Abandoned-Orphaned

The Sum of the Parts

...In part, a portal that whisks you to exotic worlds and immerses you into the real cultures behind the curtains – the byways of life and the gritty existence of people struggling to survive against pitiful odds. Along the journey, children are found left in the wake, abandoned and orphaned by powers and principalities that seek to destroy them, to destroy communities and nations.

...In part, an exposition of the Biblical mandates of caution, judgment, justice, care and blessing regarding the "least of these." An intimate look at God’s truth and what it means for us today in the midst of millions upon millions of children that simply desire to be loved.

...In part, an acknowledgement and exploration of the mega-issues of our time and how they are all interrelated, interconnected – and addressed – through the rescue and care of parentless and discarded children. In short, a unified view of the greatest outreach opportunity of our time, an approach to shatter vicious cycles that ensnare humanity and to mobilize masses to attack the core issue of spiritual separation.

...In part, a plea to realize and engage the amazing front-line force that God has placed and mobilized for the most significant global task before us. A rebuke and encouragement to put aside personal motivations and to instead join the bride in all her radiance - to support her, cherish her and strengthen her – by "letting the little children come" to her.

...In part, a synergistic, synchronized framework of action to help bodies of believers - both near and far - to reach out in an organized holistic approach that will change the very course of history...by changing the children’s lives that will immediately and ultimately impact it.

...In part, a consideration that the One who became incarnate in poverty, thrust out immediately as a refugee, and adopted in love and obedience, would use such as these for the completion of the wondrous commission we have been given.

...In part, a treatise that puts forth the absurd idea that we, in affluence, need those, in physical and spiritual depravity, for our own sanctification...that the orphan, widow and stranger are indeed precious gifts to us.

The sum of the parts?

A literary adventure that I’m presently embarking on: a book that reflects upon my exposure to over two-hundred care contexts for the fatherless in over sixty developing-world nations; a book that draws upon lessons learned in leading a ministry that has helped to provide five hundred homes to orphaned and abandoned children; a book of transparent admission of the many mistakes along the way; a book to inform, engage and mobilize for the most powerful world evangelization and church growth strategy of our generation.

Stay tuned!

Let's Talk Turkey!

Dear Friends,

The end of my self-imposed international travel moratorium (after the birth of our new baby, Naomi) is at hand.

I’m presently on the way to Turkey, to visit one of our partners that is using the rescue and care of orphaned and abandoned children as part of a church planting strategy there.

As always, I would appreciate your prayers while I’m away...and for my wife, Lisa, and four kids at home.

You can follow my trip here on the blog.

Thanks,
Paul

National Day of Prayer...for families

I am truly blessed to work with the most amazing staff at World Orphans. I’m biased, of course, but I can’t think of any finer group of individuals to serve with. Jodi Vinson, wife of our Executive Vice President, Mike Vinson, is currently organizing a huge benefit concert this fall to raise awareness for the orphan, while also celebrating World Orphans’ 15th anniversary as a ministry. Jodi is also a prayer warrior who spearheaded the development of an interactive prayer room at the World Orphans offices outside of Colorado Springs. She has helped set up similar prayer rooms in various locations, including Jerusalem.

Today, my intention was to offer up a prayer on this blog, to commemorate the day’s Presidential designation as the "National Day of Prayer." However, after having just heard Jodi’s prayer for families on the steps of the administrative building in Castle Rock, CO, I’m compelled to share it with you also. It so moved my heart that there is nothing I can write that would serve God better this day.

I ask that you join me in lifting up this prayer again, to our Triune God who cherishes families...and loves the children who still seek one.

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Father God, Creator of all things,

From the beginning of time you created us as men and women to unite and create families. You created marriage and you alone can sustain it.

Reclaim and breathe fresh life into those families that have given up. You are the God of redemption and reconciliation.

Lord Jesus, seek and save that which is lost. Your enemy is prowling around, seeking to destroy your children, our marriages and our families. Lord, hear and act on behalf of your people.

Cause us to honor you by being in the world, but not of the world. Let us be different and so hold unswervingly to the faith we have. May we rest in your promises, Holy Father. For you alone are sovereign, faithful and true.

Lord Jesus, the author and perfector of our faith, our hope is in you. Holy Spirit, renew our minds through the power of God's word, for your word is truth. Help us to recognize the enemy's schemes so we will not fall prey to them, but fight this spiritual battle with the spiritual weapons of prayer and the reading of your word. Transform us into righteous men and women whose prayers are powerful and effective.

Bind up the broken families. Surround them with people to encourage them and help them. Pour your grace upon single parents to rely on the power of God to show them how to bring up their children in the training and instruction of the Lord. Jesus, cause them to take your yoke upon them, as your burden is light. May they find rest and refuge in you alone. Please supply their every need. Through every hardship may your Spirit bring tangible consolation to them so that they will know they are not alone, for you will never leave us or forsake us.

Turn the hearts of our husbands back to God. May they love the Lord our God with all their heart, soul, mind and strength, and love their wives as they love themselves, giving themselves up for her as Christ loved the church. Make them wise and benevolent leaders of their families.

As fathers, tell your children of the Lord's faithfulness. Lord, make them examples of Christ's love and mercy. Cause each man to be lavish in his demonstration of love toward his family.

Fill each wife with the desire to honor and respect her husband in love and selflessness. Open our eyes to the pressures that daily fall on them. Give us grateful hearts as women who live wisely and make the most of every opportunity to edify one another.

As mothers, let us love and instruct our children, relying on God for His perfect provision for their every need.

May our children be obedient and so honor their parents. Help us to be effective parents, influencing our children to honor and obey the Lord their God. Fill them with a knowledge of your word and will.

For the families who build their foundation on Christ, make Christ visible through us in how we love one another, care for one another, bear each other’s burdens, and share with anyone in need.

For the families who do not yet know Christ, may the light of the Gospel shine into their hearts. Draw them into the faith community and give them a hunger for your word.

For children without families, please provide families to come forward to adopt them and show the love of Christ. Since we have been adopted in love into the family of God, may we also be the example, as dearly loved children of God, to live a life worthy of the calling we have received.

For it is only by the Grace of God that our nation and families stand. Our nation will only be as strong as the families that inhabit it. Help us, Father, to stand firm.

May we all have the love of the Father,

the obedience of the Son,

and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit,

in the midst of every family and every relationship.

I ask all this in the powerful name above all names,

Jesus Christ,

AMEN

Gas Chambers or Homes?

One of the presents that Caleb received for his Birthday this past January was an ant farm. The instructions called for sending in a postcard to receive a tube of ants by mail. "That’s silly," I said, "We’ve got plenty of ants that will infiltrate our garden come springtime."

For the past three months, Caleb has been patiently asking, "Is it springtime yet, daddy?"

The type of ants that tunnel and mound on our property are also the type that burrow into our trees, cutting off circulation and causing the death of limbs and branches. I love trees more than ants, so the action path is pretty clear to me. Pre-ban Diazinon crystals are my weapon of choice.

After stirring up the first spring ant nest this past weekend, I assembled a couple of Tupperware tubs to start catching those that would be saved and immersed into a world composed of nutrient-rich gel. These will be happy ants, I thought to myself. No more working for food. Their entire habitat will be edible!

I put the tubs into the refrigerator for fifteen minutes in order to slow down the six-legged creatures darting around therein. As these carpenter ants were cooling, I applied the Diazinon onto various areas of the garden, most notably around the trees that they like to consume. A blanket of death soon covered all of our prized planting areas and future shade tree grounds.

My role of exterminator finished, I took on the role of rescuer.

Having retrieved the now-lethargic ants from the refrigerator, I spread them, and the dirt that was scooped up with them, over our concrete front porch. With a bug vacuum in hand (another one of Caleb’s interesting past presents), I began to suck up a few dozen ants to release into their new home of wonder and plenty.

I felt good about myself. A remnant had been saved. They would be spoiled - free from the harsh acts of nature and man, and able to gorge themselves as they tunnel and thrive before our eyes. Lucky ants!

Almost immediately, there was an escape plan in motion. Ants formed a ladder and chosen ones scurried to the top to find potential exits. All activity was focused on finding freedom, not on exploiting the abundant food source below.

"Don’t these ants realize how good they’ve got it?" I said.

The buzz of motion started to slow. Ants started to drop...to die.

Soon all of them were on their backs in rapid death throes.

Huh?

I peered into their clear plastic world to try to figure out what was going on.

In the far corner, almost indiscernible to the naked eye, were two very small fragments...

...of Diazinon.

Presumably some errant particles had been blown onto my concrete porch before I freed the 'lucky ones' from their temporary Tupperware holding cells. Unseen, a couple of splinters of the deadly crystals journeyed into the ants’ new habitat.

What was supposed to be a new haven of peace and prosperity, became a gas chamber of agony...with all my kids looking on with saucer-wide eyes.

Certainly not recommended as a good parenting technique.

But so it is also with orphaned and abandoned children that are ‘rescued’ into typical institutional orphanages.

The bleakness of the environment causes the initial desire to escape. Imprisoned into a dismal place, the cracks and crevices are searched for opportunities to find freedom.

Oftentimes, with poorly-trained staff in painfully-low numbers, the Diazinon crystal dust gets overlooked. Intake procedures are poor. General care is poor. The poison gets in. Staff become exploiters. Abused kids become abusers. Addicted children find new substances and a captive audience to addict others. Bullies stake out their territory. Depression feeds on common traumas.

Many of these kids will leave these institutions without ever knowing the love of a family, without ever receiving personalized care and attention. After being raised in a poisonous environment, they then become the exterminator’s crystals placed into their society. They infect and destroy, causing the next cycle of orphans.

Herding kids by the hundreds into miserable concrete boxes with low caregiver ratios of inadequately-trained staff is not the solution!

Well-meaning supporters (‘rescuers’) of these institutions need to know that they are unintentionally setting up gas chambers; chambers that will eventually leak their poison into the broader community.

Family-style homes run by churches, on the other hand, have a naturally-good intake procedure – the church knows the kids of the community, knows the issues they are dealing with. Staff are live-in families that will become foster parents to the children. They are complemented by widows from the church, widows who understand trauma and loss and can counsel children accordingly. Additional church members are on hand with a plethora of skills and giftings to meet individual child requirements.

...And the whole environment is bathed in love and a desire for these children to know their Heavenly Father.

Your choice – gas chambers or homes?

Rude Awakenings

I’m not ashamed to tell you that we now have three kids sleeping in our room.

Two year-old Hannah has staked out her position between Lisa and me on our king-sized bed. Caleb, five years old, camps down on a toddler mattress next to the footboard. Newborn Naomi is strategically set next to Lisa in a bedside bassinette.

Three children under the age of six in our room?

Yes, it certainly makes for moments of late-night chaos, especially for a really light sleeper like me.

Naomi is up every three hours or so for her feeding. As Lisa takes care of the new baby, Hannah, realizing that mommy is occupied with someone other than her, wakes up in protest. Hannah is also known to talk in her sleep, often arguing with Caleb or loudly proclaiming, "Mine! Mine!" to an imaginary acquirer of her toys.

Caleb takes his middle-of-the-night trips to the bathroom while totally oblivious of those trying to sleep around him. Thump, thump, thump across the wood floors, followed by the illuminating of every light possible and a toilet visit and flush with door wide open.

Meanwhile, Faith, our less-than-quiet six-year old in the next room, makes similar nighttime journeys down the hall past our open door.

Is it any wonder that I’m quite tired these days?

I was once told in the Philippines that the reason Americans don’t have larger families is because we don’t have enough rooms for each child. There is a belief in some parts of the developing world that we rich affluent Americans, with our desire to put each child in a room of their own, limit our families accordingly. Two extra bedrooms translates into two children.

Meanwhile, in the slums of Bombay, Manila, Lima, Nairobi and the world over, families of eight are crammed into one-room 8 ft. by 8ft. shacks.

My nocturnal distractions occur in a scene of great comfort – a room set at 72 degrees Fahrenheit with a constantly circulating fan providing a gentle breeze, a plush pillow-top bed so thick that you could lose yourself in it, plenty of space for the five nighttime inhabitants, and a peaceful sense of stability and security. Everybody goes to sleep with full bellies and, should anybody be sick, there are multitudes of medicines on hand.

To the contrary, those shanty-town dwellers live on urine-soaked dirt floors with no running water. Any stirring of disease-ridden children in the middle of a hot and humid night means that the whole family is awakened. Mosquitoes buzz around the heads of the feverish kids, while the danger of a home invasion by thieves is ever present. The black sooty walls choke the lungs while splintered wood makes a comfortable sleep-time position even harder to attain. Sweat-drenched sheets enunciate the combined body odors of a family that hasn’t been able to bathe in weeks.

Like most, I love weekends. After a restless night of multiple rude awakenings, I arise later than usual to sunlight flooding in through stained-glass windows. Soon there will be the scent of coffee and bacon filling the air. A nice hot shower, and a pick from many freshly-cleaned clothes, helps to get the day in order. All my smaller bed-chamber mates have long scurried off in search of cartoons and fairytales.

Meanwhile, it’s just another day of hard labor for the father in the developing world who tried to fight for a few precious hours of sleep inside his sardine-packed abode. His young daughter vomited on him last night, just another episode among many like it, night after night. There is no aromatic food greeting him, nor any fresh shower and clean clothes. The only light streaming into his dark hovel is through the same slats that neighbors can peer through, the same openings that bring the bugs and vermin.

How on earth does he have a day where he has the rest, energy and health to provide for his struggling family?

Maybe my sleepless nights aren’t so bad after all.

Abandoned & Adored

We found her abandoned on our doorstep on a cold, wintry day. Perfect features. Round blue eyes and a pert little nose set in the midst of a healthy complexion. Tiny fingers clutching a small baby bottle brimming with a milky-white liquid. A petite head devoid of baby hair.

Dressed in a pink onesie and matching bonnet, she was lying in a blanket-lined basket.

She was a newborn baby girl seemingly in need of our love and nurture…

...except for the fact that she was made of plastic at a toy factory in China.

I thought that maybe it was a joke, somebody leaving an unwanted infant on the threshold of the orphan-ministry family with the adopted Chinese daughter.

We made the rounds to try to ascertain whether somebody had thought it to be Hannah’s toy baby, returning it to us after finding it left in the cul-de-sac.

Nope.

We then tried to discover if somebody had simply left the baby for Hannah, to be the next child to own and play with her.

Nope.

A mystery.

Hannah has indeed adopted this abandoned baby as her own. For a two year-old, she certainly makes a great mother...pampering ‘baby’ constantly, sleeping with her, and reaching for her as the first waking activity each morning.

Unwanted by one.

Adored by another.

Naomi Keilana Myhill

A belated Easter gift...

Naomi Keilana Myhill

Naomi – Hebrew for "pleasant" and "delightful"
Keilana – Hawaiian for "adored"

Monday, March 24, 2:30 AM
7 lbs. 13 ounces; 20 inches

   

Thank you for your prayers!!

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.

On Guard

After taking the kids to school today, my wife came home in tears.

There’s a thirty-minute difference between the time Faith’s and Caleb’s classes begin. Faith was dropped off first. Lisa then took the opportunity to run to the grocery store with Caleb and baby Hannah to pick up a few needed items.

As Lisa walked to her truck, she noticed a man in his mid-fifties approaching from the opposite direction. They converged at the vehicle as Lisa started to unload two light shopping bags and a box of diapers into the trunk. Lisa told Caleb to get into his car seat.

The man asked Lisa if she needed any help.

Lisa smiled and replied, "No thank you. I’ve got it."

The man ignored Lisa’s answer and continued walking to the side of the truck and, initially obscured from view, put his hands on Caleb’s waist from behind, picked him up, and told him that he needed to get into the car.

Lisa was startled by the man’s disregard of her response and the sight of little Caleb in his arms.

She sternly repeated, "No thank you, sir. I’ve got it!"

The man walked briskly away, jumped into his car, and sped off at great speed.

At no time did this man have any groceries in hand himself, and he had approached from the opposite direction of the grocery store. This added to Lisa’s sense of discomfort regarding the whole episode.

The man’s rapid exit gave Lisa further pause. Why leave in such haste? Was he upset by Lisa’s words and tone, or simply leaving the scene as quickly as possible?

Lisa thought of calling the police, but realized that she had very little information she could actually give them.

 

(Image: Caleb at his belated fifth birthday party a few weeks ago)

As she drove away, Lisa pondered about how she’s a potential target – a late-term pregnant woman with two young children in a crowded parking lot. After all, it’s easy for someone to approach an expectant mother and ask if they want help, right? And a pregnant woman can’t really give chase, especially if there’s a two year-old toddler by her side.

It may have all been nothing – simply a Good Samaritan who was unaware of how his snubbing of her reply and subsequent actions could be construed during this day and age - a time of increased sensitivity to child abductions by pedophiles and of numerous reported incidents in busy parking lots.

But it certainly shook up my wife and one can never be overcautious about such things. We simply live in a corrupted world inhabited by corrupted beings. We have to keep reminding ourselves of that.

To put things in perspective a bit...

The following men all have something in common:

 

1. They all live within ten miles of the grocery store...and my children's school
2. They are all convicted sex offenders involving sex crimes with children

God forgives, regenerates and reconciles those who accept Him. Nobody is outside of His love and extension of grace. Perhaps quite a few of these men have now embraced Him as Lord and Savior.

But, unless we know for sure where a person stands, we are to be gentle as doves and wise as serpents.

We are to be on guard and realize that it can indeed happen to us.

...And we are to continually bring the issues to light.

Little Girl Rising

One year ago today, my heart was absolutely, utterly, completely...broken.

To those of you who didn’t know her or the family, my repeated posts are perhaps deemed unwelcome or unrelated to the cause. But the scourge that took her from us causes thousands upon thousands of orphans each year and takes the lives of thousands upon thousands of orphaned and abandoned children. It is a merciless plague that is bleeding the developing world.

My heart is for the orphans and street children caused and abused by this plight on humanity. But a girl lost - who was like a daughter to me - well, that makes it personal.

Please pray for the Ochoa family as they take today to remember, reflect, repair, and restore.