God's Children

I was reading the blog of a sweet girl that is over in China and had visited an orphanage there. She posted this video that gives a challenging perspective on something that is so real and often forgotten. Please watch it and pray that God would break your heart for what breaks His…

I’ve seen this video before but this time as I watched it, it became more real to me. These are the kids that I’ll be encountering in Africa this summer-children who are starving and have no one to look after them. This week I’ve been challenged as I think about how often we eat as a form of entertainment when there are so many children who die every day because they don’t have the food that they NEED. There are so many statistics that could be rattled off at this point to show just how many children are dying of hunger and hunger-related diseases but it doesn’t do the situation justice. In chapel this week, Eric Samuel Timm came and spoke about “repainting Jesus” to others. He shared about visiting his Compassion child and seeing that in looking at all of the statistics, we lose the fact that each number in those statistics is the life of an actual child. It’s crazy for me to think about the kids that I nanny for and how much their parents invest in each of their lives and to compare that to kids in third world countries who have to fend for themselves because their parents have died of AIDS. I’ve heard stories of 3 year olds who are forced to become the head of their households because their parents have died. I babysat tonight for 4 year old twins and I can’t picture them taking care of younger siblings when they can barely brush their own teeth.

As I watch this, it seems hopeless. We live so comfortably in America and basically have life handed to us on a silver platter. We go out to dinner and the amount we pay for one meal could feed a kid for over a month. I know I am called to go to Africa this summer, but it’s only 4 weeks. I’ll leave and come back to American life again. I know that there are problems here too. I’ve seen that at the daycare I volunteer at Downtown, those kids have someone looking after them but often the same hands that feed them are the same hands that hurt them. Today we had a preschooler come in with marks on his back and mixed up stories when he was asked about how he got them. The more I learn about what goes on in our world, the more my heart breaks. Whether they’re across the world or just across town, these are God’s precious children. When I feel like everything is hopeless and that there is nothing I can do, I rest in knowing that God desires to use me but that His work doesn’t depend on me. I know that I can't change the world but I know I can do my part in the Body to help bring the hope of Jesus to the least of these. I’m so thankful to serve the God who created the world, changes hearts, causes the blind to see, and uses us to declare His love to those who have never experienced it.

Whatever you did unto the least of these, you did unto me. {Matthew 25:40}