Abandoned-Orphaned

Considerable Risk

Pastor Michael (not his real name) tells us of how his brother was martyred, beaten to death by the authorities overseeing his town in North Vietnam.

Many of these villages in the north are finding Christ. Whole communities are accepting the Lord in what one of our hosts, Pastor James (not his real name), calls a "power movement" of the Spirit.

The communist governance of these areas doesn’t like the progressive nature of these new Christian populations. They actively try to force the people back to spiritualism and ancestor worship. Atheists promoting a return to tribal religions, superstitions and sacrifice. "A house divided," I thought to myself.

James also has firsthand accounts of the persecution. He was incarcerated for almost a decade, including stints of hard labor and years of solitary confinement. For long periods, he only received one peanut each day for sustenance. He now views the time of imprisonment as a gift from the Lord for spiritual reflection and development.

Michael came to a large town to take a ministry course offered by James and to report of the orphan situation in his area to us. The last time he returned to his village after receiving some theological instruction, he was told by the authorities that he would be killed if he ever did it again.

After Michael left our meeting, I wondered aloud what will happen when the local communist leaders figure out that he has defied them and has indeed left for more equipping.

"How will Michael explain his absence?" I asked James.

"He will tell the truth," our host replied.

"Even though it quite possibly means death?"

"Yes."

Would I have attended any of my classes at Dallas Seminary if I knew it could have resulted in my murder?

Could I participate in Willow Creek and Saddleback conferences if it meant the possible orphaning of my own children?

...I don’t know.

Pastor Michael has a wife and children. Please pray for him and the other persecuted believers here in Vietnam.

China Transit

Typically, when I travel to Southeast Asia, I route through Japan, Korea or Taiwan, or at least on that general flight path. This time, though, we flew across Northeast Russia (Siberia) and then cut completely down the middle of mainland China towards Hong Kong, our first stopping point after a 14 ½ hour flight from San Francisco.

At one point I took a brief nap, awakening to find the GPS system indicating that we were directly above the Chinese city of Wuhan, a place that holds great meaning to my family.

Almost seven years ago Lisa and I found ourselves in this bustling metropolis of millions. We had our hearts set on just one of those souls amongst many, though, a little girl that had been abandoned on the steps of an administrative building in a nearby town.

My eyes were now glued to the screen. Hangzhou to the east. Chongqing to the west. Wuhan almost directly between them in a straight line. While serving as the Director of Projects for a large international charity focused on rescuing orphans in China, I oversaw ‘model orphanage’ projects in the city of Hangzhou and the Chongqing area. I helped to raise funding for the construction of both, oversaw the management and child sponsorship program for one, and attended the grand opening of the other.

It’s funny how three electronic representations of cities lined up in a row can impact somebody. Just white dots and letters on a green background. Thirty-five thousand feet below though, orphans, and one in particular, had a tangible and lasting effect on me. The screen was just a simple reminder of that.

The plane now continues to Hong Kong, but the significance of the moment doesn’t fade. Seven years ago I was also in this sprawling megacity on the South China Sea, awaiting a flight to…yep…San Francisco. I was holding an eleven month old baby girl whose life was about to completely follow a different path, and who would completely change ours.

World Orphans Weekly! - Africa & Asia

Dear Friend of the Fatherless,

Yesterday, Scott Vair left on a ten-day trip to Ethiopia and Sudan. In Ethiopia, he will be meeting with the Kale Heywet denomination to initiate projects with churches that already have Compassion International programs associated with them. In Sudan, Scott will be working with our partner, Operation Mobilization, to solidify our involvement with projects in Khartoum and the Darfur region.

Scott is traveling with Lameck Mbai, our East Africa representative, and Jason Fleming, a vision-trip participant who is evaluating potential service in a mobilization capacity.

Today, I also leave on a ten-day trip. I will be joining Gary Schneider and Paul Pham of Every Orphan’s Hope on a journey to Vietnam and Cambodia. We will be meeting with a number of pastors to determine the viability of placing children’s homes on their properties.

(CONTRASTS: Women in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia (top) and Hanoi, Vietnam (bottom) during trips I took to the two countries in 2006)

We again ask for your prayers for us and our families as we travel to expand and deepen the global work of World Orphans.

You can track Scott’s Africa trip at: aheartfororphans.com

Likewise, you can follow my Southeast Asia trip at: abandoned-orphaned.com

Thank you for your prayers!

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
Facebook Profile

All contributions are tax deductible and eternally significant.

A Generation That Gets It?

A February 10th edition of ABC’s World News reported:

This weekend at a concert and a rally in New York City, a huge gathering of Christian youth came together to decry the coarsening of culture.

"What should be done to stop glamorizing the things that are destroying my friends, your friends - like drugs, alcohol and sex?" cried a young evangelical.

The top three issues these young evangelical Christians said they most want the presidential candidates to address are Internet pornography, media glamorization of sex and drugs, and children orphaned by AIDS.

It looks like our young evangelicals have a pretty clear grasp of ‘true religion,’ the corresponding parts of James 1:27.

"Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress (including the millions of children orphaned by AIDS) and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world (including Internet pornography, drugs, fornication and other impurities propagated by Hollywood.)"

World Orphans Relief (Kenya - part two)

Here’s just a few of the children at the Huruma displacement camp...

CAROLINE - 14 YEARS OLD

Caroline’s single mother arranged for her and her siblings to go up country to visit their grandmother. When the children returned they found a pile of ashes at the spot where their shanty used to be. They eventually managed to find their mother at Huruma.

MARGARET - 12 YEARS OLD

Both of Margaret’s parents are dead. She was staying with her grandmother when men broke into their shanty in the middle of the night. They were ordered to flee for their lives. After it was looted, their home was totally demolished. "It’s cold in the tents at night," Margaret says while explaining that she doesn’t even have a blanket to keep her warm.

NIXON - 14 YEARS OLD

Nixon is an orphan who was living with his grandmother in Mathare Valley. After the disputed elections, a mob shouting war chants came rampaging into his slum neighborhood. When Nixon and his grandmother heard their neighbors being attacked and screaming for help, they fled their home.

KEVIN - 13 YEARS OLD

Kevin’s father abandoned him and his siblings after their mother died. He was living with his grandmother when the violence erupted. They escaped as their neighborhood was being attacked. At a distance Kevin and his grandmother watched as their possessions were stolen and home was burned to the ground.

Please pray for these, and the hundreds of other vulnerable children and orphans at Huruma.

World Orphans Relief (Kenya - part one)

The recent unrest in Kenya has all but left the front pages of the world’s newspapers. Yet thousands of people are now living in displacement camps, robbed of possessions and hope. In these tented cities, orphans of the present and future are living in sub-human conditions.

World Orphans acknowledges that, as a mission, we are just as responsible for helping to prevent the orphaning and abandonment event as we are in responding to it. As such, we have mobilized our in-country staff resources and relationships to reach out to these refugee communities where families, widows and children have been propelled into highly-vulnerable situations.

As always, we work by empowering and resourcing indigenous churches for the task. Our East Africa regional representative, Lameck Mbai, has targeted a specific camp and has enlisted three local churches to be the mechanisms of care reaching into the temporary alleyways of traumatized peoples huddled there.

The Huruma camp has an estimated population of 608 people. Slightly over 100 of them are men. The rest are women and children who are now unable to work or attend school. They have been summarily stripped of current provision and future potential. Gone are their homes. Gone are their belongings. Gone are their dreams for normalcy.

The inhabitants of Huruma are spread between 69 tents forged by canvas, cloth and plastic. Some of the tents have as many as 20 people stacked into them. Others have as few as four, presumably due to family size and the stigma of HIV/AIDS.

Lameck tells us that the food rations are pitifully meager. A typical tent of 10 to 15 people will receive about 4 1/2 lbs. of corn flour, 16 oz. of cooking oil and a half head of cabbage in total. This paltry allotment is expected to shared between the occupants over a two-day period. Furthermore, Lameck just reported that these famished people have also been without clean water for four days.

(IMAGES: Huruma Displacement Camp. Photos by Lameck Mbai)

Such conditions drive kids to the streets. There, they fall under the ills of criminal activities or, even worse, are preyed upon by others.

Lameck is coordinating the distribution of life-saving supplies tomorrow (Saturday) to help alleviate this situation and to bring exposure to our partner churches. We would greatly appreciate your prayers for a successful distribution of resources and further opportunities for ministry.

To be continued...

Cutter (part two)

"Back again, huh?" she said with a broad smile on her face.

"Yes, we’re seeing a friend who suggested we meet here. I’m always game to eat Indian food two days in a row."

She smiled and placed us at the same cozy table as the day prior.

I positioned into a corner chair with my back against a wall. Such seating offered the best scenario for privacy, to not offend. Outfitted with a small screen and headphones, I was transported to a care facility for troubled teenagers.

I was immersed into the world of a ‘cutter,’ as one served tables just steps away from me. The compound setting was all rather illusory and poignant.

As the tape rolled, I met Amanda, a young girl who had been repeatedly abused physically and sexually as a child. Like our new waitress friend, her arms were a tapestry of scars from recurring attacks on self.

Amanda shared that, even in the protective facility, she managed to find things to continue to slice and puncture her body – paperclips, the clips of pens. The resulting scars joined others worn as simultaneous badges of honor and shame. They were shown with both pride and distain.

Asked why she cuts herself, Amanda replied with a simple impacting statement: "Because then I’m in control of my own pain. I control what hurts me."

As those words sunk in with blunt force, I was oblivious to the next lines of conversation. I tried to fight back tears that could potentially bring the waitress’ untimely attention.

A girl harms herself to erase the harm caused by others? She tortures herself to provide assurance that she is the master of her own body?

Amanda was a ‘normal’ child once. She had dreams and aspirations. Perhaps as she played with dolls, she imagined being the daughter of a king in search of her gallant Prince Charming. Perhaps she enjoyed going to the mall to hang out with friends. Perhaps she looked forward to going to movies to be whisked away to other realities.

Amanda’s interview was capped by the single proclamation: "I hope that I can stop cutting and not kill myself." These words were offered in the context of what she wishes for in this lifetime.

This is her sole hope?

Most of us dream of so much more.

I pray that Amanda will realize that she is indeed the daughter of a King and that, through faith, she can be assured of a life abundant today and a new, glorified body for eternity.

Note: Restaurant cuisine style and interviewee name were both changed to protect the identities of the two teenagers involved.

Cutter (part one)

"Would you like some more water?"

"Yes, please."

As her arm passed before my eyes and tilted the pitcher sideways to fill the glass, I was faced with the physical signs of emotional turmoil.

The waitress, a young teenager of exotic innocence and welcoming brown eyes, was laddered with lacerations that ran the whole length of her inner forearm from wrist to joint, about twenty parallel gashes in total. The upper side of the same arm was perforated and pock-marked by dozens of heaping circular scars. Slashing and piercing, this girl had harmed herself on many occasions.

I couldn’t enjoy my meal. I screamed inside. My eyes tracked her from table to table as I wondered, "What shadows lie behind those eyes?"

Except for the obvious, she was a striking beauty with a confident presence and happy countenance. I later told my World Orphans colleagues, "How could such a young pretty girl with so much going for her, do that to herself?"

I quickly realized how shallow my comment was. I don’t know her life. And her outward features and personality have nothing to do with it.

There are many reasons why people engage in what is now colloquially referred to as "cutting." This troubled young waitress may have experienced abuse or other deeply traumatic events. She may suffer under the weight of constant emotional stress. She may be racked by overwhelming senses of hurt, loss, shame, frustration or alienation.

Or she may simply be trying to fit in with other cutters.

Kidshealth.org reports:

It can be hard to understand why people cut themselves on purpose. Cutting is a way some people try to cope with the pain of strong emotions, intense pressure, or upsetting relationship problems. They may be dealing with feelings that seem too difficult to bear, or bad situations they think can't change.

Our filmmaker, Britt Jones, recently produced a piece that included the story of a teenage girl’s cutting. He described it as one of the most heart-wrenching issues he has ever dealt with.

Through God’s providence, Britt also happens to know the owners of this particular restaurant. He offered to join me at the eatery the next day to show me the relevant footage on a portable video player.

I knew that the combined setting and images would drastically magnify my already-raw emotions, but I agreed.

To be continued...

World Orphans Weekly! - Middle East Visits

Dear Friend of the Fatherless,

Please pray for our team members that are presently visiting the Middle East.

Billy Ray is on an advance trip to Iraq in preparation for moving there with his family this summer. He will be based in Northern Iraq to serve as the Middle East Regional Director for World Orphans. You can follow his current trip on his blog, Rescue Iraq. I encourage you to go there to see the heart of this precious servant of God.

Our Executive Vice President, Mike Vinson, is in Israel right now as part of a prayer team that includes his wife, Jodi. At World Orphans, we firmly believe that prayer precedes everything and is, quite frankly, more effective than anything.

"When man works; man works. When man prays; God works!"

With that thought in mind, please lift up these two fine men and their families – for protection, effective ministry, and an abundance of opportunities to glorify our Lord.

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
Facebook Profile

All contributions are tax deductible and eternally significant.

Not Again

Pray for our children...

(PHOTOS: The New York Times)