Abandoned-Orphaned

Would You Press the Button? (part three)

We press that button in other ways also.

As we dwell within our entertainment-oriented, pleasure-seeking, self-indulgent domain, we ignore the plight of the world’s masses. As we give time and attention to the things that bring us materialistic or experiential satisfaction, we become apathetic to the mega-issues of our day.

We spend evenings absorbed by NBC, HBO and PPV, while people die in Darfur and the Congo. We fill our schedules with all manner of pleasurable activities and leisure occasions, while children are being raped for profit in Cambodia. We watch hundreds of hours of sporting events each year, while an emaciated worker is held in continual debt bondage to a brick kiln in India.

Where is our sense of outrage?

It has been numbed and replaced by the selfish pursuits of all that our culture has to offer.

Entertainment and material that "moth and rust will destroy" have been prioritized over giving time, attention and resources to our neighbors around the world.

Each time we tune into the next pointless TV show, instead of volunteering at a non-profit ministry, we are pushing the button.

Each time we splurge on trivialities and frivolities, instead of giving those funds to save a life in the developing world, we are pushing the button. We are choosing our pleasure over somebody else’s existence or well-being.

The 2006 American Time Use Survey, conducted by the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U.S. Department of Labor, revealed that:

On an "average day" in 2006, persons in the US, age 15 and over, slept about 8.6 hours, spent 5.1 hours doing leisure and sports activities, worked for 3.8 hours, and spent 1.8 hours doing household activities. The remaining 4.7 hours were spent doing a variety of other activities, including eating and drinking, attending school, and shopping. Watching TV was the leisure activity that occupied the most time, accounting for about half of leisure time, on average, for both men and women.

Obviously, an "average day" factors in weekends and the reality that some activities are only done by a subset of the population. It is therefore designed to represent "adult society as a whole." Given that clarification, doesn’t it appear that our society can give more time and attention to the problems of the world, if only by replacing a few hours of TV per week?

We obviously devote a lot of our schedule to shopping. We live in a country that spends over $3 Billion on fine fragrances at department stores each year (not including Internet purchases and regular perfumes); a country that disperses over $250 million annually on just mascara alone; a country that will pay $15 billion this year for pet food, four times the amount spent on baby food. We dish out further billions on pet toys and accessories.

Time we invest in watching reruns and purchasing fancy fragrances could be used to save lives. Money we spend on pampering pets could be used to rescue the street child that nurses off of a stray dog in Bombay.

We’ve got it all wrong.

We keep pressing the button.

To be continued...

Would You Press the Button? (part two)

I see the button as an allegory, a metaphor of sorts.

The fact of the matter is that we press that button every day.

As we go about our daily lives of comfort and excess, without consideration of how our choices and actions might impact others, we adversely affect ‘strangers’ the world over.

When we buy a new bathroom rug because the last one is apparently out of style, we keep an eight year-old boy, Rajan, chained to a loom in Nepal.

When we pick up a latte from our favorite barista, we fuel a conglomerate that forces Juan, a poor Costa Rican coffee grower, to sell at prices far below what would allow him to afford that same cup of coffee for himself.

When we buy the latest fancy T-Shirt with gold embossing at XYZ Casuals, we rob Ajay from ever leaving the cotton plantation that holds him and his sisters in perpetual bondage in South India.

When we go on an exotic spa vacation to Southeast Asia, we entrap Isra, a fifteen year-old Thai girl from the impoverished hill tribes, in a world of daily violation and exploitation.

When we visit that adult Website that our teachers warned us about, we enable pornographers to imprison a scared teenage girl, Imana, in a Burundian hotel room for three days, robbing her of her innocence and privacy.

When we choose to adopt a child from a country with a less-than-reputable child-placement program, we cause Esmeralda to reluctantly give up her new baby girl in Latin America.

When we select that rare hardwood for our kitchen cabinets because it nicely matches the existing wallpaper and is much grander than the neighbor’s remodel, we help to eradicate the ecosystem that sustains Daniel and his family in Brazil.

When we choose to get an organ transplant in Eastern Europe because the wait is too long in the United States, we cause the abduction of Serge, a street child in Moldova, and the subsequent harvesting of his kidneys.

Whether it’s the big and profound (organ transplants, Internet pornography, and international adoptions), or the seemingly trite and trivial (cups of coffee, T-shirts, kitchen cabinets, vacations, and bathroom rugs), we constantly enslave, maim and kill our neighbors around the planet.

What’s unsettling is that the facts are out there and are readily available. They can be researched with relative ease. But we simply don’t have the time and inclination to do so.

We’re just much too busy...and comfortable.

We keep pressing the button.

To be continued...

A Sense of Urgency

Our fourth stop to view church-based school programs being conducted amongst the ethnic Vietnamese living on the waterways in Cambodia, took us across the Mekong from the capital city of Phnom Penh. Here, set in the current against a small chiseled cliff on the opposite bank, sits a small community of boats and barges within eyeshot of the metropolis that preys upon its children.

As I was sharing and praying with the young students, two of our group spoke with the teachers. When asked how often children in the community are sold to traffickers, the response was an affirmation of steady frequency. The teachers then pointed out the two oldest girls in the classroom, aged 12 or 13, and stated that, "If they don’t get jobs and provide income for their families soon, they will probably be sold."

These same girls smiling for my camera lens in a school setting could very soon be forced to pose for pornographic photos as men repeatedly take advantage of them, up to twenty times per day.

Our minds went into action. The need for sound research and approach collided with an immediate sense of urgency. This is typically the case with such scenarios. One has to figure out the right culturally-relevant strategy and implementation steps through the local indigenous churches, but also acknowledge that, as each day passes, more and more children are placed in imminent danger. (Please view my related, ‘Green Lights’ post regarding this delicate balance.)

And so this is my promise:

We’re quickly going to assess trade-skill development programs that also provide immediate income opportunities for these older children as an alternative to being sold into prostitution. These programs will include capital equipment needs and micro-finance initiatives to then place fully-trained girls into positions of self-sustainability. As we evaluate the market opportunities for the goods these girls can produce, we will also open up western markets to them through inventive Internet-based tools.

After all, World Orphans not only seeks to respond to orphaning and abandonment, but prevent them.

........................................................................................

If you are interested in contributing to this pilot program that will be executed using trusted, experienced partners, please send donations to World Orphans and write "Child Sex-Trade Prevention" in the memo line of your check.

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

All contributions are tax deductible and eternally significant.

A Game of Thirds

After we rumbled down the dirt road and past the wooden houses on stilts at the shoreline, we came to an opening, a dock of sorts. There, we walked over deeply-cracked mud and boarded a longboat that would take us to the other side of the slow-moving Mekong.

Barges with homes built upon them were anchored close to the shore; just a few feet away from Cambodian soil, but a whole culture apart. Different language and customs. Common problems.

The motor’s rhythm was labored and irregular, but it was enough to propel us by this first cluster of refugees and illegal immigrants and across the dirty expanse to the opposite bank. There, we docked at a floating church that was running a school for children, many of them orphaned or abandoned.

Current estimates of the Vietnamese community in Cambodia range from 100,000 to over 2 million. Citizens of neither Cambodia nor Vietnam, many live on the lakes and rivers in flotillas, waterborne villages huddled together for protection and community.

We boarded the church where thirty or so children were diligently studying at rows of desks as part of a program funded by our hosts. The gentle rocking of the mobile vessel spoke of the villagers’ precarious position, caught in a land of prejudice, discrimination and persecution, but unwelcome back in the socialist land of their heritage lest they spark a counter-revolution.

To be Vietnamese in Cambodia, especially as one engaged in subsistence life on the lake or river, is to be a ‘yuon,’ a person regarded by most Cambodians as ‘lower than scum.’ Widely resented, these poor fishermen are frequent targets of political power plays and hate crimes. Various purges and sporadic attacks have brought death to them and their families, including the massacre of children in a floating video game parlor. Viewed as intruders, stealers of fish, and polluters of waterways, they are unwelcome guests in a culture where many seek to eradicate or expel them.

Lack of citizenship privileges, restricted access to basic education, social exclusion, illiteracy, limited trade skill opportunities, strong obligations to paying family debt, and extreme poverty all work together to attract the wolves. It’s no wonder that the children of these displaced Vietnamese communities are constantly preyed upon by traffickers.

The net result is a horrible game of thirds...

Over one-third of the 60,000 to 100,000 full and part-time prostitutes in Cambodia are under 18 and most are Vietnamese girls, many stolen or hoaxed into sexual slavery. The impoverished Vietnamese boat people are so desperate for income that one third of the families have willingly sold a child to sex traffickers in order to survive. Another one third has seriously considered doing so.

I scanned the children in rows before me and looked at every third child.

How many of them might be sold?

If not for this church-based education program, how many of them would already be in brothels by now?

World Orphans Rescue! - Portfolios (part two)

Here are just a few current opportunities within the World Orphans project portfolios:

(Image: Rescued child in India)

SECTOR: Infanticide Rescue
REGION: South Asia (India)
PARTNERS: Impact International, New Directions International
CURRENT FUNDING OPPORTUNITY: $450,000

DESCRIPTION: World Orphans has funded a fulltime representative to help identify and establish 15 church-based homes in an area of India known for large-scale female infanticide. Some of these children have already been rescued. Others are presented to our partners by midwives who are aware of a family’s intent to kill their baby if it is a girl. These children are literally saved from the grave.

(Image: Children of Iraq)

SECTOR: Children of Conflict
REGION: NAMEstan (Iraq)
PARTNERS: Major denomination not disclosed due to security reasons
CURRENT FUNDING OPPORTUNITY: $1 million
MATCHING GRANT: All funds received by November 15th, up to $300,000, will be matched 100%

DESCRIPTION: "World Orphans Iraq" has now been officially approved as a charity in Iraq. Our office there is currently being opened and we have been given full permission to establish the first church-based orphan homes in the country. Many abandoned and orphaned children now seek stability and security. This is your opportunity to make a personal difference in this war-torn country.

(Image: Young fatherless girl in Moldova)

SECTOR: Abuse and Exploitation
REGION: Eurussia (Moldova)
PARTNERS: New Hope International
CURRENT FUNDING OPPORTUNITY: $500,000

DESCRIPTION: Moldova is the #1 trafficking hub for persons in all of Europe and the world’s top exporter of forced child prostitution. Our partner is rescuing orphaned and abandoned children from the streets, as well as from institutions that would sell children into sexual slavery or for the harvesting of their vital organs. Our children’s homes are being established with churches that are situated in key regions of such terrible abuse and exploitation.

(Image: Children that have escaped the war in Northern Uganda)

SECTOR: Children of Conflict (Genocide)
REGION: NAMEstan (Sudan) and Sub-Sahara (Rwanda, Burundi)
PARTNERS: Operation Mobilization, ALARM, and a major multi-national organization not disclosed due to security reasons
CURRENT FUNDING OPPORTUNITY: $500,000
MATCHING GRANT: All funds received by Nov. 30th, up to $50,000, will be matched 100%

DESCRIPTION: Widespread ethic massacre has left thousands of first and second-generation orphans. Children that were orphaned years ago are now having children that they can’t support. Abandonment is rampant. More recently, churches have been destroyed. Pastors and their congregations have been butchered. These churches are being re-established and homes for orphans are being built to care for the children that were left behind.

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

All contributions are tax deductible and eternally significant

Wrong Side of Their Chests

In Moldova, there is an expression concerning greedy, corrupt men that exploit people for personal gain. It is said that they "have their hearts on the wrong side of their chests."

Most people in the world are right-handed. Moldovans will say that this dominant hand is the hand that grabs, takes, and strikes. To have your heart on the right side of the body, instead of on the left, would be synonymous with a repugnant heart motivated by self-advantage and avarice.

Moldova itself has also had a radical change in symmetry. Its heart has been ripped out and reinserted out of place.

Previously one of the wealthiest regions in the former Soviet Union, it now holds the distinction of being the most impoverished country in Europe. More than 80% of its inhabitants live on less than a dollar per day. Official unemployment sits close to 100%.

Cheap wine used to be the country’s greatest export. That has now been replaced by cheap prostitutes and human organs. Moldova is the #1 trafficking hub for persons in all of Europe and the world’s top exporter of forced child prostitution. According to the Tiraspol Times, "Moldova holds a dubious world record: The country is today the leading haven for pedophiles and for traffickers who earn fortunes enslaving underage kids in a brutal international sex trade."

Many of those trafficked kids are parentless children plucked from the streets and institutional orphanages.

(WHAT DOES THE FUTURE HOLD FOR HER? A young girl in a Moldovan state orphanage)

The Tiraspol Times also points out that:

"In Moldova, much of the flesh trade is done with government involvement."

A recent U.S. State Department report confirms that:

"Low and high-level government officials are involved in trafficking crimes. Moldovan authorities simply turn a blind eye and refuse to arrest or prosecute anyone."

PBS Frontline reported earlier this year that:

"With full knowledge and often even complicity of Moldovan government officials, young girls are torn from their lives and sold into slavery. The prosecution rate is abysmal. We know that there is a level of corruption; we know that there is bribery. But without the political will to address this, traffickers will continue to operate with impunity."

Leaders are supposed to serve and protect their citizens, especially those that are the most vulnerable – the children, the orphans.

In Moldova, however, too many of these so-called leaders simply have their hearts on the wrong side of their chests.

Tearing Down Walls

"Nobody can see what goes on behind those walls."

During a visit to the World Orphans offices on Friday, our Moldovan partner shared more with us about the abuses against orphans and street children in his country. Stolen and trafficked for pornography, sex and vital organs, these children are in a constant state of abuse and fear.

It is indeed a State of abuse and fear also. Corruption, perversion and poverty make Moldova the regional epicenter for the trade in the flesh of children. Crooked communist officials and orphanage directors are very much a part of the mechanism that drives this wicked marketplace.

(Image: Some of the children that our indigenous Moldovan partner ministers to)

Moldova is a culture of walls. Walls around homes. Walls around shops. Walls around churches. Walls around orphanages.

Walls keep prying hands and eyes out. When you live in the poorest country in Eastern Europe and have such little, you need to protect it. When you try to make money from a readily-available resource – orphaned and abandoned children - you need to protect it.

The communist government of Moldova manifests a culture of walls also. Things are done in secret. Dissenters are removed or killed. The communists will "dig under their foundations and collapse them," according to our partner. To be critical of the government and its allowances of widespread abuses equates to social or corporeal suicide.

You can’t attack these walls head on. Much like Jericho, you simply circle them and trust in the Lord’s power. You go about the destruction of the barricades by educating the people and showing them Christ.

Right now, and all through this month and next, our Moldovan partners are working in concert with some other ministries in an "Anti-Trafficking Campaign" throughout the country. These ministries have been allowed to go into schools to conduct presentations that raise the awareness of rampant human trafficking in the country. Tens of thousands of children will hear and know. Their towns and villages are also exposed to the banners, brochures and activities.

The government is allowing the program presumably to gain favor in the international community, to appear that it is on the side of good.

The greatest problem concerns the orphans of the streets and institutions. The school campaign, however, is all about education and mobilization. It’s about getting a ground swell of folks to eventually fight the injustices, to ultimately tackle the broader societal and governmental issues that perpetuate children being stolen, sold, enslaved and killed...behind walls.

It’s about tearing down walls, one brick at a time.

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

A Child Soldier's Story (Redemption and Testing)

Quite unexpectedly, Jeffrey was released from prison in Kampala after just three months. Three months in exchange for four years of terror.

While he was serving his sentence, Jeffrey told the establishment what he knew: that support and weapons were flowing in from Sudan; that Kony had a tight grip on thousands of children serving in LRA militias as soldiers or slaves.

Encouraged by Jeffrey’s cooperation, the Ugandan authorities tried to recruit him into the national army. Jeffrey’s constant reply was that he simply wanted to go to school to learn to be a carpenter. Perhaps his continued rejection of military service helped to convince his jailers that he had no further thirst for blood.

Although his family was dead, Jeffrey headed back to the only home he ever knew, Gulu. There, he kept encountering missionaries and evangelists who had flooded into the region to provide love, assistance and counsel. Jeffrey initially rebuffed their advances, but God kept tugging at his deeply-broken heart.

When Jeffrey became a believer, he stayed in Gulu to continue to learn the same trade as his Savior. Now blades were used to shape and create, not tear down and destroy. As Jeffrey worked the wood, he must have looked at those tools in his hands and thought of the weapons he used to hold...and thought of how much he had been forgiven.

One evening, Jeffrey entered into the village of his upbringing, the place where his father, mother and brother were all murdered on separate occasions by LRA troops.

He heard the rustling in the bushes but had no time to react. Besides, he no longer had a weapon to defend himself. As the LRA rebels flooded into the village again, he prepared himself for what was to come.

Jeffrey was once again a captive of the Lord’s Resistance Army.

To be continued...

A Child Soldier's Story (From Captivity to Captivity)

"Jeffrey, your mother has been killed."

"Jeffrey, your father has been killed."

"Jeffrey, your brother has been killed."

Over time, Jeffrey's family in the village was exterminated, person by person, by other squads of LRA rebels. When the last of them, his brother, was slaughtered, he asked his commanders if he could go into the village to see his body. He was escorted there and, upon seeing his younger sibling’s corpse, he fell to ground and exclaimed:

"My home is empty. There is nobody left."

"What am I supposed to do now?"

"I might as well be dead also."

"I am alone in this world. I am an orphan."

Jeffrey knew that he now had nothing to lose by attempting escape. If he died during the flight, it would mean that other lives would be saved, that no more people would have to die by his own hands. He no longer had a family to preserve. He no longer was held captive by the threat of their execution.

He started to plan his breakout.

His chance swiftly came.

During a particularly bitter gunfight with government troops, Jeffrey laid low in the bush and held his fire. He tried to preserve all his ammunition just in case he would have to fight his way out. At some point, he determined that the government forces were getting the upper hand in the battle.

As Jeffrey watched his abducted brethren and their commanders get annihilated, he positioned himself for surrender. After most in his attack group had died, he threw his arms into the air, right in the vicinity of Ugandan soldiers. He knew it was still a great risk. It was just as likely that they would gun him down anyway. But it was certainly a better option than running through the bush with two sets of guns trained at his back.

(SMOKE RISING. Scenes like this represented whole villages aflame in northern Uganda)

Many of these boys are viewed by Uganda as victims. Everybody knows that they were forced to fight under great pressure and after much conditioning to warp their minds, to pervert their sense of right and wrong. However, most of the population also knows that these children can rarely be adequately rehabilitated. They have been turned into killing machines. They have extinguished lives not just from afar, but as bound, naked captives stood right before them trembling, shaking. Such scars last a lifetime. Such scars may never heal.

(SIGN OF THE TIMES. Conflict infects and affects children)

Our Gulu missionary friends say that many of these boys and young men who have escaped from the LRA still end up committing the same wicked deeds. For years, all that these children knew were venomous acts - raping, killing, maiming, pillaging. They were socialized into a cult of destruction and hatred where everyday tasks of butchery became the norm.

Jeffrey’s arms were now in a position of supplication as he completely relinquished his fate to the unknown. It could go either way. He could be killed in cold blood, one less boy to try to punish and emancipate from evil conditioning, one less boy to continue to torment villages. Or he could be incarcerated for a long, long time.

From captivity to captivity, Jeffrey was taken prisoner.

A cold gun and a full cartridge probably saved his life.

(CHAIN GANG. Prisoners work by the street in southern Uganda)

To be continued...