I never saw how blessed I was until I traveled. In every detail of my life there is privilege and choice. Allow me to elaborate.
I think back to one of my first blogs – #firstworldproblems -. On this Race we have had a first-hand look at incredible poverty and need all over this world. These last couple of months I saw it most clearly through the eyes of children.
In Nepal, all schooling costs money. So if your family doesn’t have the money, you’re not going to school. Something like 60% of the country is illiterate.
Many children live on the street. Yes, the actual streets. Some street kids are not orphans but come from families that cannot afford to feed or care for them. Many of those orphaned are only recently so because of last year’s devastating earthquake. Our host Pastor took us to an orphanage a friend of his operates in partial secret. It is her vision to give a wholesome environment to street children where they can be cared for, safe, and learn about Christ’s love. All orphanages in Nepal are required by law to register with the government. Do you think they receive any government funding? Not a rupee. However, if the government discovers that an orphanage is Christian, or is in any way teaching the children in it about the gospel, they will immediately shut it down forever and often times throw the people overseeing it into prison ((In fact, it is illegal to preach the gospel or speak of Jesus anywhere outside of a church.)) Even though they have absolutely nothing to do with its operation, no hand in it what-so-ever. And certainly give no support. Though the Nepalese government is receiving millions of dollars in relief efforts including funds specifically for orphans.
In India we worked with a ministry called Sarah’s Covenant Homes. This network of group homes takes in orphaned children with special needs either from the streets, government orphanages, or institutions. They provide a loving, Christ-centered, family-style home where the children are given the care they need and a place to thrive. Some who come into SCH from institutions are found, in their attentive environment to be intelligent, warm kids with a bright future who had simply become “institutionalized”.
Kids whose only special need was for love.
See in the institutions the children are only touched or interacted with to be changed, bathed, or fed. Otherwise they sit or lay on the floor in one large room. Only special needs children can legally be adopted out of India because they are not accepted by society. The government will only allow “normal” children to be adopted in India. Why many of these kids ended up in an orphanage in the first place. While I was there a sweet, bodacious, spunky, personality-bursting little girl named “Aloe” stole my heart. Playing with her I could quickly see how sharp she is and how fast she could learn. When I asked her House Mom why she wasn’t in school she tried her best to explain that Aloe is too… different. She wouldn’t be accepted. She has a rare form of dwarfism and because there aren’t specific schools for kids with special needs she wouldn’t be allowed to go to school. Because she’s too different.
Injustice doesn’t just happen to children. These are just short glimpses that touched my heart from 2 of the 9 countries we’ve been in. There is so much more.
“Well life isn’t fair! It’s hard!” you say?
Ok, then I am glad I just happened, unlike these children, to be born by circumstance in a country that built itself on the belief that human’s rights are more important than the unfair lot life gives them.
Under a government that does a lot of good and strives to help its people. A country that fights for its people to live in freedom. A people in whom “that’s not my problem” is against the majority rule. A country that embraces “different”. One open to new people, and new ideas. Freedom of speech is precious and unique to the U.S.
Living your life in health and freedom is precious. Comfort is precious. Having “the right” is precious. Having hope is precious.
In many countries outside the U.S. these concepts are foreign. Merely a dream.
All I know is that I am grateful. Blessed by nothing of my own doing. These freedoms are not easily cultivated in the lives of many, in countries throughout our world. Injustice reigns over righteousness, runs rampant even.
Thank God they are available though to anyone in Christ. Regardless of where they find themselves.
John 8:32
The United States of America, home of the free because of the brave. It really is true that travel opens your eyes to the world. It can give you a new view of the one you left behind too. Americans are blessed beyond compare.
You can’t realize what you have until you see what others don’t.
America is unique, different, innovative, a country of so much hope.
But Christ is true hope, the light of the world, even a world plagued with darkness.
