You Made Me Yours

There is a movement across the United States to make the first Sunday of every November "Orphan Sunday".  Many pastors use the pulpit on this weekend as a platform to raise awareness of the orphan crisis and call a sleepy Church to action.  My husband, Ben is in Seattle this weekend with Tom Davis doing that very thing. I am so thankful that people are recognizing God's heart for the orphan and, more importantly, moving beyond recognition to action that is rooted in love and justice.  

I stumbled upon these two photos tonight from our trip to Ethiopia in June.  Both of these were taken on our last day in Addis after having spent two weeks with both of our sponsored girls through Children's HopeChest. These were the final moments of saying good-bye...

Maezanesh, age 16

Mekdes, age 6

Both these precious girls don't have daddies.  I literally get choked up every time I look at these photos.  Mekdes and Maezanesh look SO happy and content receiving affection from Ben.  I think all three of them could have stayed in these moments forever.  

These girls aren't a statistic to us.  When we hear that there are somewhere around 163 million orphans in the world we think of Maezanesh and Mekdes.  We see THEIR faces.  We know THEIR stories.  We have laughed with them, held their hands, been in their homes and we love them.  We feel the weight of the loss they have known in their lives.  We have been so very blessed by them.

I think the photo of Ben with Maezanesh speaks volumes.  You can look in her eyes and see her literally drinking in the value, love and worth that Ben is speaking into her with just his tear filled eyes, his smile and his outstretched hand on her cheek - no words necessary.  People talk about magic moments.  This is no magic, people - this is what the real love of the Father looks like to an orphan.  This is what the love of the Father looks like to ME.  

We are all orphans at our core... longing for that arm of grace and love to so gently reach out and touch our cheek.  We long to have someone recognize us as valuable and beautiful regardless of our history.  We want to soak up every last drop of affection and love that we can.  But God has not left us as orphans - He has come to us and made us His own.  And we get the immense joy of looking Maezanesh and Mekdes in the eyes and saying to them "You are daughters.  You are loved and valued more than you can possibly imagine.  Pay no attention to the world that says you are worthless, because you are daughters of the King."  

I love these girls... with everything in me, I love them.  And it's not of my own merits that I love them, but simply because as the scripture says "Christ's love compels us". I look at my own broken life and the One who is piecing it all back together and I can't help but want to be a part of that same work of restoration in the lives of orphans who feel forgotten and alone. 

Back in April, I sat in a friend's living room and listened to Tim and Laurie Thornton of The Blackthorn Project sing the following words...

isn't it just like you to invite me into a warm house

isn't it just like you to stroke my hair as I fall asleep

Father you made me yours

found my orphan heart and brought it home

and I'm safe here and I sing

isn't it just like you to make a slave into your daughter

isn't it just like you to make wine out of dirty water

I used to live in chains

my wounds bled to the ground

my bed was out in the rain

my hair in knots and soaked in mud

but you took my hand

and you led me in

and you combed my hair

you kissed my skin

and you gave me food

you made me yours

YOU MADE ME YOURS.

In June I remember watching Mekdes walk through the doorway at the feeding center.  It had been raining and her feet were caked with mud,  her hair was matted and her clothes were soaked and filthy.  She ran right to me and put both hands up in the air signaling she wanted to be picked up.  I scooped her up instantly and smiled as she ran her dirty hands along my hair and face.  We giggled.  She belonged.  I belonged.  We were both daughters living in a moment of joy in the middle of the dirt. There is no describing this feeling to you.  It's like coming home... two orphaned hearts looking into each other's eyes and recognizing the Father.  Powerful stuff, friends.  It IS heaven on earth.  And there's more to be had.  Don't miss out.

Use Your Voice

“Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute. Speak up and judge fairly; defend the rights of the poor and needy.” 
- Proverbs 31:8-9

Right now miles and miles away from us in Haiti there is an orphanage where about 125 children have been sent in the recent past to be cared for, fed, educated and loved. I know of this orphanage personally because Children's HopeChest was at one time connected to it.  A pastor and his family ran the "Son of God" orphanage and collected money for food and medical care for the children. It has recently come to light after a fifteen month investigation that the pastor who ran this orphanage was trafficking the children.  The children were never receiving food, education,  medical care or love.  As it turns out, they have been living in hell.  They have been and are being abused, starved, burned, neglected and trafficked. My stomach churns even typing those words.  We can't begin to know the horror these children have faced and are facing at this very moment. 

Here are some of the facts that have surfaced (much of this is taken from my friend Tom Davis' blog post):

- Children have been and are currently being trafficked from the Son of God Orphanage. The evidence on human trafficking leads back to the Son of God orphanage. The orphanage director was imprisoned in July as part of a police-led operation that resulted in his conviction of trafficking a child.

- Haitian investigators have told our team the evidence suggests organ harvesting and trafficking as well.


-As recently as October 10, American volunteers took children with late-stage starvation out of the orphanage and to local doctors. Without this intervention, the doctors confirmed the children could have died of starvation.

- After boldly bringing these facts to the attention of government officials, American citizens received death threats from those associated with the current orphanage leadership–documented by the Haitian police.

- Numerous photos show extreme physical abuse and neglect. U.S. and Haitian doctors have documented cases of severe abuse and neglect including burns and broken bones. (The following pictures are children at this orphanage and come from a legitimate source on the ground in Haiti who is fighting for these kids.  I share them with you to motivate you to do something on their behalf). 

Obvious Neglect



Burns around the mouth



13 Day Old Burn

Where once there were 125 children, there are now just over 75 children left.  They are disappearing.  These children are being trafficked and there is evidence of organ harvesting. 

If ever there was a time to speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, it is NOW - as in this very minute. This trafficking is REAL, it is documented, and it must be stopped. Every moment is precious.

We need your help to spread this news to the CNN Freedom Project by signing our Change.org petition today. We are petitioning CNN to bring their international media voice and passion for ending slavery into the Son of God Orphanage. Please urge CNN to expose the corruption within the Haitian government, and allow international organizations to secure the children from the child traffickers who are now controlling the orphanage.


This orphanage must be shut down. Other orphanages are ready and willing to take these children. Please urge CNN to cover this story and work to close this orphanage and re-locate the children immediately.  We need coordinated, concerted pressure. We believe the best chance these children have is through a focused effort to bring international media and political attention to their abuse, and neglect. Children in Haiti at this orphanage are being trafficked. They are being abused, burned, and starved. We have other orphanages ready to take these children, but need to bring MORE focused attention to this matter so that official action will be taken now. Take time to stop this. Sign the petition, and get everyone you know to do the same.

SIGN THE PETITION NOW

Please, please use the voice that God gave you to speak for those who cannot speak for themselves.  These children are innocent victims who literally need rescued.  In ADDITION to signing the petition (we need 10,000 signatures!) please flood all available outlets. 

You can:

- Post to Facebook and urge your friends to sign the petition.  

- If you use Twitter, tweet this right now, using hashtags #cnnfreedom, #endslavery, and #not_for_sale

- Call your elected officials and forward them this article. We can provide the file of evidence DIRECTLY to their office for further investigation.


- Re-post on your blog

Thank you, friends.  I will keep you posted as things unfold.  In the meantime we pray without ceasing for rescue for these children.

UPDATE: As of 10/18 we have over 7,000 signatures on our original petition to CNN and have had three national news agencies say they are looking into the story.  There are contacts being made with the government - there is MOVEMENT on behalf of these kids as of today!  We are starting a follow up petition to the President of Haiti to close the orphanage down.  We have been told that change.org will feature our petition to the President on their front page, which receives heavy traffick, if we can get enough signatures on it.  Your voices are bringing this atrocity to light.  We must continue to apply pressure.  Please share the link below with your friends and ask them to do the same.  It's two minutes out of your day.  Your two minutes for a child's health and rescue...not a bad use of time.

SIGN THE PETITION TO THE PRESIDENT OF HAITI HERE!!

What's in Your Hand?

After my first trip to Africa - Uganda, to be exact - I came home with tons to process.  It was my first encounter with extreme poverty face to face and I felt like it ripped open my insides.  Seriously - like I was raw and bleeding.  I'll never forget riding in the bus on a long, dirt road and passing a little boy...he couldn't have been more than three.  He was walking all by himself barefoot with not another person in sight for as far as I could see.  He was completely alone.  If we saw that scene unfold in America, we'd be slamming on our brakes and bringing that child with us.  There would be none of this leaving him on the street by himself business.  But in Uganda, we drove on by.  If we had stopped for every child who was walking alone we'd never have made it down the road. It is life there.


I've had several people who have traveled and seen this sort of thing personally, ask me how to cope with their life here in America after witnessing such pain in other places.  I'd like to say it gets easier with every trip.  For me it doesn't get easier, but it has become different.  I remember after my first two trips to Africa coming home and feeling this insane tension inside of me.  How do I go back to my air conditioned home with my full refrigerator, cable television and every single comfort I could possibly want? How do I turn on one of the 8 faucets in my house and have immediate access to clean water when people risk their very lives walking miles and miles a day to find it?  How do I open my closet and decide which of my 12 pairs of shoes I should put on for the day when so many go barefoot and have jiggers burrowing up into their feet? How is it I can find myself complaining about my job when literally millions would give anything for the chance to work like I do?  As I lay in the comfort of my down blankets and soft mattress at night, how can I not help but think of the children who lay their heads down on the dirt - left alone.

I am talking about TENSION in the truest sense of the word.  Let's be honest.  We abhor tension.  We hate anything that causes us discomfort.  And when I came back from Uganda I just wanted to be rid of it. I wanted to figure out how to make it go away and stay away.  I didn't want to have the internal struggle about how much I had and how little they did.  I didn't want to feel guilty for getting Starbucks or going to the movies.  As much as I know God was trying to break my heart and help me embrace the poor and the orphaned, there was a very real part of me that just wanted their faces to disappear from my memory.  I didn't really know how to handle all the tension and inner turmoil I felt, and to be frank, I still don't.  But this last trip to Ethiopia helped me realize some things. 


I hope that what I'm learning on this journey might help some of you who feel the same way I do - torn. I know all of our paths and journeys are different, but at their core they are the same because God is always the same.  His heart will always beat for the marginalized and the oppressed.  So, that means our hearts should always beat for them too.  And in that, we are the same.  We are responsible.  We are called to do something.


I think that what I'm learning now is that as much as I want to sprint the opposite direction of this tension, there is some tension that is good - God given, even.  Rather than fight it, ignore it, choke on it or hate it - I am learning to embrace it.  The tension keeps the realities that our brothers and sisters all over the world face real for me.  It keeps them always before me.  I almost would liken this kind of tension to a burden.  There are different kinds of burdens.  There are the heavy kind that we feel we might collapse under, then there are the burdens that are almost like extensions of ourselves.  They inhabit our hearts and thoughts...they can actually bring us joy because they are rooted in love.  There was a period of time where I thought I might collapse under the knowledge of how people were living.  I felt like I was suffocating in my own life - held captive by the pictures of distended bellies, gaping wounds, empty eyes and crying children. I came through that rather heavy season of my life by both accepting the things that God was teaching me and learning that I wasn't helpless to make a difference.


But this other kind of tension doesn't feel so heavy.  In fact, it even feels hopeful.   I have actually found myself praying over the past few weeks that God wouldn't take this tension away.  It's what keeps me compassionate, engaged and on my knees in prayer.  I have seen the heartbreak and the oppression up close- I know the wretched marks it leaves on people.  But I have also seen unspeakable hope spring up in places that you just don't expect it to.  And that is what we hold onto - HOPE.  Some days hope comes easy, and others we have to tenaciously fight for it.  But it is always there.  It doesn't go away.  Part of what gives us hope is discovering our purpose.  If we are called to care for the poor, the orphan and the widow (which we ARE!), then discovering how God wants us to be engaged in that is a critical step in coming to some sense of peace within ourselves.  The other helpful (and quite obvious!) realization is that I cannot fix all the brokenness on my own. I could spend a lifetime trying but it would never happen.  That's God's job.  I get to participate, but I, by myself, am not the answer. My job is to love and obey wherever, whenever, however God asks me to.


For those of us who believe in God, we know that this world is not our home.  We live in the constant tension of that.  Our hearts ache for God's complete and full reign here on earth because only then will there be no suffering and pain.  Only then will our tension vanish before our eyes.  But we are to bring heaven to earth now.  Remember how Jesus prayed a little prayer where he said "Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven"? We do not sit here aimlessly and pine away for the future.  We bring the reality of God's love, hope and restoration to the suffering and marginalized NOW.  Does the act of truly seeing the needs of this world turn our stomachs?  Does it cause us to question the way we live our lives in pursuit of the American dream? Does it cost us to enter into someone else's pain?  Might we be asked to give up everything we know? Is there any peace or joy in the process of having our hearts torn open and our lives turned upside down? Yes, yes, yes, yes, YES!!

God hasn't created us to live sad, miserable, broken lives.  He has created us for abundant life in Him.  While our engagement in caring for the poor might cause our world to be shaken up and our hearts to ache and be burdened - there is tremendous joy in this journey of loving others.  When we look at Jesus' life, we see him weeping over the pain of others and literally carrying the weight of the world's sin on his shoulders.  But he also got to see the lame walk, the the blind see, the sick healed.  These things must have filled Jesus with pleasure.  You don't watch someone who has never even stood up, pick up their mat and run and leap for joy without feeling an incredible sense of delight!  And so, we hold both the pain of those who suffer and the joy of seeing lives transformed in both hands.  If we never knew pain, we would never know joy. 

Some days are HARD.  I was face down on my floor two days ago weeping (like ugly snot cry...you know the one) and praying for people on the other side of the world who face such extreme hardship.  I thought my heart would explode from the weight of it.  Then there are days where you get news that catapults you to the heights of joy because a prayer was answered or you got to see transformation in the life of someone in need - you got to experience the kingdom brought to earth.

So really, coping is embracing all that God has for us - the good, the hard, the beautiful, the ugly, the seemingly impossible.  It is by Him and through Him that all things hold together.  We couldn't hold anything together if we wanted to.  We just have to approach God with willing hearts and open hands for whatever it is that He wants to give us.  The tension that may come from that is GOOD, a blessing really. I might even go so far to say that if we aren't experiencing this kind of tension as we walk out our love for God on this earth, then maybe we're missing something.

As to exactly what your part is to play in God's purposes here on earth...that's for you to find out. :) And in my opinion, finding out is half the fun!  I'll leave you with some wise words from Norma Cook...

We read in the Bible that Moses had been tending sheep out in the desert when God called him to lead a huge flock of people on a perilous journey to the Promised Land. Of course, Moses felt inadequate, and told God so! God asked Moses, “What is that in your hand?” “A rod”, Moses replied—just a simple tool of the trade for a sheep herder. Then God showed Moses that even simple tools and simple people can be used in mighty ways when yielded to an Almighty God.  Maybe God is showing you a need that you feel inadequate to meet. Your resources are insufficient and your skills are lacking. God couldn’t possibly use someone like you…could He?

2 Corinthians 8:12 tells us: 'If there is first a willing mind, it is accepted according to what a person has, not what he doesn’t have.' So…what is that in your hand? A pen, a phone, or car keys? A hammer, a wrench, or a shovel? A mixing bowl, knitting needles, or a musical instrument? When offered to God in service to others, it can accomplish a great purpose. It all starts with a tender heart and willing hands—yours and mine. And together, we’ll see God change this world - one person at a time.

So, what's in your hand?? 

Here Am I

I got to spend a few days last week at the Christian Alliance for Orphans Summit in Louisville.  Almost 2,000 people in one place with hearts to live out the calling of James 1:27 to care for the orphan in their distress.  I had the privilege of listening to story after story of how people's lives had been wrecked, changed and influenced by choosing to take a step of faith. 

It's funny how I didn't hear many stories of how people had been caring for orphans all their lives, but rather they had been going through their days pursuing what they thought was a full life and God got ahold of them and radically redirected their paths.  That sounds a little familiar to me. :)

I heard stories of people adopting HIV+ children from Ethiopia in the midst of great criticism.  Carolyn Twietmeyer shared how she went to Ethiopia because the daughter she was in process of adopting was very ill and literally on the brink of death.  This little girl desperately needed a blood transfusion but in Ethiopia they don't give out "good blood" to people with HIV because they don't want to waste it on people who are dying.  Turns out this adoptive mom was a match for her little girl.  While she was there nursing her little girl back to health, she found out that her soon to be daughter had two other siblings living on their own in Ethiopia.  Long story short, all three siblings are now adopted and living together here in the States. Check out what this amazing family is doing to fight the stigma of HIV+ children HERE. 

I heard stories of churches in cities across America banding together to take in every single child in their local foster care system.  Their goal is that when a child enters the foster care system that the first call that is placed is to a local church with an active group of foster families who are ready to take in children.  It's so encouraging to see the Church rising up to do what we have been called to do.  Is it scary?  Yes.  Does it require sacrifice? Absolutely.  But, what is life really if not the laying down of our own lives for others?

I heard a pro football player share about how God moved in his heart and he and his wife have now adopted around 8-10 kids...I think they have 4 biological as well.  He is using his influence with his teammates to create adoption funds for families who cannot afford to adopt. 

There was so much love represented in that room of people.  So much sacrifice.  So much joy.  So much passion.  This is the beauty of what happens when God transforms our hearts to beat as His does.  The cost doesn't seem steep anymore...sacrifice becomes the very thing we chase after because it draws us close to the heart of God.  As we watch these precious little lives being transformed before our eyes, we are reminded that God has done that very thing for us. 

Psalm 40:1-3 says: "I waited patiently for the LORD; He turned to me and heard my cry. He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire; He set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand. He put a new song in my mouth, a hymn of praise to our God."

There are around 150 million or so orphans in the world today stuck in the slimy pit of abandonment, abuse, disease, loneliness and worthlessness. Their hearts are broken.  Many feel hopeless. And God's answer for them is you.  It's me.  It's people willing to break out of their comfort, their financial security, their routine, their safety, and engage with the children who are crying out to be seen. 

"Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?” And I said, “Here am I. Send me!” - Isaiah 6:8

I am so often guilty of not uttering those words - "Send Me!".  I sit back because it seems others are doing the work and meeting the needs.  But God knows that us saying "Send Me" is just as much about what He wants and needs to do in our own lives as it is about how He wants to use us in the lives of His little ones who are broken and hurting.  "Send Me" should be the cry of my heart because it will lead me into deeper knowledge of who God is and fullness of life.

I pray for a release from selfishness, fear and comfort for us.  I pray that we will start asking God what He wants us to do for His children who have been discarded like trash, who are suffering because of circumstances out of their control.  As we say "Here am I.  Send me!" may our confidence rest in the God who heals the broken-hearted and binds up their wounds.