Tonight God showed me a slice of His heart. It was bitter, I don't understand how it can be good, but I know that God is good, and so it must be good. For much of my life up to about 18 this was about how I felt about coffee. I thought it tasted bitter, like dirt to be quite frank, but I knew it had to be good or adults wouldn't go so nuts over it so I pretended to love it, got a job at Starbucks and eventually learned to love it. I'm praying that will be the end of this journey of seeing God's heart.
When I went to Uganda in January, my favorite place we went was Uganda Jesus Village (UJV). The kids there are mostly kids that were rescued or escaped from the 20 year long civil war within Uganda led be he LRA (Lord's Resistance Army). This rebel movement would take kids as soldiers and often in the indoctrination process would force them to kill their own families. This way the kids feel as though even if they could escape and go home, they have no home to go to - extended family wouldn't want them either because of the betrayal. These are the kinds of kids you meet at UJV. You would never know it though. They were so much fun.
When we went there we were asked if we could do a medical clinic because most of the kids had just recently come back from the bush and were sick and the orphanage couldn't pay for all the hospital bills. So we brought our supplies and dove in. We learned the reason these kids were in the bush (up north, rugged rural Uganda) is because The original organization running UJV had sent the kids to their home villages and were keeping the support money coming in. So these kids were sent to elderly grandparents who can't even feed themselves, villages were they had no family and no would take them in. There was one boy that was his story, no one would take him. He was left to try to find food in the dry season. After many days of not even finding grass worth eating he resorted to eating handfuls of dirt at a time just to satisfy the hunger pangs. This image stuck in my head. PRAISE THE LORD there were some awesome people from Canada Kira and Cameron a brother/sister duo who had been there on a mission trip before went back and found out what had happened. They rangled up their savings and any other money they could find and got a bus and sent that bus to pick up all of the 70-80 kids that were there.
The kids were back safe and when were there all but 2 had been safely recovered. I think it turned out one of them went back to family willing and able to take him in and the other was later recovered. We treated LOTS of malaria and de-wormed all the kids.
Fast forward 8 months. Money has run out. Cameron is now running things and his sister sent out this plea
"I write you this letter with a plea in my heart!! I hate asking for money yet if we do not be honest and tell you where we are at then we can't give you the opportunity to show these kids your love! We are in desperate need right now of financial support. Since January of 2009 my brother and I have been solely responsible for providing the money to feed and educate the children. Along our journey we have had a number of people who have given and we are so thankful for you!! We have 67 children who need a sponsor if you would like to have a child you can provide for monthly or you can give just one time!!
I need to be honest because it has come to the place where the kids are going with out food because we have no money to purchase food. The school sent them home because there was no money for school fees this term. Even worse is we had one of our children Peter fell out of a tree and hurt himself badly requiring numerous stitches and x-rays. Since we were back in Canada our team in Africa had no funds to pay the hospital and Peter was left to bleed while Jennifer ran around Kampala trying to find the money. See in Africa the health care is different then ours where they will not even touch you until the bill is paid.
Our hearts really break for these children. We have done all we can with the help of God. Even though we worry daily of these children we know that God will some how take care of them. As much as we love them God in Heaven loves them more! At this point we know we will not be able to continue with out your help!! I know each of your have a heart for these children. I feel so humbled to have to ask you for your help. Yet at the same time I am excited to give you the opportunity to sow into the orphans and the widows. The Lord talks through out scripture about the blessing of giving to the orphans. Prov 21: " Whoever shuts his ears to the cry of the poor will also cry himself and not be heard." Then scripture tells us that we will be abundantly blessed if we help the poor!!
Please respond and help us in any amount even $20 goes to provide a meal. If you can give any amount please send me a message and I will direct you. Thank you so much for responding to the cry of these precious children!! I hate to ask but we need your help more then ever!!"
So I have had this rolling around in my head not sure what to do with because, I'm an intern with medical bills out the window. So I prayed and I started asking others to pray. Then tonight before college group started Pastor Nick asked me how things were going. I told him I had gotten the numbers right it's now 62 kids between the ages of 8-20. That was all I had. As the college group service started the topic was feeding the hungry. He was talking about spiritually hungry. My heart didn't heart that at all and so this starts snowballing and by the end of the service I am weeping because I see that kid sitting on the dirt so hungry all he can do is eat handfuls of dirt and all that he has been saved from the life he's enjoyed for the last few months of SAFETY is now on the brink of falling apart and he could be eating dirt again tomorrow. I know God's heart was breaking with mine and my heart broke BECAUSE HIS was already broken, what I can't reconcile yet is He is the almighty awesome powerful of God who has redeemed me. He's healed me. I have seen His power. So why can't He feed His children?
