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Children are left without care
I originally intended to crop this photo on the left but felt what I was trying to say is better said by the photo itself. There is a very real sense of hopelessness for the kids in Haiti, and for that matter children in urban areas throughout the world.
Let me explain what I believe has been one of my lifetime messages. I don’t write or speak because I need to. I do it because I think I have something to say. What I am going to share is a primary reason I do what I do.
- Generally speaking, many children are born into a world of hope and promise.
- Generally speaking there are many children that are born into a world of rejection and anger because their mothers (or
Many kids are born into poverty, disaster or war
fathers) never wanted them in the first place.
- Generally speaking, many children are born in geographic areas where disaster, war and poverty are as normal as a rainy day in Seattle.
Kids accept reality as is
All three scenarios seem different don’t they? Hope and promise, rejection and anger, war and poverty. At a very young age children do not know the difference. They accept reality, as it is, not knowing how or why to compare.
At some point in their young lives children “get it.” Whether it is at age seven or fifteen, many children began to realize that life is a hole they want out of. They have repeatedly walked into the same pit day after day, doing the same things and one day a light goes on and they say “Wait a minute,” even at age seven or younger.
“My daddy molested me. My daddy is an alcoholic. My mama is a prostitute. There is another world besides this one.
A little girl's dream can be shattered
Other moms and dads are different. I am missing a mom, a dad, and a family. I have no one. Perhaps there is another world.”
This moment of clarification and reality check is happening throughout the world, every day. This arrival point is a strategic, cutting edge shift in a persons’ paradigm. What happens next is a painful reminder of why we do what we do.
Here’s the deal: at this crucial point in a child’s life they say, “whatever will be will be.” “Que sera, sera.” Their mental, spiritual, emotional and psychological growth is truncated. For many, life stops. They give up. There is no hope. There is a no salvation. There is no way out of the hole. The growth timeline becomes a flat line. Many kids think this way and parents do too.
Many kids have nothing, not even a crayon
This is Haiti today as you read. I observed kids on the street that have nothing. No one looking after them. Their lives have been shattered and broken not only by the earthquake but also by rejection, poverty and previous disaster. Think about it. They are in a dark hole without sight and nowhere to go. They give up. They finally just sit down and say,” This is life.” They accept it. They can’t color their own world.
The answer for them is prostitution, drugs, human trafficking. Some choose to sell themselves (not forced) because it is money to feed their own kids. What an open market for the wrong people to “lend a hand” with false, wicked motives.
However, this is where you and I can make a huge difference. Precisely at the place where “kids” around the
We can make a difference
world have come to this juncture in their life, you and I can be difference makers.
I preach Christ because He makes a difference. He changes people, inside out. You and I do what we do because we know that besides medical care, hope is given. My prayer has always been, “Lord do a work that is so profound that this little girl/boy will be able to see outside the hole.” And when that happens, they know who lives and they can face tomorrow. The flat line of growth stops and life begins.
Anybody want to start an orphanage with me?
When people ask me what I do, the simplicity of it all surprises even me. I connect people to people and resource and along the way I make friends and together the Kingdom is advanced. Your faithful giving to Barnabas Task is making a difference.
