After a week of visiting many great care points and listening to the local ministry staff share their needs, and the dreams I desired to compile a simple mnemonic that would help my mind grasp the issues faced by the people ministering to the orphans and vulnerable children in these places. As I continue to process the memories of the sights and words from the trip I realize that a simple ABC solution well sums up the immediate needs faced by those working on the ground in Swaziland.
Appetites - Clean water and basic food should be considered a minimum human right in a world our resources. Yet the reality is this is not a human right, and were it not for the work of organizations like Children's Hope Chest and the tireless daily effort of the missions staff of AIM 1000 of orphans and vulnerable children in this country would goto bed without a meal every single day. One can not claim to have the Love of Christ in him and turn a blind eye to the starvation of fatherless children.
Basic Education - The future of Swaziland will look like the history of Swaziland if nothing changes. A starving child needing to be fed and cared for will grow into a starving adult if the future of life has no prospect. Survival is only an education for survival. The future of these fatherless children lies in eqipping them with the skills to transition into successful adults. Aid that stops at the full stomach is incomplete and merely procrastinates the need for long term solutions.
Christ - Kingdom building to starving children that wants to start here is doomed to fail. The presentation of God's redeeming power must come sequentially after food and education. These orphans must be redeemed from their destiny of physical starvation before they can shown the redemption of Christ. Swaziland has no future except for the hope of Christ being instilled into the young people at the Care Points. The heart change that calls these orphans to live differently than their culture will cause them to be a remnant in a dying people. Christ must be first demonstrated through programs that meet the physical and mental needs of these fatherless children, then ultimately preached as the fulfillment for the spiritual starvation around them.
This is the ABCs, the first building blocks of a future I learned Children's Hope Chest is working to provide in Swaziland. CHC needs partners, to join them in the construction of this future. But, we'll talk about those partnerships in another post.
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