DAY 35: "Mini People, One Passion" by Kevin Wood

DAY THIRTY-FIVE:

“Mini People, One Passion” by Kevin Wood

A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows, is God in his holy dwelling. Psalm 68:5

Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world. James 1:27

I’ve seen it a thousand times – literally – the face of a little boy or little girl left behind in a Ukrainian orphanage. I made my first trip to Ukraine in May 2004 and fell in love with a little girl named Julia and her brother Costya who were living at a small orphanage in a tiny village. I wanted to adopt them but I was too young according to government standards. My heart broke – literally – as I left them behind in their overcrowded conditions wanting so badly to rescue them from that place.

Since that first trip in 2004, I have returned four other times. The most recent trip was just last week when eight of us went from Trace Crossing. I think I can speak for the group when I say this, but all of us were moved beyond belief at what we experienced. There is just no way to put into words what your eyes see and what your heart feels when you are surrounded by such incredible need. When you look in the face of a child who has been abandoned by a mother or forgotten by a father, it simply breaks your heart. You want to hold them. You want to love them. You want to adopt them. All of them. But you simply can’t. And that’s the paralysis your spirit feels – hopelessness and helplessness to change these children’s lives for the long term. So you simply do what you can – you love them as strongly as possible for the time that you do have, and try to block out the thought of the time that you won’t have.

I have a dozen pictures of Trace Crossing folks doing just that. Stephanie Foreman with her arms wrapped around a precious little girl who’d been abandoned just a few weeks before. Her daughter Katherine cheek to cheek with another little girl whose head had been shaved recently to make sure she didn’t have any lice. Michelle Taylor and Kirksey Taylor, another mother and daughter team, smiling and embracing girls and boys as if they had always been a part of the Taylor family. Even Drew Love and Kevin Fulgham got into the action, thumb-wrestling boy after boy after boy because in the language of an orphan, thumb-wrestling is still a deep form of affection. And I will never forget Daniel Monaghan’s tear-filled eyes as we gathered to pray one night and he asked, “Why? Why God does this happen to these kids?”

As we finished our final orphanage visit on Thursday, I looked at the room packed with 70 children ages 3 to 13. There were some beautiful kids in that room. About halfway through our program, a couple from Texas walked in and sat down next to a little boy. They had been trying to adopt him for 11 months and were approaching the final steps of the process. You could see the joy on their face. You could feel the joy in his heart. I wish I had taken a picture. One child rescued from that orphanage. 69 to go.

The reason I wrote this is just to say, I pray our church has a passion for these little kids – these “mini people”. Every week our worship guide has a phrase on the front that says, “Many People, One Passion.” I want to change that just a bit for today to “Mini People, One Passion”. That passion is to remember those forgotten by earthly fathers & families and let them know about a Heavenly Father & a faith family who longs to love them deeply. I look forward to leading more trips of Trace Crossing people to do exactly what we did this past week – to show “mini people” that we have “one passion” – knowing Christ’s love and showing Christ’s love to little kids who desperately need it.

I could write a 100 more pages but I don't want to be known as the longest blogger on here. I will leave that honor to Wayne Foreman and Shane Robbins.

Read Psalm 68:5, Psalm 82:3, and James 1:27. That explains it. Let’s do that.

If you want to see more pictures of the Ukraine trip, then please visit our website at http://www.tracecrossing.org/default.aspx?pid=98.

My Prayer for Trace Crossing:

Father of the Fatherless, make us a people whose hearts break when we see the needs of the poor both at home and around the world. Let us be a people who weep deeply for widows and orphans. Let us never grow tired of taking up the cause of this world's fatherless children, teaching them and showing them that there is a Heavenly Father who will never abandon them. We were all orphans once, until you came and rescued us by the work of your only Son on the cross. And by his blood we are forgiven, we are free, and we are family - adopted by grace. Help us to never forget that. Help us to never forget them. Keep us from wasting our lives on useless pleasures. Keep us from wasting your resources on useless treasures. Make it our pleasure to spread your treasure to those who need it most in this world. Never let us hoard it for ourselves. Show us how to be as extravagantly gracious and giving as you are. By Your Grace. For Your Glory. Amen.