When Children Suffer

Lately we have had to deal with many issues with the kids in Mitumba. More and more difficult situations are coming to light. More and more kids and youth are disclosing information about their lives. We are having to listen to stories of abuse. Beatings. Kids fearing for their lives because their step-mothers are trying to kill them. Kids running away to get away from the abuse. All kinds of atrocities that kids should never have to go through. And through it all, we are having to encourage them and point them to Christ while at the same time we ourselves sometimes question why God is allowing these things to happen to these precious ones.

This morning I was reading “Safely Home” by Randy Alcorn. If you have not read this book…read it! It is about the persecuted Church, and focuses on China. It brought me to tears, as it does every time I read it. It also gave me some perspective on God’s heart for His people, and in this case, children specifically. I want to leave you with an excerpt from the book:

The King drew them into the surface of His vast mind, that they could see what He saw - children abandoned and living on streets, abducted, beaten, molested, cut to pieces by men dressed in white, exterminated by human pesticides.
“See that you do not look down on one of these little ones,” the King said, projecting His voice toward the dark world so loudly it was heard on earth as thunder. “For I tell you that their angels in heaven always behold the face of My Father.”

The King pointed to a church custodian yelling at children unauthorized to play on the swings and chasing them away. “Let the little children come to me and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.”
The King spoke to people out for Sunday dinner after church, who turned away from the street children. “Your Father in heaven is not willing that any of these little ones should be lost.”

Then He watched a man and a woman taking children off the streets, bringing them into a building, giving them a warm meal and a cot and safe refuge, and telling them about their Master. On the other side of the planet, in Africa, He watched His people caring for children born with AIDS, many of them orphans now, or soon to be.
The King nodded His approval. “Whoever welcomes one of these little children in My name welcomes Me.”
He watched His people give children a warm bath, read stories to them, hug them, and laugh with them. He smiled broadly. “Thank you,” the King whispered, “for doing this to Me.”

He looked now at men plotting and stalking and taking pictures of children, doing to them the unthinkable. He looked at men herding frightened little girls together and selling them to foreigners. He looked at the men in white coats, driving beautiful cars purchased by the blood of children. He looked at those who inflicted the suffering. His eyes smoldered.
“I made these children. I took them into my arms, put my hands on them, and blessed them. And yet you scorn them, use them for your gain, treat them as disposable. It would be better for you to have a millstone tied around your neck and be thrown into the sea than to face what I will surely do to you.”

He looked now at others who turned their heads from the children, too busy to share a meal, a blanket, or a pay check. They did little or nothing to help the children, and he regarded their failure to help as the inflicting of harm. “To you who look the other way, saying My children are not your concern: Repent! For it is I you have turned away from. I will not forget.”

He gazed at another group of people, those watching out for and reaching out to and helping the children. He said simply, “Well done. Your reward shall be great.”
The King watched the children again, though the men knew He had never stopped watching them. For a moment He smiled, then laughed; then suddenly He saw something else. Tears flowed from His eyes; then they burned with blistering heat.
“Many on earth look away from the children,” said Li Tong to Fu Liko. “But the eyes of heaven never look away from them. Never.”

We truly believe that God knows what is happening to these kids. We believe that it hurts His heart when they suffer. We believe that it makes Him angry when they get abused and mistreated by people they are supposed to be able to trust.

Knowing this somehow gives us hope. Even realizing that it doesn’t mean their situations will change, but knowing that the Father knows. He has not turned His face away. He knows. And one day, He will make it right.

Please pray for our kids. They are suffering greatly.