Each night at Camp Dream, I have gone with the kids in my group to tuck them in before they go to bed. Myself, my co-leader Kristen, and our translator, Irena, walk the children into their bedrooms and pray with them before they go to sleep. The children are always excited and very thankful. It is so sweet to listen to the as they pray “The Lords prayer” in Russian and then allow me to pray over them.
One night, after praying with all the girls, I noticed that one girl was crying. Not a little whimper, but a heavy sob (what I like to call “the ugly cry”). It broke my heart, because this little girl, Yana, is one of the happiest little girls at the camp. I couldn’t understand what brought on this sudden change in mood. Our translator, Irena, asked Yana to explain what was wrong. One of Yana’s friends explained that each day Yana had been at camp, she would try to call her parents. Yana lives at the orphanage,but has parents who visit her on the weekends. Her parents are both alcoholics and cannot adequately take care of her, but they remain involved in her life. Each day at camp that she called her parents, they promised her that they would come and pick her up that afternoon. On the night that she was crying, she had listened to two weeks of these promises…and still, her parents had not shown up. Each day, she watched her friends get visits from their parents, and each day her heart broke as the reality set in that her own parents were not coming for her.
Needless to say, my heart was broken. How do you tell a child that everything is “okay” when their parents, whom they see as their one source of security, abandon them?
The next day, I talked about the situation with Kristen (my co-leader for my group of kids). Kristen is the mother of two young kids, and of course, her heart was broken too. She confessed that she was struggling with unbelief that God’s love was sufficient for these kids. As much as she believes that God’s love is sufficient for HER, it’s harder to believe that it is truly enough to satisfy children who have lost everything else that could provide them identity or security. I realized as she told me this, that I have the same struggle. I really do doubt the sufficiency of God’s love. It’s easy for me to say that His love is sufficient for me when I am surrounded by other things that I’m ACTUALLY looking to for satisfaction. It’s harder for me to confidently say that I believe His love is sufficient when those things are stripped away. So, this is a challenge for me: this year, as I travel the world sharing the news that God’s love is all we need, am I going to believe it for myself? Am I truly going to believe it for every person I come in contact with? Will I be confident that, when everything else is stripped away- my home, my financial security, my closest relationships- the love of God really is all I need?
