Orphans First Prayer Requests July 18th 2001
FRANCE
* Some friends recently took 9 year old neighbor boy, Jimmy, swimming
with their son. Jimmy is often seen sad, frightened, and the cries of his
alcoholic mother screaming, and ranting as she beats him are heard through
the walls. My friends noticed Jimmy has cigarette burns on his legs. He
also wore no underwear and shows signs of negligence.
* Another boy, Christopher, has no mother, is mistreated by an
alcoholic father, is rejected by everyone because of violent reactionary
tantrums, and cries himself to sleep in anger, frustration and longing for
love.
In France, as in the USA and elsewhere, there are so many children
like this. The dilemma is that if we tell the Welfare system, the children
could be taken away from their parents and put through more suffering.
They would be given proper food and clothes, but the welfare workers here
are 'not allowed' to show love to the children for fear that would make
them get too attached, not objective in their "work". Furthermore, kids
are often moved from foster home to foster home, always living in
apprehension of the "new parents" etc. It is traumatizing. There are also
more and more cases of pedophile workers, and perversion in these homes.
So, what do we do? We can't ignore the obvious sufferings these children
have. Please pray for these children, and pray God provides a solution,
and gives us wisdom.
* A 14 year old boy, A****; cried himself to sleep when his father
was forced by his boss to cancel a promised vacation. The boy, already
devastated by the divorce of his parents, and very hardened to the Gospel,
told his friends he was looking forward to this vacation with Dad. Now, it
all blew up, the boy's dreams again destroyed, more disappointment,
bitterness and another reason to not believe in God. Pray for him, and pray
for all the children who live such heartache from divorce, disappointments,
injustices, loneliness, etc.
* Meanwhile, France is keeping her reputation and as papers are being
handed out to kids and teens with explicit instructions and pictures
showing them how they can enjoy "love" during their vacation time without
getting AIDS. The papers, of course, make it look quite normal to be a
young kid, and to just have sex with someone you just met on vacation.
Sick. (A similar paper was included in my daughter's envelope of
Baccalaureat grades, encouraging her to party, not overdrink and especially
to use condoms which promised in no way to prohibit her pleasure). Double
sick!
Pray for France's children. Pray for abused suffering children
everywhere. (If you want to read an inspiring story showing us why and how
to pray for the children, read after this line). Please read on......
For the children,
Janey L. DeMeo
Founder/director of Orphans First, freelance writer.
ORPHANS FIRST website: http://www.OrphansFirst.org/
E mail: janey@...
_______________________________________________________
MISTY
My husband recently brought me home a kitten. Actually, he handed
me a nicely wrapped package. I opened it to find a yellow tea-pot (I don'(
even drink tea). In the tea-pot was a fluffy white kitten, looking just
like the mousse on my cappuccino.
Now, apart from staging a war-zone in our household among the
already existing cat, Bijou, Princess the dog, and Tommy the tortoise,
Misty has been a blessing. Like most gifts, and like all of God's
creation, this tiny feline ball of mischief has taught me much.
This week, while my husband, daughter and son are church-planting
on the west-coast of France, Misty has stuck to me like glue, seeking for
affection, apparently missing the others. At night she not only sleeps on
my bed, but actually tries to put her face on my face (against my better
judgment and hygienic preference). Even though I move her, when I wake
she's moved up to be as near my face as possible. In the morning, Misty
shares my Bible reading time (very smart cat), and "kisses" my chin,
purring. I mean, she just explodes with love. When I get to my computer,
she snugs on my lap, and curls up (she's there right now), sleeping. If
she runs away to play, she runs back, gives a little high-pitched squeak,
leaps on my lap, kisses my face, then runs off again, apparently satisfied
that Mom's around. She seems to have an insatiable need to be loved.
Now, my point is this: If she, as an animal, has such a need to be
adopted and loved, how much more all the abandoned children? If you
meditate on that just a while, you'll find yourself crying. Do it please.
Imagine the millions of orphaned, street children, with no-one loving them,
only people brutalizing them? There are millions? And millions. They
have no love, and live with an empty cup perpetually. They have no arms to
snug up into, no-one to kiss and be kissed by, no sense of security, but
only fear, pain, hunger, hopelessness. So what can we do?
We must let this break our hearts, put DELIBERATE time aside to
pray, to weep, to intercede and implore God's compassion for these
children. We must colabor through compassionate, willful prayer. This will
not happen unless we CHOOSE to embrace the burden, to muse on the horror of
the children's plight and to pray purposefully, clearly, frequently. Pray
what?
* Pray for laborers to love the children, skilled, gifted Christians
to adopt the children, and work with them.
* Pray for more Christian adoptions, orphanages, children's homes,
foster homes, street works etc.
* Pray for every single church to GET INVOLVED somehow,
* Pray for more prayer warriors,
* Pray for God to take suffering children Home to Heaven quickly,
painlessly to deliver them from their pain,
* Pray for God to break our hearts, and the hearts of MANY so we will
HEAR Him tell us what to do,
* Pray for Orphans First to expand, and to not have a lid put on it
in any way, and to have all its administrative and structural needs met.
Thank you for reading this. That shows you care.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------