Can we just get real here for a minute? Okay, cool. Because there’s some things I want to share with you and some questions I need to ask. I challenge you to read this blog all the way through and to let the Lord speak to you through it.
Honduras I worked at an orphanage where there were approximately 40 children who came from all different backgrounds. Some were there because their mothers had been victims of rape or sold themselves just to be able to buy food to survive. Some of the girls didn’t know who their real dad was because their was so much incest going on. There was a calendar of all their birthdays on the wall where we were staying but some of the children were just written on the bottom because no one knew when they were born or how old they were. Many of the girls and boys had been sexually abused. One little boy had scars all over his face because his mom had locked him in the oven when he was little. When he came to the children’s home, he didn’t trust anyone and hated everything. Two little boys, one an infant, were abandoned by their mother and found nearly dead.
Guatemala we stayed in a village where 45 minutes away, they still sacrificed children in the mountains. I met a man who hadn’t seen his parents in years because they rejected him and he was left alone. There were people hungry for more of God, but barely anyone to teach them. They had heard of the name Jesus, but they didn’t know who He really is. I saw children with mothers but no fathers.
El Salvador I was at another orphanage. There were about 10 babies and toddlers whose mothers were only teenagers and at the orphanage themselves. Most of them had been raped, abandoned, kicked out, unwanted. One girl had a little boy because she had been raped by her own dad when she was 13 and after he was born her mother sold her to men for several more years. There were over 60 kids and teens living at the home and many had the same story of being raped, sexually abused, or abandoned. One 19 year old who grown up at the home and now volunteers there has no lips because his grandma had burned them off when he was just a child. A lot of the kids there felt like God was something they were told they had to believe in, but didn’t have a personal relationship with them because they didn’t know who He was beyond rules and religion. One of the girls asked me why we should praise God. It was such a simple question, but she was hungry to know more of God and didn’t know who to ask. There was a handful of boys and girls who were mean and so rude and did anything for attention, but when you chose to love them instead of getting frustrated, you realized that they really were only asking to be loved and noticed. There was a little girl who all the other kids made fun of and didn’t like. I was helping in her school class several days and noticed she had a learning disability. The teacher would just let her pass by without helping her learn and the kids just laughed. I took the time to help teach her and every time she accomplished writing a letter or drawing a shape she would show me and we would celebrate together and she began to learn. Another girl in the class was always trying to help me do things, whether it was washing the mop, helping me sweep, or keeping me company even when the other kids had left to go play. She also loved showing me what she had accomplished and giggling as I gave her a high-five or a hug. She had a mom, but no dad, and I realized that just as some kids did bad things to get attention, she was doing good things because she also had a need to be loved, celebrated, affirmed, and wanted. I also noticed at this orphanage that there were several women who worked there. All of the house parents were women, even for the boys home. There were men who worked around the home, but I rarely saw them interact with the kids.
Macedonia I had the opportunity to travel around the country looking for new ministry contacts, visiting churches, going to events, talking to a lot of people and hearing many stories. Story after story, I heard the same underlying message of searching for their worth, for someone to believe in them, never being told or shown what being a woman or man was or looked like. I asked one man what his story was, and he said that it wasn’t until he was in his 20’s that anyone ever poured into his life and called our the greatness in him. No one had told him who Christ was or that there was a better life he could live. No one had taught him what was right or wrong until he met that man. Now that he knows Christ, I asked him what his passion was and what the greatest need was that he saw and he said he wanted to do for others what one person had done for him. The greatest need he saw was for moms and dads. For people to disciple and invest. To really be there. And the more people I talked to, the greater this need was brought up and highlighted. There were little girls pushing empty strollers begging for money. A man struggling with having two girlfriends and not knowing how to be the man he wanted to be and not having anyone he felt he could turn to for help.
In Albania and Macedonia, my heart broke as I saw children being pimped out by their parents. Either for sex or to steal and beg. They were hungry, but not allowed to accept food, and if they went back without money or something valuable they were either beaten or yelled at and sent back out. When we were first in Albania, we all sat on the park corner waiting for our bus to come. While we were there, a little boy probably around 7 was hanging around. He would go up to all of us and unashamedly put his hands in our pockets and bags trying to get money and valuables. A few of the girls started playing with him, some just observed, some tried to give him food but he wouldn’t take it. His dad or “owner” was sitting maybe 15-20ft away from our group and after trying without success, the little boy would run to the guy, then the guy would say something and tell him to go back and keep trying. It made me sad and angry. I was annoyed, yes. But not at the boy. I was angry at the man. I wondered what the boy’s life was like and what it would look like years from now. Would he ever escape this way of life, this mindset? Is this something he would look back at later and say I used to do that but I got out of it an be able to help others? Or would he never find freedom and continue the same pattern into his adult years?
Now I’m in Africa and although it’s only been four days, I see it here too. A pastor I was talking to said that orphans and street children used to be non-existent here in Zambia, but now you can easily spot them all around the villages. Most of the children at the school we’ve been volunteering at the past two days are orphans, also.
And let’s not forget North America. I’m in my 6th month of the World Race. I’ve seen a lot of things. Been a part of many cultures. Talked to people from all over the world with so many different stories. I’ve seen the need. I’ve seen their pain. But I’ve also spent 21 years in the States and can tell you that there is great need there, too. I’ve worked with men, women, teens, and children. I’ve worked with the homeless. People who have nothing and people who have everything. I can see it in the older generations, but even more in the younger ones.
Even talking with people on my squad who’s parents have died, are divorced, weren’t involved in their life growing up, having no one to trust, to mentor to pour into them and teach them personally. Sometimes the affects are subtle and sometimes you can see them rippling through lives like a thunderstorm. Sometimes it alcoholic parents, parents who work too much and are never home, families that are ripped apart by divorce and arguments, the death of a parent or sibling, absent mothers and fathers and grandparents who have to step in, friends who stab you in the back…
Continued in part 2…go read it!
*I have 25 days to raise $4,500 to continue on the World Race sharing the love of Jesus Christ with people around the world or I’ll have to go home early, will you help support me?
