Imagine for a minute that your mom walks you to a building of strangers one day and tells you that you are staying there to live. When you first arrive at this place you are so hungry and are literally skin and bones. You are only a toddler and don’t know that when your mom walks out the door she won’t be back for quite a while. So you stay at this house, filled with other children and eat a lot more food then you ever got to eat before. One day your mom shows up and takes you back, she thinks she can care for you now. A few months later you find yourself standing at the gate of that building again, skin and bones, hungry, starving and knowing that you will be leaving your mother again. Imagine this happening numerous times, at some point you start to beg and cry to not go with your mom because you know that you will have to starve for a period of time. Eventually this vicious cycle is stopped by God’s grace and you live in that building until this day, at 9 years of age, looking for a home, with a mom who will feed you.
Imagine for a minute that you are walking down a street and you hear a crying, no painfully screaming baby. Probably one of those cries where you instinctively know that something is wrong. As you locate this cry you meet face to face a baby who has literally been thrown away. Tossed into a dumpster and being eaten alive by rats. By God’s grace this child was saved from the garbage and brought to a place where someone will love her enough to help her find a home.
Imagine for a minute working day and night as a child for a family. A slave, in this day and age. Waiting on a family at their beck and call. All you want to do is go to school and learn. So you gain the courage to ask one day if you can go to school. Your answer is simply being beaten over the head with a bucket, scars you will carry with you for the rest of your life. By God’s grace you run away from slavery and tell the police that you don’t want to be a slave anymore. At the courts, no one wants to take care of you, you aren’t their responsibility, but again by God’s grace a woman says I will help you find a home.
Imagine for a minute that your parents love you very much and teach you everyday about living a good life. In 37 seconds your world is turned upside down. You sprint out of your house as it collapses to the ground. Unsure of what to do you seek your parents. First you go to your mom’s work place, but find that her building collapsed and killed her in 37 seconds. You walk to your dad’s work place, only to find that his building has collapsed and killed him as well in 37 seconds. Crying, you walk up and down the streets, not knowing what to do but by God’s grace you are rescued and given a place to stay while someone helps to find you a home.
Imagine for a minute that your mom dies when you are young so you are raised by a father who is actively involved in Voo Doo. He brings you to the ceremonies and you have but one job. Your job is to drink human blood for the sacrifice and ceremonial procedures. Eventually you believe that this is normal and you like human blood and you are a “vampire” but by God’s grace he rescues you after your father dies and you are taken to a place that will help you find a home.
Imagine for a minute that you are a teenage girl who is living in a tent city after an earthquake ruined your house. You have no privacy and people are angry and want their way. So you are raped and have no way to protect yourself from these people. But by God’s grace you are saved and brought to a place that will help you find a home.
The reality is, that this is only 6 stories of about 60 children. All of these kids have a story, a past and need to have a future. God’s grace has saved them from the situation they were previously in but they are still in need of a family who loves them. Pray with me.
LOVE!
