"And whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me." Matthew 18:5
or...
"Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widowsin their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world." James 1:27
For several weeks, I have been hot about the Unaccompanied Children Crisis in America, and our government's lack of response/ lack of compassion for these CHILDREN.
I mean FURIOUS.
I usually have to do some kind of cool down after thinking about it, or reading articles which state that our Iowa Governor believes these "Illegals" are breaking the law, and should be sent back to the countries they are fleeing from.
Let's get this clear: These CHILDREN are not criminals. Many can't even begin to grasp the idea of the laws of immigration. (I have tried to explain the laws to my six and four year old, and I don't even know the language to begin to explain it...) They know only that they have been told that their lives will be better here in America.
These kids have seen conditions that children here in America can't even fathom, worse crimes than our kids experience in their nightmares. Their waking hours become living nightmares, simply because they were born into a region so corrupt and violent.
And we can't do anything about it?
I see our country, with our fancy cars, our designer clothes labels, spending millions on entertainment, beauty products, eating expensive dinners at restaurants. Our government sends weapons to countries in their own wars. In fact, our dependancy on drugs has lead these Central American countries into ruin.
But Im not here to debate politics, or belittle our "American" consumerism.
Im here because there are over 50,000 children in our country today that are displaced. They need homes. They need food. They need education. They need to be secure and feel safe.
THEY NEED LOVE.
They don't need to witness the racial discrimination, or be told they need to go back to where they came from by people who have never experiences the torment of where they fled from.
Who are we to further break these kids' hearts? They have listened and obeyed as their parents, their only caregivers, told them that they needed to leave their homes, leave their families, travel through dangerous lands, to get to this country of hope called USA.
I can't imagine what these children have gone through physically, but even worse, emotionally.
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| Is it only me that thinks these "holding cells" look like dog kennels? Not acceptable for these children! |
I am a foster parent. I see the damage, emotionally, that children being separated from their biological families can bring. Even when their families were harmful to them. It creates such an emotional devastation. I can't imagine if these kids were feeling like they were being abandoned as their parents told them they needed to go so far from home, they needed to leave them, and possibly never see them again.
And for what?
For selfish, compassionless people to tell them that they can't stay here?
Call up foster parents in this country. Call up families looking to adopt (by no means, do I believe that taking these kids in means they will be adopted...just seeking families with a heart for kids who aren't their flesh and blood). Call up grandparents.
But most importantly, CALL UP THE CHURCH!
We know the basic Christian principles are LOVE and to care for others. We can do that. (I understand it is sometimes hard to truly love your impossible co worker, your scrutinizing neighbor, your controlling mother in law...but thats what we are told to do, right?)
These are thousands of children who won't want much. They don't know much other than poverty, violence, crime. They want safety and love.
Cant we do that?
I will. I will house children if the opportunity arises...
I will feed them, give them a soft bed to sleep (and not those aluminum sheets they are being given in the holding cells that we've been seeing on the news!)
I will give them a family, a safe environment, education and Jesus.
I will make sure that no matter where they go in the future (or even if they stay right in my home for years) that they know of His love. No matter what the circumstances they have faced or will have to face, God loves them...so much that His only Son died for them. (Not JUST you and me. Not just American Christians.)
And I will love them. My family will love them. And my church will love them like they do my own children.
Can't more people do the same?
Is a child such a burden to our materialistic society?
God says each child is a blessing.
We should have faith like a child, He says.
My hope is that their child-like faith is not crushed by our unwilling, desensitized, faltering government and a society who feels if they aren't "one of us" we shouldn't help.
