Abandoned-Orphaned

World Orphans Rescue! - Iraq

Dear Friend of the Fatherless,

A couple of months ago, I had the privilege of traveling to Iraq with Mike Vinson, our Executive Vice President.

Our Objective?

To gain official approval to set up the first fully-registered, church-based orphan homes in Iraq.

The Result?

World Orphans has been given government permission to establish an Iraq office and start construction on three homes for children orphaned by poverty and conflict. This is a monumental achievement!

The Added Surprise?

The Iraqi provincial government is actually giving us the land in major cities for these homes!

How Can You Help?

Our commitment is to raise $1 million for the orphans of Iraq. That will take prayer and finances.

First and foremost, we need those prayers. Will you please enlist others to pray for this exciting work also?

Secondly, we need resources.

Another charitable organization has offered to match our Iraq donations – up to $300,000 – for all funds received by October 31st.

Can you please help us to achieve that goal?

Perhaps, as you’ve watched the news night after night, you’ve wondered how you - personally - can make a significant difference in Iraq. Well, here is your opportunity – to pray and give to the precious children and churches of Iraq.

Secure online donations can be made here and checks can be sent to the address below.

Thank you for your intercession and contribution.

Until They All Have Homes,

Paul Myhill
President/CEO

World Orphans
1840 Woodmoor Dr. Suite 100
Monument, CO 80132
1-888-ORPHANS
719-487-1700

All contributions are tax deductible and eternally significant.

Blessings and Battles

I don’t usually do this (and should do this more often), but I’d like to solicit earnest prayer coverage from you. I really, really need it right now.

We currently have some amazing things going on in the ministry of World Orphans, including:

• Great partnerships (and potential partnerships) with well-established global missions organizations
• High-profile speaking opportunities for far-reaching impact
• Multiple requests from seasoned ministry people to join our staff in a support-raising capacity, especially as regional representatives serving in key areas overseas
• A new Director of Church Relations and a great Donor Relations Manager
• An incredible open door to be the first and only fully-approved Christian organization to care for Iraq's orphans
• Unbelievable introductions to great donor partners and foundations
• A wonderful communications department, headed by some truly gifted individuals, that’s really finding its groove
• Pools of project opportunities that are the best potential for stronger churches and rescued children than we have ever had before
• A new due diligence system that ensures even greater integrity, accountability and effectiveness
• The imminent completion of a ministry documentary that spans the world and grabs hearts for the orphan
• A new Website that is almost done and will absolutely knock your socks off
• Impressive exposure, including a major national magazine article on the heals of the FamilyLife radio broadcasts
• Customized software to better assess, approve, monitor and report on projects
• Many encouragements for me to write and publish a book for the ministry
• A new World Orphans office that gives us five times the space for the same price we were paying before
• Regional conferences ('World Orphans Roundtables') that are starting to take shape to really bring people together for a common goal of rescuing children through indigenous churches
• Key executives (Mike and Scott) that are going far beyond expectations with passion, vision and implementation; they are my right and left arms.
• The excited and energized planning for the ministry’s 15-year anniversary celebrations next year

So...

...Satan is attacking me big time.

I feel that I have a huge target on the back of my head right now and the Devil is trying to meddle in many ways, especially with some key relationships with special friends and family, my daughter’s ADHD, and the rapidly-declining health of my 84 year-old mother-in-law who we care for.

It’s all affecting my patience and countenance.

Satan knows that God is blessing World Orphans in many ways. He knows that millions of orphans can become an army against him. He therefore wants to distract and discourage me. He wants to take me out of the game, even if temporarily.

I would GREATLY appreciate your prayers against the evil one. Please saturate me. Please intercede in this battle for me, for the children.

Thank you very much,
Paul

Burma's Little Soldiers

I made two trips into Burma (Myanmar) last year - one to the capital city, Rangoon (Yangon), the principal site for all the current protests, and another into Shan state, just across the border from Thailand in the Golden Triangle zone.

I saw the children jumping into the river to flee to Thailand. I saw the abandoned and orphaned huffing glue on the border bridge between desperation and hope. While in neighboring Thailand, I also saw the kids that had run away from forced service in the Burmese army. Many were now being raised in one of our homes there, a home specifically set up to care for youngsters that had escaped lives as child soldiers and prostitutes.

Once a wealthy and vivacious country, Burma has suffered deeply over four decades of military rule. It is now extremely depressed and is recognized as one of the least-developed nations in the world.

The Human Rights Education Institute of Burma (HREIB) reported last September that:

"As the economic situation in Burma continues to deteriorate, the burden on children intensifies. They are put to work begging on the streets, in teashops and other business establishments, and forced into working in economic grey areas (prostitution, drug trafficking/smuggling, domestic servitude, etc.). They are exposed to severe physical and psychological trauma."

And then there are the child soldiers...

The Human Rights Watch (HRW) reports:

"Throughout Burma (Myanmar), children as young as eleven are being forcibly recruited into Burma's national army, the largest user of child soldiers in the world. Without their parents' knowledge or consent, they are sent to military training camps where they are routinely beaten, and brutally punished if they try to escape. Once deployed, they may be forced to fight and carry out human rights abuses against civilians, including other children."

HRW has estimated that 70,000 or more of Burma’s 350,000 soldiers are children.

Judit Arenas, spokesperson for the Coalition to Stop Child Soldiers, recently told CNN:

"While some children are recruited voluntarily for Myanmar's armed forces, others, especially orphans and street children, are vulnerable to what is called ‘forced recruitment.’ Under this scheme, local authorities in Myanmar are required to provide the government with a certain quota of recruits and are fined if they fail. A lot of these children are street children. They won't stand up and complain"

As you watch the events in Burma continue to unfold, please remember these children, children who are now forced to point guns at protestors that seek freedom for their country.

World Orphans Weekly! - Oktoberfast

Dear Friend of the Fatherless,

During this time each year, over six million people flock to Munich to participate in the world’s largest annual festival that runs for sixteen days until the first Sunday in October. We know this event as ‘Oktoberfest’ and it is celebrated not only in Munich, but in thousands of cities the world over.

Originally beginning as a celebration of the marriage of Prince Ludwig of Bavaria to Princess Therese of Saxony-Hildburghausen in October, 1810, Oktoberfest now has multiple reasons (or excuses) for prolonged revelry. Not least amongst those are copious amounts of food and drink.

On the Munich grounds alone, 1.5 million gallons of beer, 400,000 pork sausages, and 480,000 spit-roasted chickens will be consumed during the two-week festival period. On top of that is heaped huge quantities of potato salad, warm pretzels, a variety of cheeses, steamed honey dumplings, apple strudel, glazed almonds, sugared pancakes with raisins and, yes, mounds and mounds of sauerkraut.

 

(GRAND BEGINNINGS. The Oktoberfest celebrations have become a centerpiece in Munich for almost 200 years. Artist Unknown)

Thousands of performers and hundreds of musicians dot the scene which includes parades, an amusement park, livestock show and numerous other avenues of entertainment, both mainstream and alternative.

For many, it’s all about self-indulgence, a hedonistic gastronomic and entertainment affair of gargantuan proportions.

Meanwhile, during the formal Oktoberfest celebration, almost 480,000 children under the age of five will die in the developing world from easily-treatable conditions. This number is ironically the same as the average count of chickens consumed at the festival in Munich. For the broader month of October, almost 900,000 of these children will perish, many from hunger-related issues.

We aren’t telling you to never participate in grand festivities. The bridegroom is indeed within us. There are many reasons to rejoice in the life given us. But we are asking you to reflect upon the broader picture this Oktoberfest season. For that reason, we are initiating an annual October affair of our own, a prayer and fasting event we are dubbing, ‘Oktoberfast.’

We are simply imploring you to give up something for the 31 days of October. It could be some food items, a few TV shows, your daily Starbucks Latte (say it isn’t so???). For the month, we’re also inviting you to spend some time in prayer for the almost 30,000 children that die each day because of a misappropriation of resources and intentions; for the additional thousands that are orphaned each day while we go about our normal lives.

Would you please join us?

We’ll even make it easy for you to specifically pray. You can tune into Abandoned-Orphaned.Com for each day in October to see how you can daily lift these children up to a Father who loves them so much.

Thank you in advance for your faithful participation.

Until They All Have Homes,

Paul

 

Back to the Basics

As long as there have been churches...

As long as there have been orphans...

...There have been churches taking care of orphans.

When there is simply no more capacity for indigenous families to take in orphaned children...

When there are simply no social networks to be a second line of rescue and care...

...Churches have historically stepped in to be families for these children.

This is nothing new. World Orphans didn’t develop a new model.

Where did we go astray and shove all these children into heartless institutions instead?

...Let’s get back to the basics.

Unsuccessful Murder

I was reading the latest edition of WORLD Magazine yesterday and stumbled upon a short article written by Susan Olasky, entitled "Unsuccessful Murder." The piece described the very disturbing predicament of Luo Cuiffen, a young twenty-something woman in Kunming, China.

For many years, Luo has suffered from depression, anxiety and insomnia and has been unable to exert herself to perform strenuous tasks. When she recently spotted blood in her urine, she went to her local hospital for assistance and care. That visit required a diagnostic X-ray of her pelvic area. In turn, the radiology results necessitated multiple scans of her whole body.

What the X-rays revealed was simply horrific and tragic.

According to the hospital report, "23 needles were deeply embedded in her body."

(DEADLY INTENT. One of the X-rays shows multiple needles in Luo's pelvic area. AP Photo)

Doctors believe that Luo’s grandparents, now deceased, had inserted the needles through her abdomen while she was an infant, most likely when she was just days old. They also forced one through the fontanel, the soft spot, in her scull. Their hope was that she would die and be replaced by a baby boy instead. In China, the preference for a male heir, coupled with the country’s one-child policy, means that many baby girls, "maggots in the rice," are frequently abandoned or killed by the family.

During the time of Luo's repeated trauma, X-ray machines were not accessible in many rural areas of China. Murder by slow internal bleeding could often be committed without any fear of repercussions. Doctors could even be bribed to submit false causes of death if they suspected that murder had occurred.

Luo beat the odds and survived, but the needles worked their way into her vital organs, including her kidneys, bladder, liver and lungs. The one in her brain eventually broke into three pieces.

According to Steven Mosher, President of the Population Research Institute, inserting a sewing needle through the fontanel and into the baby’s brain is one of the more "typical" methods of infanticide in China. Luo’s grandparents apparently chose a more systemic application and treated her like a human pincushion.

Luo's mother thought that she just had a really colicky baby. Now she knows the truth. She knows that her little baby girl was in utter agony from having almost two dozen needles pushed into her tiny body.

Boys carry on the family name and take care of their parents during their retirement years in China. Wives are expected by tradition to look after their husband’s parents, not their own. To have a girl means that you do not have nurture in your old age. That, together with a dowry that has to be paid when you marry off a daughter, results in strong cultural pressures to have a boy.

Olasky’s unsettling closing paragraph reads:

"Infanticide and abortions of unborn girls have created a skewed ratio between the genders, with 119 boys born for every 100 girls, according to official figures. Steven Mosher says the ratio in some areas is as high as 120-130 boys for every 100 girls, and that on some rural playgrounds it’s not unusual to see 25 little boys for every five girls. Most of the missing girls aren’t in orphanages or adopted into families: They’re dead."

There is hope though. One of our partners rescues these baby girls, often when graves have already been prepared.

...But we’ll save that story for another time.

For a Common Goal

My son, Caleb, scored two goals for his soccer ‘team’ yesterday. He would have scored a third, a hat-trick, if one of his own teammates, a little girl in a ponytail, hadn’t stolen the ball from him in front of the net and kicked it in herself. Of course, Caleb wouldn’t have scored his second goal if he hadn’t just taken it away from another boy on his team beforehand.

(EVERY MAN FOR HIMSELF. Caleb, background, battles with a teammate for the ball)

Such is the world of soccer for four year-olds. The game is an individual mad dash for the prize. There is no concept of teamwork.

Why is most missions activity, and orphan care in particular, so much like a soccer team of four year-olds?

Why can’t we simply all work together and partner with the indigenous churches on the front lines...for a common goal?

(THE GOAL IN SIGHT. Caleb lines up to score)

As One...for the Lowliest

While I was in Addis Ababa last week, the General Secretary of the Ethiopian Kale Heywet Church, Dr. Yacob, mentioned a couple of contrasts that really stuck with me.

The first is a rendition of an old African proverb:

"He who wants to win, runs alone. He who wants to go longer, takes others with him."

The second is a simple cultural and scriptural observation:

"In our economy, the widow and the orphan are the lowliest. In God’s economy, they are the priority."

 

(SURVIVAL MODE. An Ethiopian lady, sells tea kettles in the middle of a busy street in Addis Ababa)

God looks at the disenfranchised and downtrodden as the key to his heart and the expansion of his Kingdom. He has also ordained his Church, working "as one," to be the mechanism of care and redemption.

God came as a vulnerable baby, born in a feeding trough to impoverished parents who then became refugees for his safety. He was raised by an adoptive parent. Even though he is the greatest in the universe, he knows what it means to be one of the "least of these." Isn’t it just like God, then, to use the "lowliest" to see his purposes accomplished? Isn’t it just like God to see millions come to him through widows and orphans, to use them as a primary means for the growth of his Church?

(FROM THIEVES TO WORSHIPPERS. These rescued children in one of our church-based homes in Ethiopia are very aware of who they need to thank)

143 million orphans. 143 million potential believers. 143 million potential missionaries. Probably the greatest opportunity of our time.

It can only be accomplished in partnership. There is no room for Lone Rangers and little fiefdoms. There is only space for concerted action as the Church being...the Church.

(THE CHURCH. This children's home required the Church - the Church to rescue the children; the Church to care for them; the Church to provide funding and counsel. They are the Church. We are the Church. Working together as one.)

World Orphans Weekly! - Child Soldiers

Dear Friend of the Fatherless,

I have just returned from ten days in Africa. It appears that our accounts of a former child soldier in northern Uganda have received a tremendous amount of online traffic. Thousands of people have been checking in to read them.

You can see what the fuss is all about by using the links below:

A CHILD SOLDIER’S STORY...

Abduction and Programming – Four years of terror is about to begin.

Brutal Acts - "Anybody you want, you may have. Cut or kill the rest."

Catch and Release – Child soldiers risk it all to see sex slaves escape.

Children killing Children – Three year-olds falling at the hands of a ten year-old?

From Captivity to Captivity – Sometimes capture means freedom.

Redemption and Testing – Forgiveness and a cruel twist?

Last Acts and New Beginnings – From making coffins, to preventing them.

OTHER REFLECTIONS FROM AFRICA...

Lifeblood – Blood is spilt here. Blood is infected here.

Outside the Gates – Potent words from a missionary family’s deceased daughter.

Ethiopia Calling – Five million orphans. Five million active church members. A good combination?

Ethiopia Answers? – They used to be somebody’s pride and joy. Now they are beaten and bruised.

Aversion – When is a good time to jump into oncoming traffic?

Tears into Smiles – The HIV prognosis for many orphans is bad. But a simple gift warms their hearts.

Thank you for your heart for these precious children!

Please forward this to those who share your passion for ‘the least of these.’

Until They All Have Homes,
Paul

Tears into Smiles

One of our dear donor partners frequently sends us Beanie Babies to take to the children in our orphan homes. This trip to East Africa meant packing yet another batch of these lovable stuffed creatures. Beanie Babies are the perfect gift as 1.) They are now quite inexpensive, 2.) They can be bought in large batches on ebay, 3.) They are small enough to carry in a large quantity, and 4.) They allow each child to pick a character that closely matches their personality.

(A PILE OF BEANIES. David Ochoa helps to distribute the toys to the children)

Believe me, these things are highly cherished, often taking a prominent position on the children’s pillows. In many cases, they are the only toy that a child possesses and the only gift they have ever received.

(NURTURE. A young orphan girl covers and cradles her new Beanie Baby)

On my visit to one of our homes in Uganda last week, a medical team was there administering an HIV test to all of the children. The youngest had their fingers pricked. The older ones had to provide a full vial. Some were brave, others not so much so.

(STABBING REALITY. Many of these children will be diagnosed as HIV+)

The cry of these precious ones as they were getting stuck with needles was heartbreaking indeed. More upsetting, though, is the realization that quite a few of these children will soon hear some very bad news, life-shattering news.

(THE TEST. The ultimate pass/fail result)

With Beanie Babies in hand, tears turned into smiles.

(RECEIVING LINE. Children come forward and pick a toy that matches their personality or preference)

Regardless of future test results, they were now happy in the moment of hugging a little stuffed animal, a gift from people in America who love them and pray for them.

God’s timing is so good.

Here's just a few more children after they recieved  a smile from America...