On Hope for Children
“Africa, your suffering has been the theme that has engaged and arrested my heart.
Your sufferings no tongue can express, no language can impart…..”
Wilberforce Anti-Slave Campaigner
I want you to look at these faces, they are faces of African children I know that have been saved from wretched, poverty stricken, disease stricken lives in Refugee Camps from various parts of Africa’s war torn countries.
They have seen unspeakable crimes, rapes, murders, theft, insanity, brutality and violence. They have seen the glint of moonlight on machetes, they have felt their bite in their dark skin. They have seen the sun shine on the barrels of machine guns as they point at loved ones. They have seen siblings raped, beaten and murdered. They have lost parents, grandparents, uncles and aunts, cousins and friends. They have known the pang of hunger, they have fought and scavenged for food, they have known greed through desperation and fear of missing out. They have known disease poverty and shame. They grew up without being children, and were adults in small bodies. Their parents clung to God when there was no hope.
They played with mud and sticks,bottle caps and rubbish in Refugee compounds with fences. They sometimes had nothing but tarpaulins over their heads, disease and poverty entrenched their lives with no real direction or vision. They fought elements but not in a home that belonged to them, a borrowed home.
When I see these children free in Australia, free to run, to play and just be children
I am filled with hope….
I see TEACHERS
I see LAWYERS
I see OLYMPIANS
I see PREACHERS
I see PASTORS
I see ATHLETES
I see CHILDREN WITH LIFE.
That is life, that is hope, that is what gives me fuel to my fire!
That is why I do what I do.
Remember this when you see African folks, remember the horror and remember that they are safe in our arms.
God made a way where there was none and they have new hope and life and MANY give glory to God.
Blessings
Cathy
