Beloved community,
Yesterday I sent an email out to many of you asking for prayer on a special security matter concerning the work of AJS here in Honduras. Please feel free to post this letter in your own blogs or forward it to others so that we may all join in prayer. Thank you for those that have already responded with much care and concern.
I will be updating this blog more frequently to let other know about news on the situation and how you can send letter to the Honduran government to take action. The letter reads below.
Love, Love, and more Love,
Grace
[The letter]
Dear friends of Christ,
I pray that you are all well in mind and in spirit. Thank you for all your prayers this last year for me while I have been living in Honduras and working at the Association for a More Just Society, a Christian, non-profit justice organization supporting the work of doing justice for the most vulnerable in Honduran society.
I ask that you direct your prayers to a security matter concerning our ASJ staff and supporters.
Three community leaders working with the AJS-supported Land project in the city of San Pedro Sula have been killed this month. Four more community leaders continue to receive death threats. One woman has been told that she will not live to see this Christmas and another has received routine nightly visits by a black van at her home. Last week, our San Pedro Sula lawyer reported being followed by a man for several hours and the rest of the Land Rights team is worried for their security and that of their families. Yet these justice workers press forward in the struggle for land security for thousands in San Pedro.
The Land Rights team works in Tegucigalpa and in San Pedro Sula to assist residents of poor neighborhoods in obtaining a legal title to their land—a highly sought after investment in Honduras. The Property Law passed in 2004, thanks in part to AJS-supported advocacy efforts, has set a system in place to register and issue titles for land for hundreds of people. But not everyone supports the changes that will come.
Supposed land owners in the Cofradía sector are indignant that hundreds will have the land expropriated by the government and then have the land appraised at a lower value than these scheming owners would prefer.
For over ten months the Land Rights team and community neighborhood presidents have been pushing to finalize the expropriation process but opposition was given. Community leaders were offered bribes from contested owners to stop their work but they refused. They knew the work wouldn’t only benefit themselves but many others in Cofradía who were and continue to be threatened with evictions from supposed, contesting land owners.
Please pray for strength and peace for the families of slain community leaders Ubense Aguilar and Elías Murcia.
Pray for courage and security for currently threatened community leaders in Cofradia.
Pray for wisdom and perseverance for the Land Rights team as they forge forward in the expropriation process in order that hundred may receive legal land titles.
Pray for diligence and conviction of heart for government officials and police so that security and protection are provided to those under threat and that the expropriation process does not lag.
Thanks you body of Christ for your prayers. Please remember with us God’s promises: Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the Lord your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you –Deuteronomy 7:8
Go to the following link (Spanish) for more information.
Blessings,
Grace Miguel
Communications
Association for a More Just Society (AJS)
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