By: Julie Nash
We recently celebrated day of the young child in Guatemala. It was my fifth time since moving to this beautiful country. Celebrating childhood is a concept that should be embraced by every adult around the globe. It’s something you can’t fully grasp the importance of until you grow up. For the children here it has even more significant. It’s taking a day to possibly, for a little while, forget what ugliness brought each of these children here and celebrate the healing that God is doing in their hearts. Was it starvation? Neglect? Or maybe even extreme physical abuse involving things that we don’t like to discuss? So here we were decorating, setting up games, filling the piñata. As we started, I looked up and saw a police truck driving straight up to the office. My heart froze. Hope of Life is all about saving lives. It’s just hard to grasp the fact that lives that need to be saved are not pretty situations. About seven police officers piled out of the truck and in the middle of them was a little boy. When a child is brought to the ministry this way, we know it’s from a bad situation. We were celebrating childhood and this little fella was able to celebrate.. what?
I recently found this promise in the Psalms,
For my father and my mother have forsaken me,
but the LORD will take me in.
I am praying this over him. Praying with confidence that the Lord sent him here so he can heal and grow to understand grace, mercy and love. To say the past couple of weeks with this little man have been difficult is an understatement. But we are daily seeing progress.. healing! God called us here to be a small part in saving the life of this precious little fella and so many more. This is why I will continue to celebrate young children.. because each life is worth saving. And maybe by this time next year, little man will be able to celebrate with us!