“Where you go, I go, what you say I say God, what you pray, I pray.”
That was my prayer going into this next season of the race.. That God would lead me to the places He needed me to be and my heart would break for what breaks His… Tonight, God began that process… and sent me to the hardest place I’ve experienced the past 3 months.
Tonight, I spent four hours in a dark alley in the Philippines… outlining street kids feet so they can receive shoes for Christmas, while holding a 6 year old named Isabelle as she slept in my arms.. While eight of my squad mates loved on the other 80+ children who surrounded us.
I’ve never been in such a hard place… a place full of children who live and sleep in this alley, some of them children of prostitutes, some are prostitutes, and others just lost and confused because of the ridiculous amount of huffing that has taken place over time because they don’t have food to feed there appetite.
So there I was.. Sitting on a curb under the one light pole that was supposed to light up the whole street.. Tracing feet and holding a beautiful child as she slept in my arms, fighting back tears, while the whole world was spinning around me. So I sat there. Speechless. Going through the tracing motions.. With a blank stare on my face. I didn’t have the right words to say.. I couldn’t even think of any words to come out of my mouth because what I was witnessing…
At first I questioned, how this could even be possible.. How so many people could be here on the streets. Then I got mad, because I couldn’t wrap my mind around how all these children could be here, in a dark alley, with nothing…. While the world around them continues on with their business. Lastly, I tried to figure out a way to be the solution and make this mental plan to save each one of these kids… but got nothing… And continued to sit there speechless with tears rolling down my face.
Until finally, a teenager came up to me and asked me why I was here? At first I stared at him, and he asked me again, “Why are you here?” I sat there thinking, and God whispered, “Just be, you’re not here to put on a big show, or save the world, you’re here tonight to just be. Be with these children and love them as best you know how.”
These kids can’t help there circumstances. They have no control over where they are or the life set for them during this season. I’m not their solution, and I definitely went into tonight thinking I would be… but soon realized that I can’t and never will be… because God’s already taken that role on.
For the next five weeks my ministry is “being” with these children. Although my heart breaks for them and their circumstances, I know that God is in the middle of it all.. And is that one light pole that is used to light up the street where these children lay their heads at night.
“You stay the same through the ages; your love never changes… There may be pain in the night,but joy comes in the morning…”
That’s my prayer for these children… That regardless of their situation or where they end up at night, joy will always come in the morning… so won’t you pray with me?
