PRAYING FOR THE POOR

The sidewalk was only a block long, but the journey seemed like miles.

Walking from a guesthouse to a nearby market area, some friends and I needed to navigate through this sidewalk. We passed a heap of garbage. Mind you, all the good stuff (empty bottles, old scraps of food, pieces of cardboard) had been gleaned from the pile already. We passed by a man sleeping under a thin blanket. We passed another one with no blanket at all.

We neared a mother and her child. She urged the child toward us, instructing her to hold out her hand for coins. Then there was another child. And another. It seemed like an eternity before we reached the end of the block.

Poverty. On a recent trip to Ethiopia, this was just one of the experiences where we saw desperate, severe, nearly incomprehensible poverty.

Everything in me wanted to "adopt" each of the people we met along that sidewalk and help them. Many people visiting Ethiopia have felt the same. In fact, billions of dollars of aid have been poured into the country to alleviate hunger, provide education, make housing available, care for babies, and more. However, the patterns continue.

Even worse, in my mind, is the number of children included among the poor. About 500,000 kids live under $1 per day. 130 million do not have access to education. About 30,000 per day die from PREVENTABLE diseases (if only antibiotics, clean water, or malaria medicine were avialable).

In his incredible book “Too Small to Ignore”, Wess Stafford, says:
“At its very core, poverty is a mind-set that goes far beyond the tragic circumstances. It is the cruel, destructive message that gets whispered into the ear of millions by the enemy Satan himself: “Give up! You don’t matter. Nobody cares about you. Look around you: Things are terrible. Always have been, always will be …” (p 184)

What can we do? The list of possibilities is long. But it begins with prayer.

Pray for kids (and families) living in poverty to get the things they need ... today. Also pray that they will begin to experience the incredible life-changing love of Christ. Pray that they hear whispers of "You matter", "You are special", and "You can do this!". Pray for even more people to work for LASTING SOLUTIONS to helping the poor, rather than solutions that meet their needs for the day ... but never change their lives.

God hears. He will answer. He will help!

Believing God cares for kids even more than we do,
KIDZANA MINISTRIES