The And 1 Program

The And 1 Program was born out of a lot of failed free throw attempts in my basketball career and years of working with adolescents and young men. In the sport of basketball, if you are fouled in the act of making something happen, you are awarded an extra shot. There is an incentive to take the initiative, be aggressive, follow through, and finish what you started. It gives someone the opportunity to get up again and make something happen. It is a pretty simple, but profound concept.

The idea is simple. Life is super tough. In some places, it is tougher than it is in other places. We are finding this to be very true here in Puerto Cortes, Honduras. Many of these young men we are encountering here are coming from places of absolute despair. They have no family, they have no connections, no money, they have no options...all they have is hopelessness. We simply feel God has put us in a position to be able to give them another shot at life.

As a result of this direction, we have a lot of young men that have entered our lives. Some of them stay and live with us, others participate with us on a more limited engagement. We treat them all as if they are our boys. Most of them come from group homes. Their families had either no way or no desire to care for them and so dropped them off at the home. Over time, they either got sick and tired of the violence and corruption in the group home and left, or they simply aged out. Either way, they found themselves on their own. Others are with their families and simply need an extra push to get ahead in life. Through what we do, we are able to help them get into a position to move ahead and become productive and purposeful in what God has put them here to do.

Living

Almost all of our boys come from a group home. Group homes are sterilized family environments absent the nurturing qualities of a God-centered home. That sounds hard to hear, but that is what we run into here more often than not. As a result, these boys' lives are filled with trauma and uncertainty. Insecurity, manipulation, anger, and hopelessness plague them. That is not what a family environment should be. So we welcome them into our home. We work hard to instill confidence, integrity, esteem, fun, trust, character, rest, and wisdom into their heads, hearts, and souls.

These boys are welcomed into our family and treated as sons. We all share the work and reap the benefits of a job well done. When one fails, we all feel it. When one wins, we all rejoice. Family dinners are the centerpiece of what we do as we use that time to share and talk about what is good in life. All of this is backed up by multiples of individual conversations as we dig into the dirt of life.

For every one of these boys...this is the first time they have ever lived in any type of environment such as this.

Studying

One of the most critical aspects of what we do is education. We believe an educated person is one of the most critical components of change for a community. So we spend a lot of time and resources in the education of our family, boys, and community. Learning how to recognize what is happening; forming plans to deal with challenges and twists; learning to love reading and learning; all this and more is part of what we are about.

Education looks different in different parts of the world. Here, the trades are big. Normally, we would say that is a great thing. However, the schools where the trades are taught are sub-par and you can buy your way out of them. The result is a workforce of poorly trained laborers with no real ability to affect their economic situation. A marriage between the trades and advanced education is required. All of our boys are learning (or have learned) a trade - electricity, welding, HVAC, etc. In addition, we want our boys to finish four year degrees where the mind is also shaped. Many of our boys are pursuing engineering degrees and one of them is even pursuing command of the big container ships that works their ways into our port system.

In this way, we believe that these young men can become leaders in this community through a finely tuned heart and mind.

What We Read

Reading is Growing

We are firm believers in forming the heart and the mind. That can be done in so many ways. We love to read! As we do, we would love to share with you the things we take in to shape our hearts and minds. We hope you will read along with us. Together we can be faithful in shaping that which God has given us!

In addition to reading and committing to scripture, we faithfully commit to reading books, by authors past and present, as God speaks through them to show us how to interact with this world.

One of the requisites for living in our house, or even being able to pass a lot of time in our house, is that you must read. We have so many books in our library. Most of them are in English. Would you help us grow our Spanish library?! We are in the process of finding a copy of every book we have in the Spanish language for all of our boys and for others who want to grow the gift of their mind. Check out this list and take a moment to click on one of the books, purchase it, and have it sent (automatically) to our stateside mailbox. From there, we will get it here to Hondo!!!

Here is the list!

https://www.amazon.com/hz/wishlist/ls/22NAGQC5RD23N?ref_=wl_share