Juan’s story captures the heart of Mission Lazarus. We don’t come to fix poverty - we come to walk alongside men and women as they discover their God-given potential. Seeing Juan grow from a local mason to a leader shaping others’ futures is living proof that transformation happens when faith, opportunity, and hard work come together.

Juan Herrera didn’t own a pair of shoes until he was 12. By then, he had already spent years waking up before dawn to load 1,000 bricks into his father’s kiln then returning in the afternoon to unload them. That was life in his remote Honduran village: relentless, rugged, and without options.