Tuesday, August 28, 2012

My burden is heavy





Tonight I find myself alone with my thoughts and prayers. It is difficult to breathe and like a weight is resting on my chest.  Tonight I think of a country thousands of miles and an ocean away.  A country that has lost more people than the Hollocaust to a war of genocide, rape, and violence that we cannot imagine.
My burden is heavy for the child that takes care of their infant siblings, who lost their parents to AIDS or disease.
My burden is heavy for the child whose parents sell her body to men in the community to pay for food or alcohol.
My burden is heavy for the children who are raped because if it believed if a man has sex with a virgin his AIDS will be cured.
My burden is heavy for the 5 million children who are orphaned: who sit on street corners with their hands out, who chase down people trying to sell trash they've collected, who curl up and wait for death to take them.
My burden is heavy for the 5 year old boy who is forced to hold a gun or machete and kill his own parents or die.
My burden is heavy for the people who live in fear of rebels coming into their village, stealing their children and livelihood.
My burden is heavy for my son, whose hair has greyed from the lack of food and nutrition in his body.
My burden is heavy for my daughter, who is alone and confused, trying to deal with a life of trauma in a 3 year olds understanding.

15% of children in the DRCongo do not make it to their 5th birthday. That is my child. That is your child. That is God's child.
I know this is a downer of a post and it sounds so cliche, like some African commercial to send in your 30$ a month. But I think we just forget that it is real. We think, God, take care of the poor and all that mess in Africa, and around the world, and God looks at us and thinks "you call yourself my friend, my child, then do something!"
I posted the video "Depraved indifference" a while back. I'm not sure if you took the minutes to view it or not, but please, if this moves you at all, then at least view it. Research a ministry you can get involved in. Pray about adopting. Support a ministry that prevents orphans in the first place.  Contact a missionary family and see how you can help. Pray for the orphans of the DRC, for the sex trafficked and the children as young as 2 being raped. Pray about getting your hands in this, and living out the call God designed us for.
Isaiah 58:3-11
'Why have we fasted' they say, 'and you have not seen it? Why have we humbled ourselves and you have not noticed?'
"Yet on the day of fasting you do as you please, exploit your workers, your fasting ends in quarreling and strife, and in striking each other with wicked fists. You cannot fast as you do today and expect your voice to be heard on high. Is this the kind of fast I have chose, only a day for people to humble themselves? Is it only for bowing one's head like a reed and for lying in sackcloth and ashes? Is that what you call a fast, a day acceptable to the Lord?
"Is this not the kind of fasting I have chosen:
to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the enslaved,
to set the oppressed free and break every yoke?
Is it not to share your food with the hungry
and to provide the poor outcasted wanderer with shelter-
when you see the naked to clothe them, and to not turn away from your own flesh and blood?
Then your light will break forth like the dawn, and your healing will quickly appear;
then your righteousness will go before you and the Glory of the Lord will be your rear guard.
Then you will call and the Lord will answer;
you will cry for help and he will say: Here am I.
If you do away with the yoke of oppression,
with the pointing finger and malicious talk,
and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry
and satisfy the needs of the oppressed,
then your light will rise in the darkness, and your night will become like the noonday.
The Lord will guide you always; he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land and will strengthen your frame.
You will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail.

Until then,
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6 comments:

  1. Your blog is so inspiring. I'll be graduating college in less than 6 months and I would like to work with a non-profit helping families and/or children in poverty. I've been on mission trips to both South Africa (once) and Haiti (twice) and I know I'm called to work with people. Do you know of any Christian organizations in the Los Angeles area, in Chicago or near New York that I can research and start stalking their employment pages? :)

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  2. Kameha thanks for visiting! Check out dream center.org dream center is in LA and serves 40,000 people. Homeless , drug addicted, prostitute, dropout etc. they have internships and jobs I believe. Not sure of Chicago area but I'd check with what ministries willow locally hitch is involved in locally. Keep me posted!

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  3. Oops willow creek church not hitch;)

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  4. Tears! Oh Jesus bring our sweet ones home and hold the lost children of DRC up in your Righteous Right Hand!

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  5. Thanks for the reminders. It does make my heart so heavy to know of the very real pain. God help us all as we respond to what he has for us - it brings healing to us all.

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  6. Oh Kylie I was just reading through your blog at work on my lunch break and this post has me so choked up. I'm near tears sitting at my desk. Oh the pain that so many endure around this world. It just leaves you with this longing for eternity, for redemption, and hope...

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