Our Part of a Pre-Emptive Strike

When the World Health Organization spits out a number like 148,000,000 orphans world-wide, it's difficult to even know how to respond. That number is staggering. We as a ministry have been realizing for the past year or two that we need God's creativity on this one, because it's time to start thinking outside of the box. We cannot house, feed, and educate 148 million children and teens, at least not in the traditional ways that we have done it in the past. In our attempts to reach out to orphans, there is a part of our heart as an organization that keeps challenging us to think about how we can do our part to "solve the orphan problem". Behind this idea is the thought that if you can reach the mother, or the family, and help them stay together, then we are in essence "solving the orphan problem". And of course it is easier to help take care of 30 mothers, than it is to take care of their 90 offspring, once they hypothetically end up in a children's home. So, here in Cancun, God has opened a door where we believe that we can do a little bit more of just that.

We have begun to partner with a program through the local government that provides services to teenage mothers, ages 12 to 17. Last week, with our visiting women's group, we were able to spend a couple of hours with these young ladies and their babies. We decided to throw them a Christmas Party. The women brought plastic boxes, complete with pink or blue lids, and then together we filled them with baby clothes, blankets, diaper cream, baby soap, lotion, diapers, and formula (according to the need of the particular babies, for those already born). We brought crafts, and we brought cameras and printers to take pictures of moms with their babies.

We set up a nursery area, where many of our visitors and our staff helped to take care of the babies so that the mothers could relax and get the most out of our time that we had prepared for them. We began with a skit. The skit was about a princess who had forgotten about her beauty because evil in the world had stollen it away. The prince, however, representing Jesus - rescued the princess from evil, and helped her to remember who she was created to be. Following the skit we gave them their gifts - and by a miracle of God there were enough boxes, right down to enough blue lids for those with boys, and pink lids for those with girls! The next chunk of time we allowed the girls to decorate their new boxes with their child's name, or however they wanted to. What struck me as I watched them was that for one small chunk of time we were allowing them to be "little girls" again. Their lives' experiences have stollen away their ability to be girls anymore, but I watched in awe as God gifted them the chance to be a girl, even if only for a short period of time. Following the decorating we set up a lunch to share together with them, while two women from the group shared their testimonies of Christ working in their lives. Both of the testimonies were quite powerful, and I found myself wondering how in the world we had gained this entrance into this government program, as well as wondering what on earth the workers must be thinking of us.

The young girls had a great time. They were blessed in many ways, and were extremely thankful for all we were able to do for them. The women who came to serve with us were blessed to serve, blessed to help hold babies, and blessed to be a part of giving to such brave young ladies. We as a staff were blessed with the timeliness of this group of ladies as we've only just begin building a relationship with them, as well as with this program.

We look forward to where God will continue to lead us with this program, and how He might allow us to be a part of this pre-emptive strike in the lives of this young women and their babies.