PRAY FOR THE ORPHANS

What kind of games did you play as a child? On a recent trip to an orphanage in East Africa, I watched a group of kids play "the car alarm" game. An official had come to visit in his BMW. Kids crowded around, pressing their bodies close to the car ... until the alarm went off. Peals of laughter. Children scattered. Then they returned to do it again. The game went on for a long time. Little Charlie (not his real name) captured our attention. He had THE BEST smile!

I enjoyed watching, until I remembered the challenges facing these kids. All were HIV positive. Without medication (still not available in all areas), no child in this facility would live past the age of 15. It just never happened. In addition, most of the children had also lost one or both parents to HIV/AIDS.

Around the world, the problem of HIV/AIDS is so big, its hard to get our minds around. By 2010, the UN predicts that at least 25 million kids will have lost one or both parents to the disease. To put this in perspective, the number is nearly as many as ALL the grade school children in the whole United States. Can you imagine?

Though governments, social agencies, and even churches are attempting to help the situation, we still find whole villages in Africa where kids are running their families, where crops go unplanted -- and unharvested -- because there are not enough adults to work the fields.

What can we do in the shadow of such a huge pandemic? We must start with prayer. The problem is so big, the solutions seem impossible, while real kids TODAY, are living with the painful realities. Pray for God to give people solutions, medication, ideas ... and a heart to serve the needy. Pray for kids to find Christ and find hope in the midst of their challenges.

GOD LISTENS. GOD CARES.