Love's Reach Blog

Have you ever wondered what God looks like? I don’t mean physically - I can look at anyone on the outside and never really know them for who they truly are; as the saying goes, “don’t judge a book by its cover.” What I’m asking is, have you ever wondered who he really is?  I’m talking about his character, who he is on the “inside”.  

Let me give you a peek at the heart of God.

“A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows, is God in his holy dwelling.  God sets the lonely in families...”  Psalm  68: 5-6

“Defend the poor and fatherless:  do justice to the afflicted and needy.”  Psalm 82:3

“Learn to do right; seek justice.  Defend the oppressed.  Take up the cause of the fatherless...”  Isaiah  1:17

“Do not move the ancient boundary stone or encroach on the fields of the fatherless.”  Proverbs 23:10

“Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.”  James 1:27

“Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.  Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?  The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’  Matthew 25: 34-36

This, of course, and obviously, is not a comprehensive, didactic theologic overview of God, but an intimate glimpse at the creator of this world, the creator of you and me.  Whatever else you may think or know about God, this one thing you can be sure of:  His heart is for the fatherless.  He deeply cares, and I mean deeply cares, about the hurting, the downtrodden, the weak, the poor and those suffering oppression.  

And here’s the amazing thing... He uses us to be his hands and feet upon the earth, bringing hope and light to every dark place.  Spain’s Teresa of Avila has been attributed with writing the following, echoing this very truth,

Christ has no body now on earth but yours, no hands but yours, no feet but yours.  Yours are the eyes through which to look out Christ’s compassion to the world.  Yours are the feet with which he is to go about doing good; yours are the hands with which he is to bless men now.

So I guess, now that I think about it, I have seen God.  I’ve seen his heart in action, through many who have looked after the orphans, taking up their cause, defending them, being their voice and loving them, when they had no one.  Now that is a beautiful thing to behold.

Come and join us. Be part of something bigger than yourself, something that’s bigger than any of us as individuals.  Be part of a story and adventure that is woven in the very fabric of God’s heart.   

On Behalf of the Children,

Kevin

Let me give you a number...  1.2 million.  That’s the number of children who are pulled into child sex trafficking every year.  It’s really a mind-boggling number and for all of the work being done on behalf of these children by many wonderful organizations, there are still so many who don’t have any idea about what evil is being perpetrated not only around the world, but also here in America’s backyard.

Child sex trafficking is a $32 billion a year business and it is growing at a staggering rate.  Did you know that it is only surpassed in size and scope by the illicit drug trade as the largest global crime?  Did you know that it is expected to pass the illicit drug trade by the middle of 2011 as THE largest global crime.  For me, that is almost incomprehensible, though sadly it makes sense.  You see, a line of coke is gone after one use.  However, a child can be used up to 40 times a day for sex and have a useful shelf life of 10 to 20 years.  To the people exploiting these children, a child is not a sacred life but simply an object - a means to a good living. Does it make you sick to read what I just wrote?  I hope so.  It makes me sick just to write it.  

Orphans and vulnerable children are those who are most at risk of being pulled into this horrific business.  These are the kids we’re working to protect.  We ask that you’d pray for these children and consider donating to help us as we will be working domestically in Atlanta, Georgia, the hub of the child sex trade in the United States, as well as other opportunities we’re finalizing internationally to include rescue operations and rehabilitation for traumatized children.  

Please check our website over the next couple of months to get more detail on how you can get involved!

On Behalf of the Children,

Kevin

147 million children with no place to call home and no one to call mommy or daddy is really hard to comprehend.  I have a hard enough time keeping things straight between my own six kids.  Often times people feel defeated by the overwhelming amount of orphans that exist.  I mean, how can one person, or for that matter, even a group of people, really make a difference with so many orphans out there.  I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard someone say something along the lines of, “with so many orphans, why should I give or help, it’s really not going to make a difference anyways.”  

Well, it’s all perspective, and if I view the orphan crisis from a 30,000 foot view, it does look intimidating, if not unchangeable.  However, if I look at it in terms of one child, it becomes quite a bit easier to digest and handle.  I can wrap my head around one person, or maybe even a few.  That I can do.  I might not be able to help 147 million children, but I can certainly help one.  

This past year, our family has been working on simplifying our lives.  We’ve been looking at our spending habits, our budget and ways in which we can eliminate the excess that so often defines the culture of the West.  As we’ve honestly examined ourselves, we’ve come to realize we have so much we really don’t need and so much more we could be giving and doing to help the lonely and hurting.  Do I really need to spend that extra $9.99 to download that new CD from iTunes?  Do we really need to rent another movie for $4.99 from Blockbuster or can we just watch something we already have or something that’s on TV?  Do I really have to have that mocha or espresso from Starbucks or Caribou two or three times per week at $4 to $5, instead of making coffee at home?  Now I LOVE coffee, but do I really need it that much, every time from Starbucks... Really?  I’m not saying that we’ve eliminated every creature-comfort we enjoy, however, we have begun to cut back, and will continue to do so.  If we eliminate a few mochas a month, one movie rental, an iTunes download and one dinner out as a family, we can now help save the life of a child, if not two or three.  

Mother Teresa put it this way, “It is a poverty to decide that a child must die so that you may live as you wish.”  Ouch!  That’s quite an indictment on most of us I would assume.  And please know, I’m not writing this in condemnation of anyone, I have too much to worry about regarding myself.  I just want to encourage all of us to take a moment and see if there are some “wants” in our lives that we are allowing to pose as “needs”.  If there are, consider scaling back on a few things each month and truly be the difference between life and death for one of the orphans we serve in China or Swaziland.

On Behalf of the Children,

Kevin

I don’t want to live passively… and I hate it when I do. At times I feel like the proverbial “deer in the headlights”; frozen, numb, ineffective, lifeless. Why is that? What is that?

To add insult to injury, I decided to check a Thesaurus for the word passive and it gave the following synonyms: inert, inactive, unreceptive, reactive and flaccid. All tremendous words of strength and courage, right? Honorable attributes to which anyone would surely aspire. Hold on one second, flaccid? Really? I now view myself as a limp NY strip about to be laid atop the grate of my grill and seared at a fiery 700 degrees. And here’s the problem… this plays out in so many places, in so many ways, every day of my life. I need to ask for my wife’s forgiveness for wronging her, but instead, out of pride, I’m silent. I have a huge project at work, with many moving parts, and fear of not doing it well strikes me, and I’m immobilized and I procrastinate. I want to sit down and write, but all I etch out is two sentences in two hours because my mind drifts to thoughts of food, last night’s episode of the Amazing Race and renewing the tags for the cars by the end of next week.  After a long day at work, I finally arrive home and my son runs up to me and begs me to play Legos with him before dinner and I tell him, “no, not now, maybe tomorrow, Daddy’s tired”, and I sit on the sofa to catch the nightly news for 15 minutes before dinner. I’m driving down the road, and as I’m approaching the exit towards my home, someone turns on their blinker to merge into my lane because they need to exit too, and I pretend like I don’t see them and speed up just enough so that they can’t make it in, at least in front of me. And so it happens over, and over, and over, and over.

Does this happen all of the time? No, but I wonder to myself, how often do I live passively and don’t even realize it? On the day-to-day it’s easy to fall prey to those choices, those paths of least resistance so-to-speak, and not even recognize it. It’s subtle. And it’s also destructive; sometimes to others, sometimes to me and sometimes to both. It can destroy the respect of a wife, the hope of a child and the trust of a friend. It weakens my spirit and my resolve. It creates cracks in my character or rather enhances those cracks that already exist in the clay that is my life. And I certainly don’t need any more of those.

So all of that said, how DO I want to live? Well, I want to live intentionally. Tireless. Life is precious and our moments are fleeting. I want mine to count. Everything I do matters. It matters immensely. I don’t want to live weak, but strong. Jesus made it quite clear that I’m no longer my own. In fact, this life isn’t about me at all, despite what I may think. A day will come for me to rest, but until then, I have much to do, and the funny thing is that I’m most fulfilled when I’m looking outside of myself and serving others.

Singer/songwriter Bruce Cockburn wrote, “Nothing good comes without a fight”. Join me, as we fight on behalf of the orphaned and vulnerable kids around the world. Let’s not be passive and apathetic, but broken by their plight, and by choice be intentional, living lives of purpose and courage as we make a true, tangible and substantive difference, one child at a time.

Will you join us?

On Behalf of the Kids,

Kevin

This is the face of the voiceless... Actually it's one of millions who have no voice.  These precious children, the orphans and vulnerable children of the world, live in a paradoxical tapestry of hope and desperation, interwoven deep in their souls.

This blog, Project823, is taken from a great book called Psalms that charges us to "Defend the weak and the orphans; defend the rights of the poor and suffering.", and it's one of the many voices we use to speak on their behalf.  And make no mistake, the fields of the fatherless are weak, poor and desperately suffering.

Join us as we daily make a true and tangible impact in the lives of orphans and vulnerable children in China and Africa.  These children deserve our best effort, that we would "shout from the rooftops" about their story, about who they are.  All I know is that if I was in their place, I'd hope someone would do the same for me.  With estimates ranging between 145 and 150 million orphans worldwide, our work will never be done.  So jump in and let's make a difference!


On Behalf of the Kids,

Kevin