BROKEN AND BEAUTIFUL.
For myself and Hearts that Hope I have a much bigger dream than just starting and running a children’s home. I long for people to see the love of Christ through me as we raise these children and I want them to start doing the same. So with this in mind I write this blog…
Our churches are filled with families. These families are a mix of happy and hard, hurt and heroes, peaceful or hostile, and claiming faith does not protect you from the brokenness of this world. I want us to see ourselves and the people around us as God sees us. I’m reminded of a song that my wife downloaded and my daughter, Snow plays everyday on the way to and from school, BROKEN AND BEAUTIFUL by Kelly Clarkson.
We are all the same to God, just a bunch of broken and beautiful people that He dearly loves. So I plead with you to see the children around us the same. To not lean the way our parental tendency may lean us toward protecting and providing for only our OWN children. I urge you to consider the blessings that God has given you and your family, as not simply for your own comfort and your provision as a family but as a tool to impact the life of another child who does not have his or her parents providing for each comfort and every “need”.
We as the church have already been called to care for the orphan. I would like you to consider how you can get involved and be an answer to a child’s prayer. I have seen this growing more and more back home in the USA and would love it to take root here in South Africa as well. I dream of families getting involved in the foster system and looking into what it would look like for their family to foster a child in a desperate situation. It is quite a simple process in South Africa to become a foster parent and I would love for people to contact me and register their family as a foster family so when I get the 3 to 4 calls a month from social workers I could point them in a direction of a family that would be willing to look after the orphan in our area.
I long for people to not lean into the comfortable but to walk into God’s adventure by welcoming a child from a hard place into their home, with their children, their neighbours and their families.
My prayer is that husbands and wives would open their hearts to the idea of fostering and start by taking the simple steps to become a foster parent and let God shut the door if it’s He will. So often we wait to be “called” to something when God has already asked us to look after the widows and orphans and those in need.
Please consider and pray about becoming a Foster Parent to one of the broken and beautiful children who needs of a loving home and family. Or if you know someone that is doing it consider helping them out financially. We can and must all do something.