A New Life for Orphans (part four)

Poor in Spirit

Troy Wiseman (Co-Founder/Chairman, World Orphans): We had a couple of situations where babies will just show up on the doorstep, and...

Dennis Rainey (CEO/President, FamilyLife): People just leave them there?

Troy: Right. I was in Mozambique with my twelve-year-old, Cord, last summer. A grandmother, eighty-something years old, brought a baby by the name of Lordish. She was a few days old. The mother died in birth.

Well, Lordish died also. I'm going back and forth on whether I should have taken my son on that trip, because he hasn't really gotten over that. He's got the picture of him holding Lordish as a screensaver on his computer, you know?

There's certain times that you just don't know what God's going to do. You just trust that it's going to work out but, in a way, I'm glad he went. It was a great time for us as a father-son, and I know it's going to change him.

You think about your own kids. When you think about a children's home, think about your own kids. How old they are now? Regardless, (even) if they're thirteen, they're in the streets – no family, no food, nothing.

(Image: Children playing in an open sewer pipe in a Manila slum, Philippines. Can you picture your own children there?)

Dennis: No guidance.

Troy: No guidance, right. What are they doing to do?

Dennis: No mentor. No one to teach them habits. No one to dress them. No one to give them a hug.

Troy: You can't eat. You're freezing cold. You don't know if you're going to eat.

One thing became apparent on the Mozambique trip. We've been doing these trips, but this last one was really, really, really tough. I always wondered what God meant by being poor in spirit. You know, he wants us to be poor in spirit. I really never got that until this trip.

(Image: More pipes spewing raw sewage between a row of slum homes in Manila. What if this was the street that your own children, orphaned, were left to play on and seek shelter on?)

If you think about the poor or the orphan, what do they have in common? Their sufficiency is in God, right?

"Am I going to eat today?"

"Am I going to live today?"

"Are my kids going to die today?"

They're in community. If I got food today I'm going to share with my neighbor because maybe tomorrow I won't.

Poor in spirit is about having all your sufficiency in God, in Jesus. That's where these kids are, and we have a responsibility to help.

From: FamilyLifeToday with Dennis Rainey
Broadcast date: 08/07/07
(Edited and Abridged)

To be continued...

PAUL'S COMMENTS

Troy's challenge really struck home with me, especially considering my entry from yesterday. Think about your own kids. What if calamity struck and took your lives?

What if these were your own children...

...left to play and find warmth in open sewers?

...left to pick through garbage piles for rotting scraps to eat?

...left to see other orphaned children die in their arms?

"Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." (Matthew 5:3, NIV)

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