Building Bridges ...

of Hope...

 

It’s snowing outside. Again! It’s so beautiful to look at from inside where it’s warm and cozy and the falling snow is beautiful to see from my picture window. It looks like God is shaking powdered sugar all over the chocolate earth!

It’s a lazy Saturday afternoon and I am grateful to have a warm little house to hide inside while winter roars and little brother earth trembles outside my window. I am in a reflective mood today. On this beautiful winter afternoon, I have just finished reading a story about the poverty stricken families in a faraway land, where the children are born and live their entire lives in desperate poverty, hunger and abuse. My heart has been moved to sponsor a child through one of their programs, to give a child hope and a future, not just in this life, but for eternity. I will sponsor a little girl through the Bridge of Hope, an outreach to the poorest of the poor in India, through the Gospel for Asia.

These beautiful children are given a hot meal, clean clothes, taught to read, and told for the first time, almost always, that Jesus loves them.  These children, who have no life in their eyes and who never dream that they were made for so much more, are transformed by the life changing message that Jesus loves them enough to die for them. They respond to the Gospel with the innocence of a child. They believe what they hear and they grab ahold of God’s hand when they see it extended to them. No wonder Jesus said we must become like little children if we want to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. They don’t debate with God. They just fall in love with Him and chase after Him, as little children do.

My heart has been stirred with the plight of these children. In his heart wrenching book, “No Longer a Slumdog”, the author, K.P. Yohannan, tells story after story of children whose lives have been forever changed by the ministry of Bridge of Hope Centers dotting the landscape of this huge country we know as India. We think of this as a faraway land, a culture different from our own, a nation very different from America. But, God doesn’t see it that way. God’s eyes don’t recognize national boundaries, or cultural taboos, or despise people based on their economic or social status. He doesn’t show favor to the rich while despising the poor. He doesn’t see anyone, least of all, a child, as someone that can be “thrown away.” God doesn’t choose favorites, at least not in the same way that we do. On the contrary, where we, in our culture, seem to favor the rich and idolize the young and the beautiful, God says He “heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds… The Lord lifts up the humble; He casts the wicked down to the ground.” Ps. 147: 3,6

Now this is the problem I see in the church in America, including me!  Rich, affluent, comfortable, overfed,  and sometimes indifferent America. Most of us read the kind of things I just wrote about and say something like “Oh, that’s too bad. I feel so sorry for them…” And then we turn on the T.V. or go shopping. We medicate the discomfort that God wants us to feel to spur us into action. 

Don't believe me?  I can't tell you how many "Christians" I have talked to about sponsoring a desperately needy child who look at me as if I have asked them to do the impossible.  If the shoe was on the other foot, and you or I were the mother or father of a child in need, I know we would pray that someone who could help would do whatever it might take to help!

When I first read this book, I felt a very deep sorrow for the children and their families, trapped in this nightmare, with no hope, for their entire lives. But, feeling sorry for them isn’t what I knew the Lord was calling me to do. I knew He wanted me to sponsor a child. I knew it. And yet, I had “to think about it…” Why? Do I think that the Lord of the Universe speaking to my heart is something I can ignore? Is the cost of sponsorship (about $1 a day) too exorbitant a price to put on the head of a child in desperate need? Is God asking just too much of me? Are these children real to me or am I just reading a fictional tale about situations that are just made up?

On the other side of the question, if these desperate and suffering children with the dying eyes are real, how can I turn away? If it is God who is asking me to get involved, how can I ignore His voice? Who am I to ignore the voice of God in my life? Am I really a believer in the life saving message of the Gospel of Jesus Christ? Or, is it just a nice story I like to tell that has no real bearing on anyone’s life, including mine? God forbid that I should be so foolish as to ignore His voice and trivialize His Word in my life.

The thing is, either God is God or I am. If He is, than I am not. And so, I do His bidding. I submit to His amazing love for me and for others, some of whom I have never met and never will meet this side of heaven. He asks me to trust Him that He knows what He is doing and He will take my meager little offering and multiply it many times over in the life of a child that He loves…

As I look outside at the beauty of the falling snow, a picture book story playing out right outside my window, I thank God for the beauty of the world all around me. I realize how blessed I am to have a warm and cozy place to live, a job that blesses me with enough money to share with someone in need, and a God who knows me and loves me even when my needle is stuck on “well, it’s all about me, it’s all about me, it’s all …”

He is so patient with me. He is so generous. He is so kind. 

Dear God, make me more like You…

"Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this:

to care for the widow and the orphan in their distress..."

James 1:27 NKJV

 

The Least of These...

"Sometime in your life, I hope that you might see one starved man, the look on his face when the bread finally arrives.  Hope that you might have baked it or bought it or even kneaded it yourself.  For that look on his face, for your meeting his eyes across a piece of bread, you might be willing to lose a lot, or suffer a lot, or die a little, even." Daniel Berrigan Author of the book: "Communion" 

The priceless little gem of a book, "No Longer a Slumdog", written by K.P. Yohannan, opens with this  quote from Berrigan.  As I read this opening challenge, so many images flashed before the theater of my mind.  

I see a little girl, surrounded by her brothers and sisters, eating a dinner of mayonnaise spread over thin pieces of white bread.  Never, ever enough to satisfy the hunger of a growing child...

I see the face of a young mother, crying over her children at bedtime, and then again in the morning, knowing there is no more food to put on the table than there was yesterday.

I see a little girl so thankful for the carton of milk "someone" provided for her at school that morning - the only breakfast she would have.

I see the face of poverty, hunger and desperation stalking a mother and father who could not find a way to feed their starving children.

I see a box overflowing with turkey and all of the trimmings, placed at the front door by someone who was somehow moved enough to dig into his surplus to make a difference for a needy family that Christmas.   My child's eyes were enormous with wonder that day.  That anyone really cared...

I do not know who placed it there.  I only know I should have burst to see the evidence of love from a stranger.  I have never forgotten the tender mercy of that person whose name I never knew.  

When I read about small children, starving and in desperate need, I feel the pain of their hunger.  I see their sunken eyes.  I hear their cries.  I see their mother's tears.  And so does our God.  It is for these that He suffered and died and became the Bread of Life.  He has promised to satisfy our every need.  

As I read this book, describing the pain and tragedy of the lives of these poor families in India, I am reminded that WE are the hands and feet and heart of the Living God.  If we shut down our hearts, we shut off the streams of Living Water and Hope that He has promised to "the least of these".

The love of Christ compels us to care and to care deeply.  Over the next few weeks, I will be sharing a few notes from this compelling book, which is all about "bringing Hope to children in crisis."  That is the least I can do for the cause of Christ, on behalf of the children He loves who are suffering unimaginable agonies.  We have no excuse any more to not see.  The world has become so small.  Thank God these children are no longer invisible.  The question is - now what do we do about it?  

Like the person who dropped off the box on our front door, leaving a message of love and hope behind that I have never forgotten, may we be roused from our complacency enough to make a difference, for at least one child.  Whatever you do, "I hope that you might see one starved man (woman or child), and the look on their face when the bread finally arrives..."  In the Name of Jesus.  In the Name of Jesus.  In the precious, all giving Name of Jesus, the Bread of Life...

Mary, Mary...

"Before I formed you in your mother's womb, I knew you...:
Jeremiah 1:5

Mary was a beautiful little girl, who came into our lives at the oh so tender age of two. Already, this little darling had been placed under the supervision of the State of Illinois and began the impossible journey of navigating the turbulent waters of the foster care system into which she had been thrust by the Department of Children and Family Services. I was a young mother of two small children, one a two year old little girl the same age as Mary, and a six month old baby boy, both of whom were the delight of my life as a young mother. My husband, a social worker and family counselor, so wanted to go beyond our four walls and minister to some of the hurting children who were in need of a good home. We had only been married three years when we took this little lost lamb into our home.

Unlike my husband, I had no concept of the myriad rules and regulations and bungled mistakes of the foster care system that so often led to tragedies in the care of these innocent victims of the system. I was about to find out first hand.

Mary came to us on a bright summer's day. In my naivete, I hoped it was a harbinger of the wonderful life Mary would have living in our home. It was far from the reality of what was coming.

Almost immediately, my daughter, the same age as this new little intruder, began to move backward in her development. Once a happy, friendly and bright child, she began to retreat into her own little world, sucking on her fingers anxiously, attempting to figure out if she was being replaced. From her little two year old eyes, it must have seemed like we were looking for a replacement for her. First we brought home a new baby that rapidly pushed her out of the center of our world. Now, adding insult to injury, we had added another child – same age, same gender as my daughter, Christy. This little interloper, deeply insecure and trying to understand her own terrifying world, was challenging Christy's little two year old world from the instant they woke up until they went to bed at night. Both children were threatened and frightened by the enormous changes that were swirling all around them.

To make matters worse, I discovered in a meeting with the Social Worker in charge of Mary's “case” that there had been no real reason to move Mary other than the whim of the Social Worker. I was shocked beyond belief. Mary had been born to severely mentally ill parents who met and conceived her at a half way house for mentally ill patients. The Social Worker informed me that, although the mother would never be able to have custody of Mary, neither would the State terminate her parental rights. Mary would be a ward of the State until she turned eighteen and “aged out of the system.”

Now that was bad enough news. But the real icing on the cake was that Mary had been placed, as a newborn, in a home with two older adults who simply adored this little girl, who must have been such a blessing in their lives later in life. They doted on Mary, giving her everything they had materially and emotionally. They would never have the opportunity to adopt her, but that didn't matter to them. They loved her deeply, as if she were their own. Why then was she moved out of their home? Because the Social Worker decided the foster parents were too old and too doting on this little girl. Not because she was being neglected. Not because she was being abused. But simply because the Social Worker, with a power that reigned supreme in this little family's life, decided she didn't like the foster parents “spoiling” this little waif, who was completely dependent on a system that saw her as little more than a number that had to be accounted for until the magic age of eighteen.

I watched as Mary struggled to understand what had happened to her world. Where were the only parents she had ever known? Where had they gone? Why had they “given her away?” How could she possible have understood what had happened to her world – she was only two years old. I watched her struggle to please us, to imitate my own daughter who called us Mommy and Daddy. Where were her Mommy and Daddy? Then to add to the tremendous insecurity and confusion, the Social Worker decided it would be best for Mary to meet her “real” mother, a woman diagnosed as a severe Paranoid Schizophrenic, who seldom connected with the real world. The first (and last) time this woman came to my house for a visit was traumatizing for me, not to mention my children, including my little Mary. Mary, who had taken to calling me Mommy, sat across the table from this stranger, who informed her in a loud, combative voice, that she was her Mommy and that Mary should call her that. The confusion and fear on this little girl's face was more than I could bear. I refused to let this woman visit my home again.

By now, my husband's concerns for our own daughter had escalated to the point of no return. He called the Social Worker and asked to have Mary placed back in the original home that she had been removed from. The Social Worker, not willing to admit she had made an error in moving Mary in the first place, removed Mary from our home and placed her in yet another foster home, beginning a cycle for Mary of constant instability and new placements every six months or so, until I lost contact with where she had gone. Although the Social Worker had promised me that I would be able to keep in touch with Mary, I discovered the hard way that the system did not allow any way to track where she was and, in fairly short order, I lost contact with her forever.

At the time, I was broken emotionally over the loss of this little girl who had planted both feet in my heart and has never completely left. I grieved for her as if she was my own. Even today, as I write this story, my memories of Mary are colored with sorrow and the pain of the loss of a child I loved.

I wonder today, where are you Mary? Did you make it, Sweetheart? Are you OK? Did you know I loved you? I pray for you today that I will see you again someday. If not here, then, certainly in heaven. You deserved so much more than we were able to give you. But I know the One who holds you in His hand. I hope you have found the One Who fashioned you for a purpose, Who calls you by Name, Who died that you would belong to Him. I hope you found Jesus...