We found out Friday night there was a chance we could go to the United States for some vacation time. The catch was that we had to leave on Monday!
Today is Monday.....and we are going to America!!
Nothing like arranging to travel internationally in 48 hours time to add to the crazy we already got going on! We can do it though!
So excited!!!!!!
Come on in...
Monday, September 30, 2013
Tuesday, September 24, 2013
Orphanage life-Unscensored
What
is orphanage life like for real?
I've struggled with how to explain this question for over 10 months now. I started writing this post months ago and every time I sit down to write it out...I fail to find the right words. Partly because I am still learning. There is so much that I do not yet know. Learning the way things are done, and why they're done that way takes a long time in a new culture.
It is not something that can be understood overnight. Or a week. Or a month.
This is a completely Burkinabé run orphanage. It was started by a Burkinabé woman and her husband who's a pastor here. There is no western influence on the procedures, discipline, nutrition, or structure here at all. All the staff are Burkinabé, so naturally it's run according to their culture. And coming here and learning the way that they do things in this culture has taken time because it is often very different from the way we do things in western societies. But each day that I come here I learn a little bit more. I see more. I understand more. I learn how to love more.
And so it is my goal to articulate this world of the abandoned and rejected in an accurate and uncensored way that will open up that door you see and invite you into this room. To help you become a distant participant in the lives that live here. To show you what life is really like in this place.
I am not an expert. I can't even speak as an authority, or even as someone who's visited many orphanages. I've visited only two during my time here so far. And each one is unique and different. But this is the one I devotedly come to twice a week, every Wednesday and Friday. So I can only say with first hand knowledge what life is really like here. It is limited, and but a glimpse into this world...but I will do my best to share my glimpses, and open up that door for you to share in this reality.
So without further ado, here is an uncensored account of the orphanage I serve at.....
I drive through the narrow gate, round the corner of the dirt path,
and pull my car up next to a wall covered in clothing left out to dry in
the sun. As I exit the car I can hear a chorus of shouts coming from
behind the wall, "Na-sa-da! Na-sa-da!". I approach the door and a mass
of children tackle my legs and squeeze me in delight. I look down and
see faces smiling back up at me, arms reaching high, shouts of "Tikima!" "pick me up!" echoing from each of them. I bend down to kiss
their heads and wrap my arms around them. I shuffle my way inside the
door, they cling to me as I reach to set my bag down, and then I am
tackled onto the floor by a sea of the most beautiful brown faced
children.
And so my day with them begins....
This is the main room of the orphanage where we spend most of our time.
The room on the left is a tiny little kitchen where the workers cook the meals. The meals here consist of boiled potatoes, couscous, spaghetti noodles, or tô, mixed with a red tomato based sauce everyday for lunch and dinner. The babies receive bottles of milk, but the older kids no not. During the hot months all the kids get a cup of water, but only during the hot months. The rest of the year they have very little fluid intake. They do not eat meat, fruits and very little vegetables, usually nothing more than tomatoes, potatoes, and onions. The workers add oil to the dishes to help the children receive additional fat, and sometimes they will make a local peanut sauce to help get them some protein, but other than that...their diet is sorely lacking.
They do not go without out of cruelty or intentional neglect. There is simply not enough money to pay for a well balanced meal for this many children, three meals a day, every single day. Mostly they eat just two meals a day, with no snacks in between. The younger kids are required to share a small bowl of their meal with one or two other children, because there is not enough food for each child to have their own portion.
And while the meals are enough to hold them over and keep from starving, the food does not contain enough nutrients, and the children show the results of having an inadequate diet with many children suffering from swollen bellies due to lack of proper protein, causing their tummies to swell with fluid.
The older kids aged 3-6 yrs. sit on the floor and eat their boiled potatoes or noodles by scooping them up with their fingers. They actually provide utensils here for the children to learn to use, but they rarely pick them up, as culturally most Burkinabé eat with their hands.
Once the younger babies have eaten the workers scoop them up by one armpit and lay them on the tiled floor to have their bottles.
It's an interesting contrast because, in the States we are so delicate with babies. The first time I saw one of the workers scoop up a baby by one arm pit, with the baby dangling sideways, I think my eyes popped out of my head. If we saw a mother in the US handle her baby in that manner, we'd be judging her and contemplating whether to call social services. We would be thinking her incompetent, cruel, unfit.... and any other word we could lash out at her in our heads.
And then to lay the baby down on a hard cold floor that is smeared with food and ants to drink their bottle....that's something we don't do in western societies. Again, we handle babies delicately. We lay them in cushy nursing pillows, ultra padded swings, or plush cribs. If we do lay them on the floor to rest or take a bottle, we don't put them down on the cold hard kitchen floor, we lay them on a baby quilt we received at our baby shower which sits on top of our carpet.
But there is no carpet here. There are no specially made baby quilts or hand crocheted blankets. There are no nursing pillows or padded swings.
There is a hard cold tiled floor. So that is where they lay to drink their bottles.
And it's not wrong....it's just different. And in all fairness, it's more practical. Every week that I come there is sure to be at least one child that throws up their meal all over themselves and the floor. They don't burp babies in this culture so many times the kids just have an air bubble that needs to come up, but in the process all their food comes up with it. Or, they're just plain sick. The workers also cut the tips of the bottle nipples off so the children can drink their milk faster, and each and every week the kids will chuck their bottles on the floor and their milk will spill out of it. The daily messes of these near 20 kids is a whole lot easier to clean from a tiled floor. So that is where they lay.
After they eat the all the kids from about 8months and up who are not potty trained sit down on little training potties before they lay down for bed. They have to sit on these little pots until they go, so before long they will be scooting all over the floors with their pots talking to each other, reaching for toys to play with to pass the time. As the workers are cleaning up from lunch the kids are going potty, but because they require kids as young as 8 months to sit on those they will frequently pick up the potties of those who have finished and dump their contents all over the floor, because they're too young to know any better. This orphanage is not the most sanitary place at times. Some days it can smell pretty bad from the constant smell of urine and feces collecting in a dozen unchanged diapers and then training potties filled and spilled onto the floor. But with a limited staff, it is hard to maintain decent sanitation at times.
Most days there are just three lady workers on duty at a time.
Those
three ladies are responsible for tending to the needs of around 25 children which include...
cooking their meals,
preparing bottles,
feeding them,
changing diapers,
cleaning all the kids training pottie
changing dirty clothes,
bathing them,
and then of course all the maintenance cleaning that must be done...
mopping the floors,
washing dishes (all by hand of course),
hosing off the beds and mattresses (that is how they clean and disinfect...they literally take a hose and spray everything down, even the furniture)
washing the clothes,
folding the clothes...
all in a building with no running a.c. or fans. They do have an a.c. unit and a ceiling fan in the main room, but they're too expensive to use. So they sit in the stifling building and suffer through the heat, sweat dripping down their heads, clothes soaked through, because it's too expensive to pay for relief.
I think it would be easy to read this and think, "That's not so bad...taking care of 25 kids in an orphanage isn't 50 or 100 like in other places. That's doable." I think it would be too easy to read through this and not the reality of this life penetrate our hearts.
But if we relate this to our American mindset.....
a mom having one baby and one toddler at home to care for is a lot.
I know, I've been that mom. Coming home from the hospital and having a very active two year old wanting to play and needing to be cared for, plus now having a newborn baby to take care of and ALL the stuff that goes into those days of caring for two kids. I had two (still do)...and was dead on my feet most days. The idea of having to cook dinner at night and then clean up after the kids were in bed was taxing. It always amazed me how quickly one toddler could totally trash a house and how much laundry one little baby went through.
Many days I felt maxed out and overwhelmed with two kids.
In our culture having a family of five kids is considered absolutely massive.
Taking care of twins requires a whole other set of mommy juggling powers.
Imagine having 20 toddlers, newborns and school aged children to take care of at the same time.
It's a lot.
That's a lot of kids for three women.
The women do their best to stay afloat but it is hard for them. One worker is in charge of preparing the meals, as they do not have a separate cook, and it takes most of the morning to prepare over twenty lunches without the modern conveniences of Handi Snacks, GoGurts or PBandJ's.
That leaves the other two women to oversee the rest of the needs of the children.
So what ends up happening is most of the time the babies spend much of their days in their cribs staring up at the ceiling, talking to themselves, spending hours in their soiled diapers. There are simply not enough hands to hold them so they just leave them in their cribs. Or they are taken out of their cribs and just placed instead on the mattress in the common room or deposited on the floor to fend for themselves.
The
children learn at just a few months of age to occupy themselves and be content with minimal adult
interaction, relying on themselves to self sooth or handle conflict.
(This is my dear friend Chloe, who was serving in Burkina for a few months and helping out at the orphanage three days a week. She returned back to the U.K. in March)
So we go. And we help. We feed babies and tickle them and chase them and love them. Most of the time they are pretty much satisfied just having a lap to sit in. A chest to lay their head against. A hand to hold.
The younger children sleep in a room behind this wall in individual cribs, but the older children sleep together on this mattress I sit on. No beds of their own, or personal space to be had. The toys scattered about belong to no one and everyone. They have no personal possessions. Nothing to call their own. Everything must be shared when living with so many other kids.
Even the volunteers who come. They must share us, and it's not always easy.
As we sit and play the kids precede to fight over us. Usually whoever latches on to me first gets me for the few hours I am there. The kids will push and cry if they feel another child threatening their space with me. They stake claim to me when I come, and they don't want anyone invading their space. They don't get a lot of attention. There are just too many kids and not enough workers to spend time with them all. If I have to stand up to walk around, the child in my lap will either forcefully cling to my chest to be carried refusing to be put down, or latch onto my legs as I walk and I literally drag them around with me. So, if one or two kids have claimed my lap, I will use my arms to tickle the ones running by. Doing my best to reach out to, quite literally, as many kids as I can.
This
is Iyda (pronouced Eye-ee-dah). She's my friend. She is around 4 years old and has been
abandoned twice by her mother. She now lives at the orphanage. She suffers
from epilepsy and has a fungal skin condition all
over her body that causes her skin to be severely dry and her nails to
be eaten away. But it has not been treated since I started coming here
due to lack of finances. And also the fact that she is functioning and
it's not causing grave illness it's not a priority to treat. Just last
week I sent this picture to a doctor I know here because I got
tired of coming here each week and seeing her skin in such bad shape,
and he gave me the name of a prescription to buy to treat her skin with,
so hopefully within a couple weeks she will begin to improve.
Many of the children in the orphanage suffer from a variety of problems and conditions. Many of them are left untreated as well due to lack of finances, ignorance concerning their condition, or lack of proper health care to adequately treat them.
It's not uncommon for me to arrive and see a number of children sick with colds, running fevers, or have mysterious outbreaks on their bodies. Many times, because the workers are few and overworked, they are unaware that a child may be suffering from a fever. I've lost count of how many times I've had to ask them to take a temperature and administer medicine. And because they simply don't have time to sit down with each ailing child, they just leave them laying on the cold tile. Or in a sling wrapped with wet strips of fabric.
It is heartbreaking to come and see the children laying on the floor, sick and alone.
I look at these kids and every time I see Marvelly and Sydaleigh. They want the same things. They want someone to come and scoop them up off the floor and cradle when in their laps. They want someone to rub their heads and tummies and sing them to sleep. They want someone who will wipe their noses. They want someone to stop what they're doing and lay them on a chest to draw in the comfort that comes from a steady heartbeat. They want someone to not shrink back in disgust when they throw up everywhere, but someone who will stand firm by their side even in their sickness. And when they are sick, it hurts my heart as if they were my very own children.
And when one dies, if feels as if I just might break....
This is baby Anna. She is almost six
weeks old in this picture but looks like she should still be in the womb
she is so
small. She can't weigh more than three pounds in this photo, if that.
She was not thriving when she arrived at the orphanage back in November
but she was bigger than this.
On December 5th of last year I arrived at the orphanage and immediately sought her out and noticed that from the week before she had gotten smaller. I actually thought they received a new baby, because the one that lay before me was even smaller than baby Anna. But it was not a new baby. In the few days between our visits she had shrunk considerably and had a nose tube placed because she stopped taking her milk.
Before the kids
were laid down for their nap time on this particular Wednesday the workers had
taken all the little babies out of their room to hose off their cribs
and I saw her laying off to the side on this bouncer, quietly crying to
herself, her cries so quiet I almost didn't hear them above the noise of
the other kids.
There was no one to hold her. Too many other kids demanding attention and chores to be done. So me and Marvelly went over and sat next to her in her bouncer. She was tiny. Swimming in her onsie, just skin covering bones. Me and Marvelly sat, and we picked up her small hands and tucked our fingers inside. We sang to her the ABC song and The Lord is My Shepard at Marvelly's request. Somewhere deep in my spirit I knew that her life lay in the balance. So I began to pray over her. Quietly pleading for the Lord to intervene and usher in healing.
Unfortunately baby Anna died the next day.
The following day, was their Christmas party that we attended and later that afternoon she went to be with our Lord. Turns out Jesus answered my prayer and ushered in healing after all...just not in the way that I wanted, not on this earth or in her body.
Marvelly still talks about baby Anna and tells me how she is going to see her in heaven. That is one thing I most assuredly know to be true. Unfortunately, what we will never know is why she couldn't live. Why such a small precious baby, her life just beginning, had to die.
They had a doctor come out and examined her prior to her death but he couldn't find anything wrong, no reason why she would not be thriving. The doctors here are poorly trained and lack proper schooling needed to adequately diagnose problems. It's painfully hard to watch someone suffer from something that could be easily treated back in another country. Here, so many treatable conditions are fatal. And too many people die as a result of inadequate healthcare.
I have come to discover through our time here that death is such an integral part of the Burkinabé culture, it is much more accepted here, because it has to be.
The gal sitting down in the orange shirt is Bibatta (Bee-bah-tah) and the little girl with the yellow shorts is her daughter Jennifer. If you look closely you can see that Bibatta is pregnant with her second child. Sadly, after giving birth close to Christmas she wouldn't know the joy of seeing her child grow up, because she abandoned him at the orphanage.
A lot of people ask me what are some of the circumstances that bring these children to live at an orphanage. And this is one example. Bibatta was a widow. She had her daughter Jennifer with her previous husband, and after his death, she got pregnant by another man. Her family refused to accept her new child into their family and told her she must either give him away, or she wasn't welcome to return home. Faced with the difficult choice of either surrendering her new baby to an orphanage, or finding a way to support her and her two children as a widow, all alone, without a family's support....she sacrificed her new child.
This is very common here is Burkina. All too common. People have very little options here. They face hardships that we will never be able to grasp. And sadly, not only did Bibatta have to sacrifice her only son, but baby David didn't live past three months of life.
David died on Easter Sunday.
The night before he became abruptly sick. The orphanage director, Patricia rushed him to the pediatric hospital where he stopped breathing in the car on the way there. Once they arrived the hospital staff tried to turn them away saying they could not help. But Patricia insisted that they try to treat him and convinced a doctor to help so he engaged in CPR and successfully revived him. But David was so severely dehydrated the staff was not able to place an IV until hours later. He crashed two more times, and was revived, but after the fourth time he stopped breathing, they could not bring him back. His body was too weak to fight any longer.
And he went home to live with the Lord, and they could never reach Bibatta to inform her that her son had perished.
This is Sydaleigh holding baby Jean. Thankfully, she is here today because of the Lord's divine leading. On Monday January 14th, the Lord led a man who was out looking for his donkey to an abandoned brick house where he discovered two baby girls lying on the ground completely covered in blood. They do not know how long those babies laid on that dirt floor before the Lord directed that man to them. They were never able to find their mother, not knowing if she in fact even survived the birth. Thankfully, the man took mercy on the babies and scooped them up and brought them to the police department where the police then brought the babies to the orphanage.
My friend Chloe was at the orphanage when they arrived and she said Jeanine, the barely smaller of the two sisters, was void of all color,
cold, and looked as if she was already dead. Somehow, though, both girls were still alive and breathing. The babies weighed a mere 1k500g and 1k600g. Chloe and Patricia rushed them to a Catholic clinic, where sadly, Jeanine later died. Three days later I visited the clinic with Chloe to see baby Jean and collect her sister's death certificate. We got to look at baby Jean from behind a window and by the grace of God she looked good. Like she might actually make it.
We will never fully know the circumstances surrounding what happened to her mother the night that they were born. We will never know why they were left alone to die, or where the mother disappeared to. I have learned from children like Jean and David, that you can not judge the mothers. I am learning, very painfully, that like Bibatte, the women here suffer through daily horrible desperate circumstances that I will never be able to relate to. This past year has been a year of learning new depths of grace, mercy, forgiveness and love, extended to those who make desperate choices based on desperate circumstances.
And while Jean may never grow up knowing that she had a twin sister or knowing the love of her birth family....praise be to God she will still get to grow up knowing the love of a new family.....a month after Jean was released from the hospital she was brought back to the orphanage. And last month she left the orphanage forever as a beautiful thriving little baby to go live with her new forever family.
It's not easy coming here. It's not easy dealing with the pain and loss associated with these children living here. It's hard to see some die and others live. It's hard to see some rescued and the others you know are out there that will never be found. It's unspeakably hard holding children one day and then arriving two days later to discover that they perished. It's hard when there are no answers. Or answers I want to hear. It's heartbreaking to see children discarded and witness the suffering associated with abandonment.
And while I don't have all the answers about why these children had to end up here, or why some get to live while others have to die....I still know that I serve a mighty God. And He grieves more deeply for the brokenness of this world than I do. And He loves these children and has called them by name. He has a plan and a purpose for their lives. And it has been one of my greatest joys, and deepest sorrows, coming here to partner with Him in His work in the lives of these young kids.
For a while after coming here I struggled to know my purpose in this place. Many times I would leave and feel so broke down and weary wondering what was the point of it all. I would come week in and week out and get pushed away, slapped in the face, hit and bitten, yelled at, have my hair pulled, be peed and puked on, be swarmed by mobs of children and never able to break enough pieces of myself away to satisfy those around me. There were times that I would leave and as soon as I closed the door to my car, the tears would fall. There are so many kids. Am I even making a difference? What was I really giving them by coming?
And over these past ten months of coming here, with the Lord's continued help, that is what I have become.
I have become their temporary mother. And these kids have become so much more than just "orphans" to me. We have been building relationships each and every time that I come. I know each and every one of them by name. I know there voices. I know their laughs. Their cries. I know their personalities and what makes them happy. Just as I would if they were my own children.
It makes my heart all kinds of happy to know that the Lord is honoring us with the responsibility to come here and show these kids love, to model what a family is...until their forever families can come and be the ones to do that.
There are a lot of mommies out there who are far away in their home countries, caught up in the bureaucracy of finalizing their adoptions. They stay awake at night wondering how their child is doing, if they are eating well, sleeping well, being taken care of and protected, and they are just counting down the days until this is all behind them and they can be a family.
I know what those mommies are feeling, because I am one of them. I too am counting down the days just like them until we can bring our son home to us.
And what makes my heart cry in deep joy, is that I know a dear woman who is being a mommy to our future son...until I can get to him and bring him home to me. She loves him. She prays for him. She sings to him. She cheers for him.
And as an almost adoptive momma, there is nothing that makes my heart so settled in this process as to know that there is a person where my child is, loving them as if he were her own. I have had the pleasure of meeting some of these children's new parents on occasion, and I pray that their hearts can rest in the same peace, knowing someone is back here loving their child well for them.
And so that is what I do for these children and their parents. I try to love them well, as if they were my own.
I cheer for them and celebrate their successes. I am a person who can be here to see them take their first steps when no one else is around to notice. I have had the honor of watching some grow from babies to walking machines, like my little Noah doll.
I have had the privilege of shouting for joy when Rosalee starts pulling herself up to stand on her own.
I get to be a someone that God has placed here to go bonkers when they reach new milestones. When a new one crawls. Or rolls over for the first time. When a little one stands. I cheer and shout and whoop and holler and praise all their
efforts to share and eat their lunch all gone.
I get to be a someone who soothes wounded hearts. Encourages them not to hit, or bite. To model what love looks like. That is what I hope to impress upon Sydaleigh and Marvelly to do when they come with me; to love them as if they were their brothers and sisters. Because that is what the Lord asks of each of us, no matter where we are or who we're serving...to model Christ's love.
There are many kids here, who in just a couple of months will be in their new homes. They are in our lives for but a moment. And I want us to love them well while they are in it.
If I could sum up my experiences and lessons from serving at the orphanage this past year, it would be this....
I've struggled with how to explain this question for over 10 months now. I started writing this post months ago and every time I sit down to write it out...I fail to find the right words. Partly because I am still learning. There is so much that I do not yet know. Learning the way things are done, and why they're done that way takes a long time in a new culture.
It is not something that can be understood overnight. Or a week. Or a month.
This is a completely Burkinabé run orphanage. It was started by a Burkinabé woman and her husband who's a pastor here. There is no western influence on the procedures, discipline, nutrition, or structure here at all. All the staff are Burkinabé, so naturally it's run according to their culture. And coming here and learning the way that they do things in this culture has taken time because it is often very different from the way we do things in western societies. But each day that I come here I learn a little bit more. I see more. I understand more. I learn how to love more.
And so it is my goal to articulate this world of the abandoned and rejected in an accurate and uncensored way that will open up that door you see and invite you into this room. To help you become a distant participant in the lives that live here. To show you what life is really like in this place.
I am not an expert. I can't even speak as an authority, or even as someone who's visited many orphanages. I've visited only two during my time here so far. And each one is unique and different. But this is the one I devotedly come to twice a week, every Wednesday and Friday. So I can only say with first hand knowledge what life is really like here. It is limited, and but a glimpse into this world...but I will do my best to share my glimpses, and open up that door for you to share in this reality.
So without further ado, here is an uncensored account of the orphanage I serve at.....
And so my day with them begins....
This is the main room of the orphanage where we spend most of our time.
The room on the left is a tiny little kitchen where the workers cook the meals. The meals here consist of boiled potatoes, couscous, spaghetti noodles, or tô, mixed with a red tomato based sauce everyday for lunch and dinner. The babies receive bottles of milk, but the older kids no not. During the hot months all the kids get a cup of water, but only during the hot months. The rest of the year they have very little fluid intake. They do not eat meat, fruits and very little vegetables, usually nothing more than tomatoes, potatoes, and onions. The workers add oil to the dishes to help the children receive additional fat, and sometimes they will make a local peanut sauce to help get them some protein, but other than that...their diet is sorely lacking.
They do not go without out of cruelty or intentional neglect. There is simply not enough money to pay for a well balanced meal for this many children, three meals a day, every single day. Mostly they eat just two meals a day, with no snacks in between. The younger kids are required to share a small bowl of their meal with one or two other children, because there is not enough food for each child to have their own portion.
(My friend Christa who introduced me to the orphanage.)
And while the meals are enough to hold them over and keep from starving, the food does not contain enough nutrients, and the children show the results of having an inadequate diet with many children suffering from swollen bellies due to lack of proper protein, causing their tummies to swell with fluid.
The older kids aged 3-6 yrs. sit on the floor and eat their boiled potatoes or noodles by scooping them up with their fingers. They actually provide utensils here for the children to learn to use, but they rarely pick them up, as culturally most Burkinabé eat with their hands.
Once the younger babies have eaten the workers scoop them up by one armpit and lay them on the tiled floor to have their bottles.
It's an interesting contrast because, in the States we are so delicate with babies. The first time I saw one of the workers scoop up a baby by one arm pit, with the baby dangling sideways, I think my eyes popped out of my head. If we saw a mother in the US handle her baby in that manner, we'd be judging her and contemplating whether to call social services. We would be thinking her incompetent, cruel, unfit.... and any other word we could lash out at her in our heads.
And then to lay the baby down on a hard cold floor that is smeared with food and ants to drink their bottle....that's something we don't do in western societies. Again, we handle babies delicately. We lay them in cushy nursing pillows, ultra padded swings, or plush cribs. If we do lay them on the floor to rest or take a bottle, we don't put them down on the cold hard kitchen floor, we lay them on a baby quilt we received at our baby shower which sits on top of our carpet.
But there is no carpet here. There are no specially made baby quilts or hand crocheted blankets. There are no nursing pillows or padded swings.
There is a hard cold tiled floor. So that is where they lay to drink their bottles.
After they eat the all the kids from about 8months and up who are not potty trained sit down on little training potties before they lay down for bed. They have to sit on these little pots until they go, so before long they will be scooting all over the floors with their pots talking to each other, reaching for toys to play with to pass the time. As the workers are cleaning up from lunch the kids are going potty, but because they require kids as young as 8 months to sit on those they will frequently pick up the potties of those who have finished and dump their contents all over the floor, because they're too young to know any better. This orphanage is not the most sanitary place at times. Some days it can smell pretty bad from the constant smell of urine and feces collecting in a dozen unchanged diapers and then training potties filled and spilled onto the floor. But with a limited staff, it is hard to maintain decent sanitation at times.
Most days there are just three lady workers on duty at a time.
cooking their meals,
preparing bottles,
feeding them,
changing diapers,
cleaning all the kids training pottie
changing dirty clothes,
bathing them,
and then of course all the maintenance cleaning that must be done...
mopping the floors,
washing dishes (all by hand of course),
hosing off the beds and mattresses (that is how they clean and disinfect...they literally take a hose and spray everything down, even the furniture)
washing the clothes,
folding the clothes...
all in a building with no running a.c. or fans. They do have an a.c. unit and a ceiling fan in the main room, but they're too expensive to use. So they sit in the stifling building and suffer through the heat, sweat dripping down their heads, clothes soaked through, because it's too expensive to pay for relief.
I think it would be easy to read this and think, "That's not so bad...taking care of 25 kids in an orphanage isn't 50 or 100 like in other places. That's doable." I think it would be too easy to read through this and not the reality of this life penetrate our hearts.
But if we relate this to our American mindset.....
a mom having one baby and one toddler at home to care for is a lot.
I know, I've been that mom. Coming home from the hospital and having a very active two year old wanting to play and needing to be cared for, plus now having a newborn baby to take care of and ALL the stuff that goes into those days of caring for two kids. I had two (still do)...and was dead on my feet most days. The idea of having to cook dinner at night and then clean up after the kids were in bed was taxing. It always amazed me how quickly one toddler could totally trash a house and how much laundry one little baby went through.
Many days I felt maxed out and overwhelmed with two kids.
In our culture having a family of five kids is considered absolutely massive.
Taking care of twins requires a whole other set of mommy juggling powers.
Imagine having 20 toddlers, newborns and school aged children to take care of at the same time.
It's a lot.
That's a lot of kids for three women.
The women do their best to stay afloat but it is hard for them. One worker is in charge of preparing the meals, as they do not have a separate cook, and it takes most of the morning to prepare over twenty lunches without the modern conveniences of Handi Snacks, GoGurts or PBandJ's.
That leaves the other two women to oversee the rest of the needs of the children.
So what ends up happening is most of the time the babies spend much of their days in their cribs staring up at the ceiling, talking to themselves, spending hours in their soiled diapers. There are simply not enough hands to hold them so they just leave them in their cribs. Or they are taken out of their cribs and just placed instead on the mattress in the common room or deposited on the floor to fend for themselves.
That
is why volunteers are so needed.
The children need to be taken out of their cribs before lunch time. They need help feeding so many little mouths. The kids need one on one attention. Which is usually more like four on one attention. They need someone to stimulate their minds. Someone to sing to them. Someone to give them eye contact and tell them they are special and seen and loved.
The children need to be taken out of their cribs before lunch time. They need help feeding so many little mouths. The kids need one on one attention. Which is usually more like four on one attention. They need someone to stimulate their minds. Someone to sing to them. Someone to give them eye contact and tell them they are special and seen and loved.
So we go. And we help. We feed babies and tickle them and chase them and love them. Most of the time they are pretty much satisfied just having a lap to sit in. A chest to lay their head against. A hand to hold.
This is baby Elliel. (pronouced Ell-ee-el)
I leave completely dirty every time I'm there. I'm always getting food spilled on me and I've
been peed on my fair share of times. They don't have
awesome absorbing Pampers over here. Instead they have cloth
diapers...but not the really nice cloth diapers that so many moms are
buying these days. These cloth diapers are literally a piece of fabric
comparable to a sheet. Except this is the crappiest cheapest low
thread count cotton sheets you can find and would never buy. And then
imagine that the crappiest cheapest sheets are now thirty years
old and they are so thin you can practically see through them. That's what they wear. With the added security of a plastic bag tied around them for good measure. They have had nice cloth diapers donated, but the kids are rarely put in them. Again, this is a completely Burkinabé run orphanage and they are used to tradition and old ways and despite the new ultra absorbent diapers at their disposal, they never get used because in their minds the old ones work just fine. Even though they don't.
Even the volunteers who come. They must share us, and it's not always easy.
As we sit and play the kids precede to fight over us. Usually whoever latches on to me first gets me for the few hours I am there. The kids will push and cry if they feel another child threatening their space with me. They stake claim to me when I come, and they don't want anyone invading their space. They don't get a lot of attention. There are just too many kids and not enough workers to spend time with them all. If I have to stand up to walk around, the child in my lap will either forcefully cling to my chest to be carried refusing to be put down, or latch onto my legs as I walk and I literally drag them around with me. So, if one or two kids have claimed my lap, I will use my arms to tickle the ones running by. Doing my best to reach out to, quite literally, as many kids as I can.
Many of the children in the orphanage suffer from a variety of problems and conditions. Many of them are left untreated as well due to lack of finances, ignorance concerning their condition, or lack of proper health care to adequately treat them.
It's not uncommon for me to arrive and see a number of children sick with colds, running fevers, or have mysterious outbreaks on their bodies. Many times, because the workers are few and overworked, they are unaware that a child may be suffering from a fever. I've lost count of how many times I've had to ask them to take a temperature and administer medicine. And because they simply don't have time to sit down with each ailing child, they just leave them laying on the cold tile. Or in a sling wrapped with wet strips of fabric.
I look at these kids and every time I see Marvelly and Sydaleigh. They want the same things. They want someone to come and scoop them up off the floor and cradle when in their laps. They want someone to rub their heads and tummies and sing them to sleep. They want someone who will wipe their noses. They want someone to stop what they're doing and lay them on a chest to draw in the comfort that comes from a steady heartbeat. They want someone to not shrink back in disgust when they throw up everywhere, but someone who will stand firm by their side even in their sickness. And when they are sick, it hurts my heart as if they were my very own children.
And when one dies, if feels as if I just might break....
On December 5th of last year I arrived at the orphanage and immediately sought her out and noticed that from the week before she had gotten smaller. I actually thought they received a new baby, because the one that lay before me was even smaller than baby Anna. But it was not a new baby. In the few days between our visits she had shrunk considerably and had a nose tube placed because she stopped taking her milk.
There was no one to hold her. Too many other kids demanding attention and chores to be done. So me and Marvelly went over and sat next to her in her bouncer. She was tiny. Swimming in her onsie, just skin covering bones. Me and Marvelly sat, and we picked up her small hands and tucked our fingers inside. We sang to her the ABC song and The Lord is My Shepard at Marvelly's request. Somewhere deep in my spirit I knew that her life lay in the balance. So I began to pray over her. Quietly pleading for the Lord to intervene and usher in healing.
Unfortunately baby Anna died the next day.
The following day, was their Christmas party that we attended and later that afternoon she went to be with our Lord. Turns out Jesus answered my prayer and ushered in healing after all...just not in the way that I wanted, not on this earth or in her body.
Marvelly still talks about baby Anna and tells me how she is going to see her in heaven. That is one thing I most assuredly know to be true. Unfortunately, what we will never know is why she couldn't live. Why such a small precious baby, her life just beginning, had to die.
They had a doctor come out and examined her prior to her death but he couldn't find anything wrong, no reason why she would not be thriving. The doctors here are poorly trained and lack proper schooling needed to adequately diagnose problems. It's painfully hard to watch someone suffer from something that could be easily treated back in another country. Here, so many treatable conditions are fatal. And too many people die as a result of inadequate healthcare.
I have come to discover through our time here that death is such an integral part of the Burkinabé culture, it is much more accepted here, because it has to be.
A lot of people ask me what are some of the circumstances that bring these children to live at an orphanage. And this is one example. Bibatta was a widow. She had her daughter Jennifer with her previous husband, and after his death, she got pregnant by another man. Her family refused to accept her new child into their family and told her she must either give him away, or she wasn't welcome to return home. Faced with the difficult choice of either surrendering her new baby to an orphanage, or finding a way to support her and her two children as a widow, all alone, without a family's support....she sacrificed her new child.
This is very common here is Burkina. All too common. People have very little options here. They face hardships that we will never be able to grasp. And sadly, not only did Bibatta have to sacrifice her only son, but baby David didn't live past three months of life.
David died on Easter Sunday.
The night before he became abruptly sick. The orphanage director, Patricia rushed him to the pediatric hospital where he stopped breathing in the car on the way there. Once they arrived the hospital staff tried to turn them away saying they could not help. But Patricia insisted that they try to treat him and convinced a doctor to help so he engaged in CPR and successfully revived him. But David was so severely dehydrated the staff was not able to place an IV until hours later. He crashed two more times, and was revived, but after the fourth time he stopped breathing, they could not bring him back. His body was too weak to fight any longer.
And he went home to live with the Lord, and they could never reach Bibatta to inform her that her son had perished.
This is Sydaleigh holding baby Jean. Thankfully, she is here today because of the Lord's divine leading. On Monday January 14th, the Lord led a man who was out looking for his donkey to an abandoned brick house where he discovered two baby girls lying on the ground completely covered in blood. They do not know how long those babies laid on that dirt floor before the Lord directed that man to them. They were never able to find their mother, not knowing if she in fact even survived the birth. Thankfully, the man took mercy on the babies and scooped them up and brought them to the police department where the police then brought the babies to the orphanage.
We will never fully know the circumstances surrounding what happened to her mother the night that they were born. We will never know why they were left alone to die, or where the mother disappeared to. I have learned from children like Jean and David, that you can not judge the mothers. I am learning, very painfully, that like Bibatte, the women here suffer through daily horrible desperate circumstances that I will never be able to relate to. This past year has been a year of learning new depths of grace, mercy, forgiveness and love, extended to those who make desperate choices based on desperate circumstances.
And while Jean may never grow up knowing that she had a twin sister or knowing the love of her birth family....praise be to God she will still get to grow up knowing the love of a new family.....a month after Jean was released from the hospital she was brought back to the orphanage. And last month she left the orphanage forever as a beautiful thriving little baby to go live with her new forever family.
It's not easy coming here. It's not easy dealing with the pain and loss associated with these children living here. It's hard to see some die and others live. It's hard to see some rescued and the others you know are out there that will never be found. It's unspeakably hard holding children one day and then arriving two days later to discover that they perished. It's hard when there are no answers. Or answers I want to hear. It's heartbreaking to see children discarded and witness the suffering associated with abandonment.
And while I don't have all the answers about why these children had to end up here, or why some get to live while others have to die....I still know that I serve a mighty God. And He grieves more deeply for the brokenness of this world than I do. And He loves these children and has called them by name. He has a plan and a purpose for their lives. And it has been one of my greatest joys, and deepest sorrows, coming here to partner with Him in His work in the lives of these young kids.
And then one day the Lord whispered, "You're giving them a mother."
I have become their temporary mother. And these kids have become so much more than just "orphans" to me. We have been building relationships each and every time that I come. I know each and every one of them by name. I know there voices. I know their laughs. Their cries. I know their personalities and what makes them happy. Just as I would if they were my own children.
It makes my heart all kinds of happy to know that the Lord is honoring us with the responsibility to come here and show these kids love, to model what a family is...until their forever families can come and be the ones to do that.
There are a lot of mommies out there who are far away in their home countries, caught up in the bureaucracy of finalizing their adoptions. They stay awake at night wondering how their child is doing, if they are eating well, sleeping well, being taken care of and protected, and they are just counting down the days until this is all behind them and they can be a family.
I know what those mommies are feeling, because I am one of them. I too am counting down the days just like them until we can bring our son home to us.
And what makes my heart cry in deep joy, is that I know a dear woman who is being a mommy to our future son...until I can get to him and bring him home to me. She loves him. She prays for him. She sings to him. She cheers for him.
And as an almost adoptive momma, there is nothing that makes my heart so settled in this process as to know that there is a person where my child is, loving them as if he were her own. I have had the pleasure of meeting some of these children's new parents on occasion, and I pray that their hearts can rest in the same peace, knowing someone is back here loving their child well for them.
And so that is what I do for these children and their parents. I try to love them well, as if they were my own.
I cheer for them and celebrate their successes. I am a person who can be here to see them take their first steps when no one else is around to notice. I have had the honor of watching some grow from babies to walking machines, like my little Noah doll.
"So now I am giving you a new commandment: Love each other. Just as I have loved you, you should love each other. Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples." Jn.13:34-35
There are many kids here, who in just a couple of months will be in their new homes. They are in our lives for but a moment. And I want us to love them well while they are in it.
If I could sum up my experiences and lessons from serving at the orphanage this past year, it would be this....
Orphanage life.....it is a place of abandonment. But it is also a place of healing. It is a family of twenty unrelated siblings living, fighting and loving together. It is a smelly cesspool of bodily fluids. It is a bright toothy smile boldly displayed against the backdrop of a chocolate face. It is the collision of cultures. It is a bridge for understanding. It is friendship. It is frustration. It is learning to bend. It is sickness. It is death. It is abounding joy when a familiar trusting face arrives. It is the sticky delight of Dum Dum suckers on Fridays. It is loss. It is a place where children lay in wait. It is patience. It is an opportunity to reach out and love "the least of these", the forgotten, the rejected. It is mercy and glory. It is forgiveness and grace. It is hurt and exhaustion. It is the greatest contrast of joy and pain all rolled up into one. It is not ideal, but it is better than their alternative. It is the effects of a broken world that led them here, but the divine power of a life giving God that will ensure they do not stay. It is the hope of something more to come. It is redemption.
"You, Lord, took up my case; you redeemed my life." Lam. 3:58
*Please remember Emé, Elliel, Immanuel, Paul, Noah, Euriel, Rosalee, Gloria, Sacondé, Flora, Elysée, Iyda, Jean, Rebecca, Sherif, Amelie, Nounja, and three newborn who recently arrived in your prayers as they live at the orphanage and await the day when they can be united with their families.
Thursday, September 12, 2013
Serving with Samaritans Purse: Operation Christmas Child
Back in April me, Isaak, and the girls gathered bright and early one Saturday morning to team up with some friends to go help distribute shoeboxes for Operation Christmas Child. And then two weeks later I set out again to help with another distribution.
It was truly a surreal experience. One that I look back on and think, "I can't believe we actually got to do that!"
When I first heard that some friends of ours here are Samaritan's Purse representatives and are responsible for the distribution for Burkina Faso as well as other West African countries...I jumped at the opportunity to help them in any way that I could.
Operation Christmas Child is a project that our family has been helping with in the States for many years along with millions of other people. Every November we would buy toys and hygiene products, filling them up in little boxes to be sent to children in need all over the world.
However, never once did it cross my mind that we might someday have the opportunity to place those very boxes in the outstretched arms of those we were sending them to.
But yet there we stood, in a crowded school house in Burkina Faso, with hundreds of eager faces gathered all around, getting to witness firsthand the final stage of this amazing ministry.
I discovered through this experience that this ministry is so much more than just the buying of gifts and dropping them off at a donation site. Operation Christmas Child is a complex ministry that requires the time and faithful commitment of thousands of people all over the world. It's incredible to believe that the boxes gathered at churches and other drop off locations across North America make it to countries like Burkina Faso. And it wouldn't happen without a whole lot of peoples help.
When we lived in the States and donated gifts to this ministry each year, I couldn't even fathom just how much work went into this program. The process of seeing a shoebox through from A to Z is incredible and the journey looks a little something like this...
First, millions of people generously donate their finances to go out and purchase a variety of products to bless children in need all over the earth.
Next, they bring their boxes to designated drop off locations, usually no later than mid-November.
From there the millions of boxes donated are picked up and transported to processing centers throughout the US.
Next, every single box (millions of them) is inspected (by thousands of volunteers) to ensure that all the gifts are child appropriate and to also ensure that every single country receiving shoe boxes customs requirements are met.
The millions of shoe boxes are then boxed up (by volunteers) and labeled according to country.
They are then loaded onto trucks or huge containers (by more volunteers) to begin the journey to its designated country.
Once in country every single box (tens of thousands depending on country) has to again be inspected in order to clear customs.
Finally they are transported (tens of thousands) to the local churches and ministry partners on the ground in each country to distribute to the children.
In countries like Burkina Faso where there is no port access, the boxes are sent to neighboring countries and cleared through that countries customs, and then unloaded and re-transported via train or truck to Burkina Faso where they again have to be inspected and cleared through customs and then transported to the capital where they are stored and organized according to each and every site in the country receiving shoe boxes. The villages and sites receiving shoe boxes are determined long in advance of the arriving boxes. Our friends Joel and Heidi Hayslip who are the Samaritan's Purse representatives here in Burkina work with pastors and churches all over the country and heavily rely on the local churches to submit requests for shoe boxes and send them specific information needed to determine how many boxes are needed, the ages of the children and number of each gender to make sure that the right amount of boxes, boy/girl boxes, and specific age boxes are available.
Once all of that is organized and in place Joel and Heidi, with the help of their team and a large local body of helpers, set up a schedule to again transport and deliver all of the boxes to the hundreds of different locations throughout the country. And once they are all delivered to the different areas where the distributions will take place they then arrange with each the local villages a time for the children to be present to receive their gifts. Joel and Heidi then compose groups of more volunteers to be present during each distribution to help hand out the boxes and most importantly bring the gospel of Jesus to these kids!
It. is. a. lot. of. work and preparation just to get to this point right here!
Months and months and months of tireless work just to get to the point where the children are present.
It really is incredible to consider all of the people working together from start to finish to ensure that these children are blessed.
Millions of people serving the Lord by sacrificing their finances and thousands more serving the Lord by sacrificing their time to bring gifts to some of the neediest children in the world.
Talk about an incredible team effort. It is truly fantastic and so humbling to be a part of, on any level, such a life-investing ministry.
Each weekend I served with S.P. we visited two different locations in the mornings. Upon arrival the people from the villages would be waiting outside shouting and cheering as our cars pulled up. This is the day they have been waiting for!
Like kids on Christmas morning they were positively giddy. They would run and surround the cars, clamoring to shake our hands, their excitement bubbling over and absolutely contagious. Everyone from the surrounding areas packed in close, standing in doors and windows just to catch a glimpse of the mornings excitement.
Joel and Heidi along with their team are missionaries here with Go To Nations who work specifically with children's ministry are experts at sharing the gospel in a fun and engaging way to kids. So as the children were gathered close in the churches and schools....our team paired up in groups of two and acted out some skits.
I was a chicken each time. I clucked and flapped with Lisbeth and we talked about how we think we're chickens.
Didier, who is an integral part of the Go To Nations team, asks why we think we're chicken and we tell him our mom fed the chickens rice, and then fed us rice, so we must be chickens too.
But look, you have arms, not wings, he says.
But I'm all like, "Nah dude, check it. I got wings."
Oh wait a minute, what do you know, I've got arms after all! We went back and forth like that acting out a series of different things for a few minutes.
Some were motos zooming around because they thought they were motos.
Some acted like monkeys because they were convinced they were monkeys.
And lastly others acted out being "Christians" running up and down the aisles shouting Hallelujah and reading the bible, thinking they are Christians because their parents are and they go to church.
The point of the demonstration was to teach the kids that we're not Christians just because we go to church. Being a Christian means having a relationship with Jesus.
It was fun, simple and straightforward. I absolutely love this kind of stuff. It's so much fun getting to be completely goofy for Jesus.
Then there was a puppet skit in Mooré that further shared the Gospel.
And finally the full story of Jesus and God's grace and love was shared with them.
The kids had an opportunity to give their hearts to Jesus, and all over the room there were hands raised high, declaring their desire to follow Jesus.
Afterwards the pastor led the children in a time of prayer, speaking love and grace and truth over their lives.
Following the presentation of the gospel we lined up the hundreds of kids present and began distributing their boxes.
One by one they would come forward and we would place the gift in their hands. The gift that had been prepared for them months earlier.
These boxes, for most of the children present, are the only gifts they have received all year. For some it may be the very first gift they have ever been given. The first crayons they've ever used. Their first coloring book. Their very first stuffed animal or new ball. When a family has neither electricity or clean drinking water and struggles due to the harsh soil to grow enough crops to put food on the table for more than two meals a day....these children don't get extras in the form of new toys. Toys to these children are bicycle tires that they run with down the street. Toys are sticks and rocks. Toys are mounds of dirt. These children have never owned a barbie or teddy bear or toy airplane. These boxes put flip flops on feet that came with no shoes. They carry pictures of families and notes with prayers to let these kids know there is someone somewhere that was thinking of them.
Scripture tells us that, "Two people are better off than one, for they
can help each other succeed. If one person falls the other can reach out
and help." These boxes represent the reaching. The tearing down all
that separates our worlds and reaching across the gap to fill in the
space with our Father's love. It proclaims that we are to love each other and show that we love each other because He first
loved us. "If someone has enough money to live well and sees a brother or
sister in need but shows no compassion-how can God's love be in that
person? Dear children, lets not merely say that we love each other; let
us show the truth by our actions." 1Jn. 3:17-18
This is what scripture lived out looks like. This is what loving each other because He loves us looks like. It is the assembly line of hands reaching across continents to bring Jesus' love in the form of a shoebox.
And in receiving their shoebox they are not just leaving with one free gift....they are now able to walk away with two free gifts.
If you've ever wondered the impact that these ministries really have...let me assure you, a huge one. One that can not be measured in any earthly way. What an incredible honor we have to get to partner with the Lord to carry His love out to others.
It was truly a surreal experience. One that I look back on and think, "I can't believe we actually got to do that!"
When I first heard that some friends of ours here are Samaritan's Purse representatives and are responsible for the distribution for Burkina Faso as well as other West African countries...I jumped at the opportunity to help them in any way that I could.
Operation Christmas Child is a project that our family has been helping with in the States for many years along with millions of other people. Every November we would buy toys and hygiene products, filling them up in little boxes to be sent to children in need all over the world.
(filling up Operation Christmas Child shoe boxes with the girls in 2010)
However, never once did it cross my mind that we might someday have the opportunity to place those very boxes in the outstretched arms of those we were sending them to.
I discovered through this experience that this ministry is so much more than just the buying of gifts and dropping them off at a donation site. Operation Christmas Child is a complex ministry that requires the time and faithful commitment of thousands of people all over the world. It's incredible to believe that the boxes gathered at churches and other drop off locations across North America make it to countries like Burkina Faso. And it wouldn't happen without a whole lot of peoples help.
When we lived in the States and donated gifts to this ministry each year, I couldn't even fathom just how much work went into this program. The process of seeing a shoebox through from A to Z is incredible and the journey looks a little something like this...
First, millions of people generously donate their finances to go out and purchase a variety of products to bless children in need all over the earth.
Next, they bring their boxes to designated drop off locations, usually no later than mid-November.
From there the millions of boxes donated are picked up and transported to processing centers throughout the US.
Next, every single box (millions of them) is inspected (by thousands of volunteers) to ensure that all the gifts are child appropriate and to also ensure that every single country receiving shoe boxes customs requirements are met.
The millions of shoe boxes are then boxed up (by volunteers) and labeled according to country.
They are then loaded onto trucks or huge containers (by more volunteers) to begin the journey to its designated country.
Once in country every single box (tens of thousands depending on country) has to again be inspected in order to clear customs.
Finally they are transported (tens of thousands) to the local churches and ministry partners on the ground in each country to distribute to the children.
In countries like Burkina Faso where there is no port access, the boxes are sent to neighboring countries and cleared through that countries customs, and then unloaded and re-transported via train or truck to Burkina Faso where they again have to be inspected and cleared through customs and then transported to the capital where they are stored and organized according to each and every site in the country receiving shoe boxes. The villages and sites receiving shoe boxes are determined long in advance of the arriving boxes. Our friends Joel and Heidi Hayslip who are the Samaritan's Purse representatives here in Burkina work with pastors and churches all over the country and heavily rely on the local churches to submit requests for shoe boxes and send them specific information needed to determine how many boxes are needed, the ages of the children and number of each gender to make sure that the right amount of boxes, boy/girl boxes, and specific age boxes are available.
Once all of that is organized and in place Joel and Heidi, with the help of their team and a large local body of helpers, set up a schedule to again transport and deliver all of the boxes to the hundreds of different locations throughout the country. And once they are all delivered to the different areas where the distributions will take place they then arrange with each the local villages a time for the children to be present to receive their gifts. Joel and Heidi then compose groups of more volunteers to be present during each distribution to help hand out the boxes and most importantly bring the gospel of Jesus to these kids!
It. is. a. lot. of. work and preparation just to get to this point right here!
Millions of people serving the Lord by sacrificing their finances and thousands more serving the Lord by sacrificing their time to bring gifts to some of the neediest children in the world.
Talk about an incredible team effort. It is truly fantastic and so humbling to be a part of, on any level, such a life-investing ministry.
Each weekend I served with S.P. we visited two different locations in the mornings. Upon arrival the people from the villages would be waiting outside shouting and cheering as our cars pulled up. This is the day they have been waiting for!
Like kids on Christmas morning they were positively giddy. They would run and surround the cars, clamoring to shake our hands, their excitement bubbling over and absolutely contagious. Everyone from the surrounding areas packed in close, standing in doors and windows just to catch a glimpse of the mornings excitement.
Some acted like monkeys because they were convinced they were monkeys.
And lastly others acted out being "Christians" running up and down the aisles shouting Hallelujah and reading the bible, thinking they are Christians because their parents are and they go to church.
The point of the demonstration was to teach the kids that we're not Christians just because we go to church. Being a Christian means having a relationship with Jesus.
It was fun, simple and straightforward. I absolutely love this kind of stuff. It's so much fun getting to be completely goofy for Jesus.
The kids had an opportunity to give their hearts to Jesus, and all over the room there were hands raised high, declaring their desire to follow Jesus.
Afterwards the pastor led the children in a time of prayer, speaking love and grace and truth over their lives.
One by one they would come forward and we would place the gift in their hands. The gift that had been prepared for them months earlier.
These boxes communicate that they are not invisible nor are they forgotten.
These boxes signify people all over the world working together to bring hope and encouragement and love and joy to children who may never know it otherwise. These boxes speak worth into the hands that receive them. It is a reminder that regardless of where you've been born and the conditions in which you may live, you have value. That Jesus sees you. That He has petitioned other people's hearts to see you too. That He will move in every way possible and remove every obstacle to show you the depths of His love. Through a shoebox. Through a skit. Through a puppet show.
This is what scripture lived out looks like. This is what loving each other because He loves us looks like. It is the assembly line of hands reaching across continents to bring Jesus' love in the form of a shoebox.
And in receiving their shoebox they are not just leaving with one free gift....they are now able to walk away with two free gifts.
"Le plus grand de tout les cadeaux"
"The greatest of all gifts"
If you've ever wondered the impact that these ministries really have...let me assure you, a huge one. One that can not be measured in any earthly way. What an incredible honor we have to get to partner with the Lord to carry His love out to others.
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