Sometimes the needs are so overwhelming. In Uganda you see needy child after needy child living with a poor family that has nothing. The hard part was that there weren’t just a few here and there it was everywhere. Driving down the streets in Kampala you see slum after slum with thousands of people trying to survive. Each morning I remember seeing children everywhere with yellow jugs going to a dirty stream to fetch water for the day. It’s hard to deal with. These kids deserve better right?
What is even harder is when you have a name, face and story to go with the devastation. When you know a child whose mother has abandoned them, live as squatters in a shack with nothing…not even firewood to cook food, yet they praise God and sing, “This is the day that the Lord has made!”
After Uganda all the children’s stories are more real. Today I grabbed a stack of bios from Thailand that needed to be entered into our database and the first bio was a little boy who lived in an abandoned doll factory in a bad part of town where drug dealers and gangs like to hang out. His parents abandoned him but thankfully a kind couple took him in as their own…even though they really can’t afford to care for all his needs. When I picked up this bio I had to stop. It was just too overwhelming. Why does this 5 year old boy have to live in an abandoned doll factory (which just sounds completely creepy) in a bad part of town? I just keep thinking: it’s not just Uganda, its Thailand too, and Peru, and the Philippines, and Haiti. There are children living in slums without running water or electricity and don’t know if they will eat today…and it’s not just one country, it’s everywhere!
Sorry to be so depressing. These facts have been heavy on my heart (well since I learned about them years ago) for the last few weeks. I feel such an urgency to help these kids…I mean when I hear the needs how could anyone NOT help…right?! But, I am only one person who doesn’t make a lot of money…
There is a story that maybe you have heard…and I have to remind myself of it often because otherwise it would be easy to get too overwhelmed and give up. It is a story about a boy on a beach throwing starfish back into the ocean and the beach is covered with starfish. A man comes up to the boy telling him that he is wasting his time throwing back the starfish because there are just too many. And the boy says, “I helped that one” as he throws a starfish into the water. Even though I know the world if full of suffering, hurt, poverty, and pain that only God can fix HE allows me to be part of fixing those hurts. By sponsoring Jemima, Melanie, and Bobby Ryan and I are a small part of fixing the poverty in our world and bringing MORE to Christ. Sometimes that is so overwhelming that God would want to use me! He wants to use you too. Maybe to bring comfort to a co-worker having a hard time, or lend an ear to a hurting friend, or volunteer in church, maybe God is telling you to sponsor a child or a missionary. I don’t ever want to forget that there are many hurting people in our world and sometimes the smallest gesture can brighten their spirits and let them know that there is a God who loves and cares for them. I always want to be aware that God may want to use me to show His love…I don’t know what that looks like for you, but for me it is being an advocate for the kids wearing rags and smiles. Maybe I won’t end world hunger but maybe I’ll be able to provide food, education, and the knowledge of Jesus to a few kids across the ocean.
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