Wow! Thank you for all of your responses this week! So many great ideas. Keep 'em coming! You still have until 11:59 Sunday night to have a chance to win a new t-shirt! ... oh the excitement of it all.
Recently we received an update from Ginny Stoller, one of our missionaries in Ethiopia. I want to include a little excerpt from what she wrote. I'll warn you... it's heart breaking... and oh so common...
Last week I had a young mother sit in the school office and beg us to take her seven year old son—not to merely register him, but to literally take him... for adoption—something we are in no way equipped to do. Her eyes were pleading and hopeless. A widow, she had lost her husband about three years ago, and has three children. Her landlord gave her a week to get out of her home. Because she must care for her children, she cannot hold a job and earn money to support the family. One child is already up for adoption in a town to the south, and the youngest is a three year old strapped to her back—too scared to even look at me. The 7 year old is recovering from TB, and has been on medication for four months. He was registered in another school but has to take his medication with food, something our school provides for our students. We were able to register him in kindergarten and ensure he can be fed, but this doesn’t solve his mother's desperate situation, and she’s terrified of having to live on the streets.
I also recently found out one of our 3rd grade students lost her mother after a long illness (probably HIV). Her father died a while ago. Her uncle and his wife brought her in to discuss their living situation. They were trying to keep her mother’s house to live in, but were unsure if they would be allowed to stay there. She sat quietly behind them, her head down. Surely the loss of a mother and the threatened loss of a home is more than any child should have to bear.
I know that God has a plan for each of us. I believe He loves and cares for the destitute. I have faith that His heart breaks when He sees another family... another child thrust out on the streets.
I also know that He desires to use His body to help protect the weak. He wants to raise up His church to do powerful things... will we let Him?
I won't pretend to have the answers. When I look at situations like this I feel overwhelmed and small. But i know God is faithful! I KNOW it! And HE has the answers. He is not overwhelmed or surprised by any of this. He is not small or weak. He is BIG and mighty!
Will you join my in prayer this week? Pray that God's body will rise to the occasion of caring for the vulnerable. Pray that He will give clear insight and direction. Pray that we will take hold of His grace that is so sufficient and respond when we feel the Spirit move.
Pray... and then act!
