency.
ASJ-Canada and ASJ-US Congratulate the Honduran People, Call for Full and Transparent Results As sister organizations committed to justice, peace and hope in Honduras, ASJ-Canada and ASJ-US extend our deepest congratulations to the people of Honduras on the peaceful conduct of their national elections on November 30, 2025. With the initial tally showing an extraordinarily close vote, we call on election authorities to do what is necessary to ensure a transparent count of the remaining ballots in order to guarantee public trust in the final outcome. We commend the Honduran voters for their dedication to democratic participation and their commitment to shaping the future of their country through civic engagement. We also recognize the efforts of electoral authorities, civil society organizations, the international community and the thousands of volunteer observers who worked to ensure a transparent, orderly, and secure process. We are especially proud of our sister organization, ASJ-Honduras, for their unwavering commitment to democracy demonstrated through their electoral observation efforts, their analysis activities, and their consistent call for a fair and orderly process. Now that such a process has been achieved, the work turns to counting the votes with accuracy and transparency. The results remain close, increasing the possibility of a contested result. We support the work of the election officials at the National Electoral Council to give Hondurans confidence in the final results by conducting their count with rigor and transparency. We remain hopeful that the spirit of peaceful participation in the democratic process embraced by the electorate will carry forward into the post-election period to come. We look forward to continued collaboration with ASJ-Honduras as we all work together toward a just and hopeful future for all Hondurans. Matthew Van Geest President, Board of Directors ASJ-Canada Russ Jacobs President, Board of Directors ASJ-US
A call to action for Honduras
The Association for a More Justice Society-US Supports the Network to Defend Democracy; Calls for Free and Fair Elections in Honduras November 25, 2025
Honduras’s Institutional Crisis Deepens Ahead of the 2025 Elections
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.
Calvin alums turn faith into action through nonprofit
MESSAGE FROM THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
Thank You for Moving Forward With Us this Summer!
When Policies Shift, Families Pay the Price * by Jo Ann Van Engen
