For you and me, it is our great privilege to see what many in the developed world have not seen... a wide reaching body of people, struggling to survive, but moving forward in the best manner possible -- working hard every day to use all their available resources to minister to even more vulnerable people than themselves.
What a privilege indeed. I only wish I could transport you here to be with me in those moments when I am overwhelmed by how fortunate you and I are to respond in love to these cries for help. Moments like sitting with a dying woman, who helps look after 9 children and the church is ready to do what it can, yet praying for assistance to respond to this immeasurable grief & need. Or moments like watching a church collect used sewing machines, creating a great plan for how they will extend love to widows that need to find a way to create income, yet praying that God will provide a little money to help them repair these machines and make a way forward that will realize their hopes for these vulnerable women.
Or watching a child play without any knowledge that he has just lost his mom and dad to AIDS and may live on the fringe of death, without intervention from his local church -- who has time and energy to help, but lacks basic resources to provide for this child. Or watching an 82 year old man shout commands/chores from his bedroom at his 11 grandchildren... while KNOWING that his wife is sick, his last living daughter is dying in the final stages of AIDS and his last son rests on a mat, clinging to life, yet too weak to do anything but cry and wait to die from TB after AIDS has killed his immune system almost completely.
This family's local church sees the same in several neighboring homesteads. It has mobilized healthy men and women to come and pray with these families. They desire to do more... they desire to promise the child his basic needs will be met. They desire to tell the 82 year old man that God has answered his prayers and the needs of his 11 children are taken care of by the church.
The abilities and love of the local churches to respond are there. I've seen them on this trip and others. My role with all of this is to find trustworthy, Godly men and women who I believe are capable of making sure your dollars go far and meet the greatest needs faced by vulnerable kids and those that care for them.
This is our continued pledge to you... to seek wisdom from God, to continue seeing these needs and listening to the cries, separate the ones we think will benefit from your hard-earned money, and then work hand in hand with the local church to meet these local, dynamically changing physical & spiritual needs of AIDS orphans.
I wish you could see what I've seen. I wish you could have sat with me this week and last, as I cried out to God seeking peace for my troubled heart as I witness the worst of life, while clinging to the hope that others serving here have in our God.
I wish for you to join me in responding to these voices of people, crying out to God to provide for their needs, lest they slip away into mere statistics that we are all beginning to become immune to in our busy lives.
The opportunity you and I have to protect the tomorrows of these precious children and those that care for them is an opportunity we cannot pass up.
Thanks for choosing to follow me this trip. As I conclude in just 4 days and return home, I call on you to give as you are able.
Gifts can be sent to Forgotten Voices; PO Box 1368; Mechanicsburg, PA 17055-1368 USA. They can also be made online at www.ForgottenVoices.org.
It is with sincere thanks that I walk by faith in this journey with you, sending money to those in need as soon as we receive it. Thanks in advance for the way you will respond to these potentially forgotten voices, with voices too weak to break through our busy and preoccupied world. Thanks for being a voice for these stories.
Because if we are honest, these are stories we can't forget.
Peace to you,
Make today count,
Ryan
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