April 25, 2024
Dear Friend,
When I started as Executive Director at ASJ-US last October, I had many questions.
How do I print to the office printer? What’s that password? Where’s the office coffee pot? What’s that password again?
With a little over six months on the job now, I’ve had a lot of these early questions answered (blessedly, I found the coffee pot right away). There is one question, though, that I’ve become fixated on: What might Honduras look like 25 years from now because of the work of ASJ?
It’s a big question. Sometimes, my present feels so full that it’s hard enough to even imagine what’s for dinner.
But with some effort and creativity, I can catch glimpses of what this future can look like.
I see kids across the country flocking to school in the early morning light, their backpacks filled with textbooks, notebooks, pens, and pencils. As they enter their classrooms, each one of them is greeted by a qualified teacher. Every day they fill their bellies with nutritious school lunches.
I see critically ill patients getting the care they need exactly when they need it. I see high-quality medications being accessed by everyone who needs them, prescribed by caring and competent doctors.
I see kids playing soccer in neighborhood streets, their mothers completely at ease. I see business owners investing profits back into their businesses rather than losing them to the extortion of gang members. I see sons sitting at family dinner tables where they belong, rather than sitting behind bars or erased completely by senseless violence.
I see colorful protest flags waving in the midday breeze, and a responsive and accountable government working hard every day to be worthy of the people they serve by delivering effective public services and advancing the common good.
Of course, imagination isn’t always easy. The tyranny of the urgent is often enough to keep our eyes glued to the work immediately in front of us. What’s more, it can be all too easy to let cynicism convince us that imagination is little more than naive daydreaming.
But I’m convinced that imagination is necessary to the work of doing justice.
In order to work toward a different future, after all, we must first be able to imagine it.
But more than this, imagination is strength for the journey. It is a direct blow against the powers and principalities that thrive on the perpetuation of violence, corruption, and oppression. Creative imagination has the audacity to announce to the status quo that things need not always be the way that they are now and then has the courage to imagine a new way of being into existence.
I joined ASJ at a time when our advocacy against corruption was being met with relentless threats from the Honduran government. You may have heard about some of these threats in a letter from Kurt earlier this year. Fear was trying to rob us of our imagination. But, thanks to the public support from dozens of partners and the ceaseless prayer from our ASJ community, fear did not win. We continue to imagine and work for new futures for the people of Honduras every single day.
And the best kind of imagination is grounded in the very real signs of hope on the ground all around us.
For instance, I’m able to imagine kids in class with full bellies, ample supplies, and eager teachers because just this past February, and in large part due to the advocacy of ASJ, the school year started on time (the first time since COVID lockdowns) and school lunches were delivered on the first day of school (the first time ever).
I’m able to imagine responsive and effective healthcare because ASJ’s work has already helped expose corruption and inefficiency in the healthcare sector, which has led to life-changing reforms for Hondurans.
I’m able to imagine safety from violence because ASJ’s work against extortion, its Peace and Justice initiatives in local neighborhoods, and its purge of the national police have helped create a measurably safer Honduras.
Imagination, it turns out, is not divorced from reality. It is a creative continuation of it.
For years, Jim Wallis–a pastor, activist, and justice seeker–has shared a paraphrase of Hebrews 11:1 about faith that I think captures well our task of Spirit-filled imagination: “Faith is believing in spite of the evidence–and then watching the evidence change.”
ASJ celebrated 25 years of presence and transformation in Honduras this past year. In those 25 years, we have worked tirelessly to imagine countless examples of hope and resilience into existence. We have believed in spite of the evidence. And we have had the joy of watching, over and over, as the evidence changed. This is what ASJ does. It works, with audacious imagination and relentless action, to make public systems work for those who need them most.
Will you give a gift today to support this work? In partnering with ASJ, you take your place next to us as we work together to turn imagination into reality for those in Honduras who need it most. You strike a blow against the status quo of injustice and oppression, and you announce that a better future is possible for Honduras–a future of more justice, more peace, and more flourishing.
In Christ,
Kyle Meyaard-Schaap
ASJ-US Executive Director
PO Box 888631, Grand Rapids, MI 49588
| info@asj-us.org | 1 (800) 897-1135
ASJ (formerly known as AJS) changed our name in 2021 to reflect our partnership with Honduras and our Honduran roots. Learn more.
© 2022 ASJ-US All Rights Reserved. ASJ-US is a U.S. registered 501(c)(3) non-profit organization.
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