Abandoned-Orphaned

Stand and Fall

"If Cu Chi stands, Saigon falls."

These are the words of an American general during the Vietnam War, as told to us by our guide into the land adorned by a jungle canopy above and a jungle of tunnels below. Above ground, amongst the dense foliage and thick humidity, bamboo vipers and cobras dropped and slithered while huge scorpions scampered alongside them. Below ground, over two hundred miles of snakelike warrens were swarming with thousands of Vietcong guerrillas perched to strike. Venomous bunkers and booby traps occupied both realms.

Camouflaged pits hid lurking metal spears poised to impale an unsuspecting soldier. One permutation included spikes on parallel rollers that would pierce bodies on the way down and prevent extrication without further injury. Similarly, a leg trap held a twelve-inch upright spike to penetrate through boot and bone, while four other barbs set at 45-degree downward angles ensured that the retraction of the foot meant ensnaring the calf. These despicable contraptions were designed to immobilize and terrify.

The goal of the enemy was to injure and maim, not necessarily kill. "The Americans would take two people to care for one," we were told. An injured soldier meant that three were effectively kept off of the battlefield. The dread of these devices meant those remaining in the fight would be trapped by fear, scared into inaction.

Isn’t this how our chief enemy operates also? He burrows under what we hold dear and cherish. He tunnels through the foundations of God’s best for us. He tries to keep us, and others tending to us, out of combat. While we are so busy patching each other up, he acts at will in the world, bankrupting the morality of societies and stealing the childhoods of innocents.

We should recognize it for what it is. Yes, we are to care and nurture our own, but with an extreme sense of urgency to get them, and us, back into the greater battle. The goal isn’t just ‘whole’ people; it’s whole soldiers.

After all...

If distractions stand, opportunities fall.

If traps stand, possibilities fall.

Full Circle

My Vietnamese-born host, Joseph (not his real name), knows all-too-well how it feels. His mother was killed by a bomb that struck the church parsonage when he was just three years old. He bears the scars of flying shrapnel as a daily reminder of the event. The next year his father, an army chaplain serving in the South Vietnamese forces, was ambushed by Vietcong and summarily executed.

Two days before the fall of Saigon, Joseph and his two siblings were grouped with six other children from his Grandfather’s family and herded onto a boat out of the country. The adults stayed behind due to space limitations and the desire to help their people through the turmoil. After some intermediary stops, and a period awaiting refugee status approval, Joseph and the other children became wards of the state in Canada.

Joseph now serves in orphan ministry and is part of the team visiting here. His heart for his people is plainly evident and, while visiting a state orphanage with him today in the former Saigon, I saw his big heart for the children he identifies with so well.

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...

Du'aa (part four)

In an important Iraqi city near where Du'aa was publically murdered, and where we received such a warm reception by the provincial Governor and his close aides, twelve teen-aged women are hiding in a secret shelter.

One of the residents, just 16 years old, was forced by her family to marry a much older man. While she was shopping one day, she bumped into a boy she used to have a crush on. Relatives who saw them conversing jumped to the conclusion that the couple had intentionally arranged a rendezvous at the market. The family members immediately abducted the two and drove them to a desolate area. The girl’s nose was viciously cut off and one of the boy’s ears was severed. Fearing that more was to come, the young woman went into hiding.

Another girl at the shelter had been ordered by her father to marry one of his older business colleagues. She flatly refused, as she had recently fallen in love with a boy her own age. Her father, humiliated and infuriated by her opposition, sent her away to live with her grandmother. The young girl would soon learn that her father and brother then murdered her boyfriend. Upon hearing that they were planning to kill her next, she, too, secreted away to an underground life, imprisoned by the ‘honor’ required of families in Northern Iraq.

The further ten stories of these women huddled together in seclusion are very similar, as are those of others concealed in safe houses around the city – terrified girls and young women who, in fear of savage deaths at the hands of their own families, ran away to escape execution. Some had simply fallen in love. Some refused to be mutilated through female circumcision. Others refused to marry men three times their age. A few found themselves pregnant after relationships with men who promised to marry them. And others were raped...an unforgivable defilement that often leads to death.

A good number of the children we will be rescuing in this city will no doubt include the abandoned babies of such women.

As we reach out and take in discarded children from Iraqi hospitals and street corners, we will think of these young girls who live in constant trepidation, especially those who gave up their children in order to breathe the air of another day.

Both choices must have seemed unbearably cruel to these frightened new mothers: Abandon your little baby and survive in secrecy, or keep the child and eventually be exposed and murdered.

...Either way, we are left with an orphan.

Du'aa (part three)

Du'aa’s mother blames Sheikh Sulaiman for allowing the mob to grab and brutally kill her daughter. The video evidence shows that Du’aa was dragged straight from the Sheikh’s house to be stoned to death in the village marketplace.

"He sent her out as a defenseless young girl," Du’aa’s mother asserts.

A London Times interview with the Sheikh reveals his overall condoning of the murder. Although he says on the record that the method of execution was not preferential, his words are no doubt carefully chosen given the widespread exposure the videos have brought to this specific honor killing.

According to the Sheikh, "Honor is a big thing here and each one deals with it differently. It was down to her family to cleanse her shame. Maybe kill her with one bullet, electrocution, any manner, but not through this awful stoning."

He continued, "There is no father who does not love his daughter. When a father kills his daughter to wash away their family shame, it breaks his heart to do so. But fathers are obliged to do this, otherwise they will be ostracized."

Can you believe these words...in this century?

Can you believe that they are being communicated to a major news organization by a man of the cloth, a religious leader?

Can you imagine your pastor saying such a thing?

It is this type of spiritual leadership, set in this type of spiritual climate and culture, that causes such things to happen with shocking regularity in Iraq and across the Middle East.

The London Times article stated that, according to a 2007 mid-year report from the Human Rights Ministry (HRM) in Northern Iraq, "598 women have been burnt, beaten, shot, strangled, thrown from tall buildings, force-fed with lethal drugs, crushed by vehicles, drowned, decapitated or made to kill themselves so far this year, exceeding the 553 recorded for the whole of 2006."

Perhaps some of those methods would have been met by more approval by the Sheikh.

Keep in mind that the statistics above are just for Du’aa’s region alone, Northern Iraq, and for just the murders that were ultimately determined to be honor killings.

Dalia Dzay, the Head of Research Studies at HRM, reportedly told the London Times that, "The perpetrators are simply finding new ways of achieving the same grisly end, for instance by forcing women to set fire to themselves so that their deaths looked like accidents with cooking fuel."

Some sources put the true statistics on honor killings in Northern Iraq as high as three killings per day.

What’s in store for a culture that is driven by ‘honor’ to kill its teenage daughters?

In these areas, the scarlet letters of shame are also applied to the children of unapproved unions, the kids that have been abandoned by their parents to avoid such ‘disgrace.’

These children are waiting to be loved and accepted.

These children are the agents of change that can break down these satanic strongholds of false reputation and honor.

Du'aa (part two)

**WARNING: The following entry contains graphic descriptions and photos that many readers may find highly disturbing.**

Click for Du'aa (part one).

Her name was Du’aa Khalil Aswad. She was a seventeen year-old girl from a middle-class family in Northern Iraq and belonged to the Yazidi sect, a complex mix of Sufi Islam and ancient Persian religions.

The Yazidis and surrounding Sunni Muslims have an intense dislike of each other. They are not permitted to intermarry and often don’t even mix socially. Four months ago, a Sunni Muslim girl eloped with a Yazidi man. She, too, paid the ultimate price. A Muslim lynch mob hunted her down, set fire to the surrounding homes, and beheaded her.

Du’aa’s crime was that she fell in love with a Sunni Muslim boy, nineteen year-old Muhannad Ummayad. It’s a Romeo and Juliet scenario where secrecy and stolen moments defined their relationship. Knowing the condemnation they would receive from their respective communities, they planned to run away together and get married.

One evening, Du’aa took out the trash from the family home and just kept walking towards a new life.

The next morning, the phone ominously rang back at her home. An anonymous caller informed the family that Du’aa was with Muhannad. The caller said that he would kill Du’aa to "wash away her shame," but her father, Khalil, immediately enlisted the police for help in order to save his little girl from certain execution.

The young couple was subsequently found hiding in a grove of olive trees.

"I promise you I am still a virgin," Du’aa told her mother. "I did nothing wrong, Mama."

It probably didn’t matter. The perception and association alone would have been enough to eventually cause a death sentence to be issued.

Du’aa was taken to the home of Sheikh Sulaiman, the senior spiritual leader for their village. There, one of Du’aa’s uncles, along with the head of the tribe, demanded that she be killed to "cleanse the family honor."

Du’aa’s father vehemently protested and suggested that she instead be married to a cousin and exiled to Syria.

"She has committed a wrong for which she will be punished, but not through death," he firmly stated. "I refuse to have my daughter killed."

The uncle, however, as the family elder, said that he alone was the one with the authority to decide Du’aa’s fate.

It’s not clear whether the Sheikh handed Du’aa over to her uncle the next day, or whether the uncle forcibly removed her from the house. Regardless, she was dragged in a stranglehold to the village marketplace like an animal to slaughter. Painful wailing and screams accompanied her as she kicked and struggled for freedom, or to steal just a brief moment to be able explain her actions and attest of her virtue.

But she couldn’t break free of the razor claws upon her. There was no chance to utter voice to her innocence.

Her lot was sealed.

Her lower body was initially stripped to add to her humiliation and to symbolize the disgrace of her choice. She tried to roll and cover her extremities, but one man took the instant to kick her between her legs with such a violent force that one can imagine her pelvic bones shattering upon embedded impact. As the tremors of pain ripped through her frail body, Du’aa writhed and screamed in absolute agony. A similar incident would occur later also, after thirty minutes of savage stoning and kicking.

The killing resembled a sporting event with men whooping, hollering and cheering as the aggressors pummeled this poor girl’s slight body into the hard, unforgiving ground. The coliseum of men was set on only one possible outcome. There was no need for the thumbs up or down by the Emperor. The lions would have their fill this day.

Apparently, it’s shameful that Du’aa fell in love with a boy that was not of her tribe and sect. And it’s shameful for a woman to even show her bare legs in this part of the world. But evidently it’s not shameful to strip her, humiliate her, degrade her and sadistically murder her in full public view.

According to the Yazidi sect, it’s also shameful to even spit on the ground. But it’s seemingly not shameful to see that same ground soak up the hate-spilled blood of a seventeen year-old girl who had simply acted like many impetuous teenagers of her day. And it’s supposedly not shameful that such a thing is done by a girl’s very family - her uncle, brother and cousins – in the name of ‘honor.’

I have already written of the profoundly disturbing spectacle that occurred as this girl was slowly bludgeoned to death with course rocks and polished shoes as part of a ritualistic execution. It needs no further elaboration, other than to tell you that a cousin (maybe even the very one her father wished to marry her to) was the barbarian who ended the family ‘shame’ by bashing her skull with a cinderblock.

After the heinous act, two of her brothers had to dig Du’aa’s body out of a garbage pit in order to bury her in a simple unmarked grave. She was then interred with the bones of a dog in what was supposed to be the final act of humiliation.

But another affront was yet to come.

Du’a’s body was subsequently exhumed so that an autopsy could determine whether she had died as a virgin or not. Presumably, a verdict of defilement would exonerate the killers and give excuse to their actions. Such a finding would give further evidence of the necessity of an honor killing.

To us in the West, it’s inconceivable that a murder victim’s body would be assaulted one more time for such a purpose. It’s implausible that authorities would grant access for such an outcome to be determined.

However, the postmortem inquisition proved to not be the final insult.

Despite accusations to the contrary, Du’aa’s relationship was indeed one of purity.

She had never slept with Muhannad.

The righteous rise
With burning eyes
Of hatred and ill-will
Madmen fed on fear and lies
To beat and burn and kill

Quick to judge
Quick to anger
Slow to understand
Ignorance and prejudice
And fear walk hand in hand

- Excerpted from "Witch Hunt," by Rush

Du'aa (part one)

I simply can’t get her out of my mind.

Perhaps it’s because I’m a father of two daughters, with a third on the way.

Perhaps it’s my acute sense of justice and extreme unease with the many wrongs of this fallen world.

Regardless, she’s stuck in there, haunting my waking moments, assaulting my dreams.

During my global travels, I’ve seen my fair share of physical assaults. Men fist-fighting over unknown infractions in Thailand. Street boys wresting over rotten scraps of food in Uganda. Myself being mugged by knife-wielding thugs in Jamaica.

I’ve also seen the mob-violence mentality in action, most recently as enraged men surrounded a captured thief in Nairobi and beat him viciously with iron bars and the heavy butts of rifles. I’m sure he didn’t make it. There are too many other examples to list, but the commonality is that men were the primary perpetrators...and the primary victims.

I don’t intentionally try to lessen the magnitude of such things in my mind just because both the predators and prey are men. In fact, it all makes my blood boil regardless. But when the scenario is one of a man, or a group of men, bringing harm to a defenseless woman or child, that same blood turns to steam. There’s a whole different realm of righteous anger involved.

...And so when I saw the mobile phone video of the teenage girl being kicked and stoned to death in a macabre scene of testosterone-fueled gore in Iraq, my heart was trampled in a stampede of emotions and my inner outrage swelled to volcanic proportions.

Again, I initially looked at the scene through the lens of a proud father of precious daughters. My first response was one of sheer fright, shock and disbelief. Was this really happening? What if it were Faith or Hannah being mercilessly battered by those rabid cowardly men?

My second response was an overwhelming desire to hunt down all the vile creatures involved and, using Rambo-style tactics, eliminate each one of them from existence this side of eternity, sending them into a blazing inferno far more excruciating and enduring than the agony they inflicted on this poor girl.

These men - wicked men - were intent on destructing a fragile life while also capturing mementos on their camera phones, little blood trophies of their lust for brutality. How could they treat such an intense spectacle of torment as something to memorialize and boast in pixels? How could they be so blasé about the most tempestuous and terrifying moment – the final moment – of this delicate young girl’s life?

Meanwhile, police stood by letting it happen, perhaps even enabling it to happen. In one of the grainy video renditions, the police smile for the camera as the young girl is dragged past them in an ironclad headlock, and as the ensuing blood frenzy occurs just beyond where they stand and keep watch.

Blood was splashing.

Phone cameras were clicking.

Police were smiling.

Upon my return from Iraq, I did the research. I felt compelled to do so. I had to put a name to the face and context to the offending images. I figured that, with so many camera phones capturing the video and stills of this horrific event, there had to be some Internet reporting associated with it.

Sadly, I was right. There’s no less than five different video versions of this stoning that can be dug up on various domestic and international websites. They can be pieced together to show the full continuum of her pain and fear.

And with them, her story is told.

There are some discrepancies to the accounts, something to be expected when different religions, factions and worldviews are involved, each jockeying for shock value, rationale, explanation, or favorable opinion.

But the core facts are not in dispute.

To be continued...

World Orphans Weekly! - Return from Iraq

Dear Friend of the Fatherless,

Scott and I have just returned from a very eventful and productive trip to Iraq. Besides viewing the new World Orphans office there, we had the opportunity to meet with key leaders in government as well as interact with children that have been orphaned and abandoned in the country.

(PIERCING THE DARKNESS: The World Orphans office sign in Iraq)

 

(FOR THE LEAST OF THESE: Paul and Scott with some of the Iraqi children they spent time with)

We invite you to read the posts below to experience some of the journey and its achievements.

Thank you for your heart for the Iraqi churches, people...and orphans.

Nazis? – Obviously we were prepared to perhaps encounter militant Muslims on this trip, but Nazis???

Lost Sheep – A stopover in Jordan reveals a valley steeped in deception and betrayal

All – Sometimes you have to travel halfway around the world to hear additional perspectives on the Great Commission

Second Time Around – Iraq, a country of extremes

Potholes – The truth is often said in jest

Sowing Seeds: Mohammed and Jihad – Namesakes of Islam, receptive to the love of Christ

Kidnappers and Angels – A man avoids what he had once hoped to become

Circle of Tears – Not far from our location, a woman suffered the cruelest demise

Bastards (part one) – A derogatory term here; the shame of children there

Bastards (part two) – Oftentimes, you have to even implore the Church to have the compassion of Jesus

Close Proximity – Bombs to the left of us, bombs to the right. Fifty miles away, but a stark reminder of the dangers of the region

Cold Streets – Snow in Iraq? Street children have to endure harsh climate extremes

Gatekeepers (part one) – Not exactly the scene a typical tourist would encounter

Gatekeepers (part two) – Rolling out the read carpet for World Orphans

Art of Suffering – Blast barriers reveal the pain of the people

Each One a Treasure – The faces of the children

Return – The joys of traveling from a conflict-torn country

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.

Return

A city fifty miles away from where we were based on this Iraq trip has been called the "last stronghold of Al Qaeda in Iraq." It, and some other municipalities in the Northern provinces, has seen a heightened level of insurgent activity over the past few weeks.

Our departure clearly reflected this increased echelon of violence.

After going through a couple of security checkpoints, Scott and I showed up at the airport at 1:00 am, only to learn that our flight had been delayed. As this flight only leaves under cover of darkness late at night, the window of opportunity would be missed. The suspension ended up lasting a whole day, with the aircraft finally leaving at midnight.

During our second attempt, we went through multiple baggage x-rays and hand searches before being ushered out onto the tarmac. Not content to rely upon Iraqi security, two Jordanian security officers did a final – and very thorough – search of us and our bags right next to the plane. These guys were the real deal, easily passing for premium henchmen in a James Bond movie – very tough, stoic and down-to-business.

The plane carried no identifying marks – plain white and lacking airline logos or colors, almost like a UN aircraft but absent the distinguishing letters. The security officers boarded the plane with us, surveyed the passengers and guarded the exit. They then traveled on the aircraft to Jordan where, upon disembarkation, they oversaw us putting our bags into a mobile x-ray machine that had pulled up in a specialized truck.

Not allowed to go directly to our connecting flight because baggage simply couldn’t be forwarded, we had to once again enter Jordan, pick up our luggage, and go through all the security precautions involved in taking an outbound flight...including special hand searches of our bags once again.

Such are the travel procedures for exiting a conflict-torn country.

Scott and I thank you for the prayer coverage you have given us on this trip. Please stay tuned here at abandoned-orphaned.com as I continue some of my reflections concerning the visit over the next few days.

Blessings, Paul