Prayer for Street Children, Aug. 1, 2001

        "I sniff glue 'cause I have worries, and because I'm hungry and
have no food.  I don't want to sniff glue but I'm hungry.  Look at me (he
holds up his dirty shirt filled with holes).  People say I'm dirty.  I'm a
dog.  I don't like being dirty.  I want to be like other children, and to
be clean and go to school.  Everybody hates me.  Nobody likes Shadrack".
Words of young street boy.

        I heard these words on a TV documentary on street kids in S.
Africa. I saw the depressed faces of children whose hopelessness engulfed
my spirit, preventing me sleeping....  I saw Jane, whose baby has been
taken from her, maybe to be sold, and her expression of pain beyond words. 
Shadrack, quoted above, furrowed his eyebrows, (reminded me of our little
Vijay in Bombay), and cried big tears of dispair.  His inner agony was
unbearable.  No doubt his outward pain of hunger was too. 

        Shadrack told of how he once found an empty house, a shelter for
him and his friends to protect them from a little cold and from being
beaten at night.  This gave them a glimse of hope, but the police sent in
dogs to chase them out. "We are dogs", said Shadrack.  "The government does
nothing for us.  I want so much to be like other children.  I don't like
being dirty, being a dog....."  

        I only caught 4 minutes of the tail end of this documentary, and
only remembered the following names:  Shadrack, Jane, Jeff, Small, Vusi.
But there are millions EVERYWHERE.  It is deplorable.  It is terrible.  How
can it be?  How can we be living so well, and they be considered scum with
such suffering?  It is my PLEA to you to pray like never before, to
communicate, to sacrifice time to pray, to create prayer meetings, and to
really ask the Father to send forth laborers for these kids and all the
others.

        Please continue praying for the American couple who are supposed to
go to Russia to pick up the son they are adopting.  Pray for their
finances, their housing while they're there and for all the doors to open
for them.  Pray also for another couple who tried adopting 2 Ukrainian
children and it fell through.  Pray they CAN adopt.  It is God's heart for
Christian couple's to adopt, and the devil is making it mighty hard.  

        Please - let's show the children Jesus loves them by laying down
our lives for them.

        Burdened for the children,  

Janey L. DeMeo        

Founder/director of Orphans First, freelance writer.
ORPHANS FIRST website:  http://www.OrphansFirst.org/
E mail:  janey@...
Subscribe to the free weekly Orphans First prayer list:
http://WeLoveGod.org/digests/orphansfirst/ 

_______________________________________________________