My heart for kids

"Every child you encounter is a divine appointment. With each one you have the power and opportunity to build the child up or tear the child down."

Dr. Wess Stafford, President of Compassion International

From the book "Too Small to Ignore" - great book and challenges us to 'change the world one child at a time'! 

I started reading this book on Wednesday (it's Emily's), and this quote was somewhere in the first couple of pages and I loved it. I read it once and agreed with it, but reread it a couple more times and allowed it to really sink in - Reread it, does it hit you as powerful?! Because I think it should. So much so that I think it has power to change how we look at, act towards, and believe in children - of every race, socioeconomic status, gender, ability level, or the like. 

Here's a story about my day, the day I read this passage. A little back story - the cow field that I mentioned earlier as right across the path from our compound, is actually not a cow pasture, it's an airplane landing strip. I know you'd think it'd be hard to confuse, but airplanes are few and far between landing in Jinja, and the grasses are pretty tall so people just let their cows graze there..pretty funny. And then the airstrip itself is just a red dirt flat road-ish a little over a mile long. So long story short, because it's so infrequently used by actual planes, we will go run and/or walk on it. On Wednesday afternoon/early evening, I went to run with another volunteer who wanted to walk. So we walked over and were almost immediately surrounded by kids. Then as soon as I started running a couple of them picked up pace and ran right along with me. At this moment all I could think was how it had been quite a long day, just hit the middle of the week, how I was really wanting this run to recharge me from the day, and I was so close to asking those couple of kids to maybe just run the other way. This sounds awful I know, but it's honestly what I was thinking because I didn't want to be asked a million questions and just wanted to be able to run in peace. Then as soon as I was about to say something this quote, which I had read earlier that day, popped into my mind and I couldn't say anything. I wasn't going to tear these kids down when all they wanted to do was run with me. For me it's easy to see big things as the work and hand of God, like being here or the friends in my life or being in Agape at school, but I also have to believe that He knows in advance the conversations that we are going to have and the people who are going to come into our life - and these children were no different. When I pictured these kids as being placed there by God, my run got much easier and I enjoyed their company as they kept stride with me. I even was able to laugh when one of the boys told me as I was breathing hard, "Here we run with our mouths closed." I then had to make a conscious effort to do this because he kept checking on me to see if I was trying haha - in this sense my run got slightly harder:)

I definitely think God used this moment to teach me how easily I read and accept truth yet fall back into the patterns of this world where I think I am the center. For those of you who know me know that I have a passion for children and working with them, but I truly believe that we all have the ability to build children up around us, whether it be family members, friends, or strangers who just want to spend a little time with you. 

I also believe that "[God] has made every[child] beautiful" and with that has placed them exactly where he wants them, to use their lives to touch us, or for ours to touch them.

Update on Zuena: she was discharged from the ICU Tuesday afternoon and is doing somewhat better. Her blood pressure is still low but we were hoping she could get discharged all together today, but they found a blood clot in her heart, so I think are waiting a little bit longer. Please keep praying for this little girl!