Food for Thought

Recently I have been hearing the needs of some developing countries. Yes I know there is need here too in our developed country, but being in a developing country just has a different layer to it. In our country we do have financial aids to help if the need ever did arise. We do have people in our country who have a poverty mentality, but that seems more prevalent in a developing country. What I mean by a poverty mentality is that a person thinks in such a limited way that they are really hurting their chance to improve their situation.

But the ones that truly break my heart are the kids who do not have a choice. God has made them so they need to be dependent on adults to supply their basic needs. I watch my daughter and see how she expects food to be there simply because she knows me enough I will feed her. She doesn’t worry about the lack of finances and waiting for the next cheque to come in before going grocery shopping. She just relies on me to take of care of it. And this is how it should be.

But there are far too many children who have been neglected, abandoned and orphaned who do not have that adult to supply their needs. And not only their physical needs, but their emotional and spiritual as well.

When I see how these little ones are hurt in such a way it makes me appreciate my situation and want to help them all the more. You see as an adult I am supposed to be concerned about where the food is going to come from (or at least the money that will buy it). I am motivated to get up every morning to work so I have a roof over my head, clothes on my back, running water, electricity and heat. Those are just the essentials and I know I take care of way more than just the essentials. However these little ones who have to fend for themselves or have an institution or structure to provide it for them, it just creates traits in a child that they should not have.  At the very least they are missing their childhood, and at the very most they are in survival mode with many other issues in between.

The institutions and structures who are sincerely trying to help these kids and eventually get them into a proper healthy family structure are definitely ones I support. Perhaps these are not the best for the kids, but at least something is being done. And that is why it breaks my heart all the more when these institutions who are trying to help these kids also experience many financial constraints, spiritual constraints and emotional constraints…many who sometimes do not see any hope of change in the near future (or distant future).

For the most part I do not have to worry about where the next cheque is coming from. They are lined up. I have opportunities here that others in developing countries may never see. I do not have certain obstacles that others have to continually face on a regular basis. And seeing that God has blessed me in a different way definitely does not want me to sit idly by. I desire to continually ask where God can use me. Be it here or wherever He has in mind. He obviously placed each and every one of us here for a reason.