This blog is about the children. There is a saying that goes ‘Don’t ask God to bless what you are doing. Find out what God is doing and do it, because it’s already blessed.’ God is with the children, there is no doubt. He says in Matthew 19:14
“Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.” That is God’s call to the World Racers for the next few weeks: Go with the children. The harvest is full, the work is hard, and the laborers are few. The children of poor communities, squatter-camps and shanty-towns, come by the hundreds to be loved on, to play and to eat a good meal. They bring their brothers and sisters on their backs because there is no place else for them; the mothers and fathers are either absent or working. They’re beautiful kids. They are absolutely gorgeous. I have no idea how they stay so full of life while living in a world that is so harsh on them. The only answer is that God’s mercies are new every morning and He blesses little children with a resilient mind and spirit.
Training a child takes a lot of work. Brainwashing a spirit of heaviness and evil on a child is extraordinarily tough. Even so, Satan has succeeded with some of these children. He has some who are broken and in bondage. Make no mistake, the battle is real. The war to claim children from the clutches of the Evil One and a lifetime of searching rages, with us on the front line. The ‘Vacation Bible Schools’ that we are running these 3 weeks are only the introduction to the heart of the children. Our camp director said that for a lot of the kids, we will be the only people to say the words ‘I love you’ this year. What an intense thought. What a privilege to be placed here by the Lord. What a blessing to be the vessel that God has chosen to speak life into these kids. What an honor to have boldly received our place in the harvest. The VBS is an amazing opportunity to introduce the thought of the gospel of Jesus to street kids, and to encourage children in orphanages that get God as part of their daily digest.
I thought all this fun and love and teaching at camp would wreck me for these kids. It didn’t. It provoked me to dig deeper into them. It lit a fire in me to go to where they are; I had to go see their families and homes, and to get to know their lives. Monday afternoon my team went to an informal settlement named Joe Slovo, after the late political activist. It was here that God let me see through His eyes. The kids from camp were in their homes with their families, but something was different. They were filling up their daily water from a big tank and taking it to their mothers for cooking and washing. They were cleaning their
other set of clothes. They were helping to cook what little food the family could afford from government grants because neither of the parents can find work. Some kids
are the parents, doing the washing and cooking and raising their younger siblings. They were outside playing with dead soccer balls and broken bikes, amidst waste-water gullies, mangy dogs, smoldering debris piles, and wandering amidst paths composed of broken glass, trash, and chicken waste.
Right here the parable of the lost sheep in Matthew 18 came to life for me. Places like Joe Slovo are where the one lost child resides. There are literally hundreds of kids associated with Refilwe alone that get the chance to experience God, but there is that
one… the
one that Jesus goes to look for, the
one he earnestly seeks out. And I believe you have to go into the dark and dangerous places to find them. But things change when light shines into darkness; a shift occurs. A man is happier about the single sheep delivered from the thorns and mire than the 99 that are safely grazing. It’s a powerful testament of passion and desire, passion for that
one thing, passion for the lost children, desire for the children that God cherishes so deeply, desire for the children that Jesus contrasts the ‘great’ people to. In the first verse of Matthew 18, the disciples ask Jesus “Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” The answer he gives them is not those who are leaders or kings or prophets or priests or who give to the poor or help the sick. Instead (v2-4), “He called a little child and had him stand among them. And he said:
‘I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.’” Children overflow with life and joy because they haven’t been taught that it is because of something they have done. They aren’t old enough to think they are responsible for their own lives. Men grow up, become self-aware and get the idea that their life is somehow in their hands. Blessed are the children, for this is one disease they haven’t been infected with.
Matthew 18: 1-4, 10-14
