This past Wednesday, we had our weekly time over at Hope House. We were joined by a group of young women and a young man who are in Gabon for the summer as interns with the Short Term Missions Office (STMO), under the direction of Tim and Meredith, our good friends. We usually stay from 3pm to 5pm doing a mix of singing, sharing, retelling Bible stories with a skit, playing games, and hanging out. There are usually about 20 children there, however, in the past couple of weeks, about 6 more street kids have come to live there. They have run out of beds and are forced to share.
Seeing children in need of a simple thing like a bed and meals grips your heart. Add to this the fact that these lovely children have been abandoned by their mothers, their fathers, and extended family. Weekly, I fight the feeling of not wanting to make the trip there because I know what I'll be witnessing when I arrive.
Despite these things, here are the children, week after week, with smiles on their faces, ready to welcome us in and participate with our plan for the afternoon. We all laugh, and play, and sing, and enjoy one another. Many weeks, we will find one or two of the children, sitting at one of the desk/chairs, their head down, sleeping from exhaustion. I think it's safe to say that this is a result of poor sleeping conditions at night and, perhaps, lack of nutrition.
What can we do?
I've recently heard about a book called "The White Man's Burden" by William Easterly. The subtitle reads, "Why the West's Efforts to Aid the Rest have Done so Much Ill and so Little Good". Bottom line, he says that our perception of what will effectively aid a situation is usually way off. He also says that we're much better at "business" ventures than providing aid. He says, "…the West spent $2.3 trillion on foreign aid over the last five decades and still had not managed to get twelve-cent medicines to children to prevent half of all malaria deaths. By contrast the global society can deliver 9 million copies of a Harry Potter book to customers on a single day." That definitely makes you think. He suggests we put a "business" mind to our aid ventures. People running a business get to the grassroots and find out what the REAL needs are locally and find out how to meet them.
So, I give pause to my "knee jerk" reaction of "let's go buy more beds, let's get better food, let's..." What would be the right solution?
On top of that, Pastor Israel, the "father" of all these children and local church pastor, told us this week that the owner of the house intends to sell the location to someone who will most definitely be taking down the building and constructing a new home for themselves. He was not sure when this would happen, but the guess is that they will not wait too long- probably soon after the elections take place in a couple of months. WOW! The challenges are mounting.
Please pray for the Hope House. Our God is not surprised by any of this. We know He is a loving and caring God. We know that he loves each one of these children. As Tim said to Pastor Israel, this is a great occasion for the Lord to use His Church to provide for the need. We have a "rough draft" of some ideas to link the Hope House ministry more effectively to the local churches. The answer is there.
Perhaps a number of families will step forward to adopt each one. Perhaps a local church would provide the land a build a house or two for the children and adoptive parents. We will see.
Isaiah 59:1 "The Lord's hand is not so short that it cannot save; Nor is His ear so dull that it cannot hear."
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