This past week we had a speaker named Janna Moats, she is the pioneer of the Women & Children’s Advocacy Centre. Her heart for children and the widows was so evident as she taught us about God’s intended purpose for all people.
She encouraged us to THINK LIKE GOD THINKS- ACT LIKE GOD ACTS. And she spoke about the value of children and how close they are to God’s heart.
As the week went by I learned about a charge that we have as Christians and that is to “Defend the cause of the week and fatherless; maintain the rights if the poor and the oppressed. Rescue the week and needy; deliver them from the hand of the wicked.” Psalm 82: 3,4
What I got most of the week was the importance of children and how much help they need to find their way back to God’s intended purpose.
What every child needs
What unconditional love looks like:
· Security
A child needs a safe place from where the child can explore- reliable secure and stable attachments
· Significance
A child needs to e valued, to be given meaning, to be an effective agent of change in their world.
· Boundaries
At the spiritual, emotional, physical and cognitive levels, a child needs boundaries to grow, to enable them to make sense of their world and to develop reliable concepts of right and wrong and of who they are.
· Community
A child needs to be part of a community from which he gains understanding of his identity and learns to give and receive.
· Creativity
A child needs creativity to be able to use all of their senses to express their internal worlds, not held back by adult concepts and words alone but enjoying the wealth of communication and listening in the world around us.
Children at risk, who I want to serve, are all Children (0-18 years) who because of their environment (family, political, natural) are denied basic human rights- such as food, housing, security, education and identity causing them to be in critical danger of missing out on the future and hope God intended for them.
I believe with all my heart that God wants to restore this children, He wants them to be able to go back to their childhood and dream again. And I want to be a part of the process.
Jeremiah 30:3 says “for behold, the days are coming,’ says the LORD ‘that I will bring back from captivity my people Israel and Judah,’ says the Lord. ‘And I will cause them to return to the land that I gave to their fathers, and they shall posses it.”
I believe God wants to free all of the children from any danger. And I am excited to be used by God this next three months.
The greatest challenged I faced last week was Isaiah 1:16-17
“… cease to do evil. Learn to do good; seek justice, rebuke the oppressor; defend the fatherless, plead for the widow.” This is a something God asks us to do, and so many times I am afraid of what people might think, or that I will fail. But it is not about me, I learned that I need to let go of myself and let God work thru me.
God has put children at risk as a burden in my heart, and I am excited for whatever the future has for me while I work and serve for the children that have been abused hurt or abandoned. God has been so faithful to show me his way till now, and I trust that he will keep doing so as I continue to learn more here in Costa Rica.
