If this statement is true, I should feel at home all over
the world. I have learned to make almost anywhere feel like home, but there are
still a few places that I will always come back to. Even though I’m in the
middle of the World Race and I won’t see my family this whole year, I got to
visit a place that feels like a piece of home last week. On our way from El
Salvador to Antigua, Guatemala for month 5 debrief, my team and I stopped and
spent a day at Casa Bernabe, the orphanage where I interned with Rainbows of
Hope right after I graduated from Wheaton last summer. I love this place and
the people in it, and it was so great to be able to share it with my team.
A few days before, during a church service in El Salvador, I
was reading Isaiah 1, and I came across a verse where Isaiah is telling the
nation of Judah how to do right in the eyes of the Lord. He tells them:
“Seek justice,
encourage the oppressed. Defend the cause of the fatherless, please the case of
the widow.”
I shared this verse with my squad during debrief because I
had really felt for a few weeks like we were all supposed to pray over the
nation of Guatemala together while we were there. While I was at Casa Bernabe I
learned that Sunday the 29th was an international day of prayer for
Guatemala, so I asked my squad to participate and pray with me. I explained
that I think networking and advocacy are big parts of my life calling, and that
I would love to use those gifts to help change things in Guatemala. The verse
in Isaiah is not just calling us to literally care for orphans and widows-it is
calling us to advocate for them and fight for their cause when they don’t have
a voice.
Guatemala is special to me, and more than anything I want to
see the adoption system fixed. Right now international adoptions are closed
because the Guatemalan adoption system does not meet the international
requirements for healthy adoptions set up by the Hague Convention. It is currently
impossible to adopt Guatemalan children if you are not Guatemalan. Because of
the extremely high poverty rate in Guatemala, there are thousands of children
growing up on the streets, without love and basic necessities. They are forced
to join street gangs just to survive, and many of them get addicted to
substances like glue to escape the pain of their tragic lives. Guatemala has
recently been declared to be in an international state of disaster because
almost 50% of the children suffer from chronic malnutrition. That means that
they are literally starving. There are not enough orphanages to fit all the
children who are being abused or abandoned, and not even all the ones that
exist are good places to grow up. Casa Bernabe is special and different from
most orphanages. The kids who are blessed to be placed there get to grow up
with love, family, and God in their lives. I hope to go back there one day for
longer, but right now all I can do is advocate from afar for the children that
I love.
I ask that all of you join me in praying for change in
Guatemala. This is an election year, and the country desperately needs a godly
president who will prioritize the needs of the children. Pray for good laws to
be passed that put the needs and wishes of the children above those of the
corrupt adults who abuse them. Pray for wise judges who can make the best
placement decisions for children who are in the process of being adopted or
reclaimed by their birth families. Pray for provision of physical needs so that
fewer families feel desperate enough to abandon their children. And please pray
that Guatemala can comply with international adoption standards so that more of
these children can find permanent homes where they can grow up in a family that
loves them. By interceding for the children of Guatemala, you are fulfilling
the command to defend the cause of the fatherless.
This is the little girl that my family and I sponsor. The kids get so excited to get mail, gifts, and especially visits from their sponsors. Sponsoring a child is a great way, in lieu of adoption, to let them know that someone has chosen them.
In addition to praying for Guatemala, if you would like to
visit Casa Bernabe, take a church group there on a mission
trip, or sponsor a child, please email me for more information or visit www.foce.org.
To read about the importance of sponsorships in the lives of these kids, check
out this blog that I wrote during a past visit to Casa Bernabe. Thank you so
much!
