I’ve learned now that there are stories even the most broken are terrified of telling. Everyone – including the impoverished and burdened of Africa – has their highlight reel they’ve chosen to display in front of their reality. This week I was taken behind that and led to people with a story that has taken me deeper into the heart …
The Least, The Last
If you make it to a place as far Gulu, you need to understand there is a divinely appointed reason that you are there. It’s a place with no maps or structure, a place where time stands still among tall African grasses and primitive mud huts. It is a place from which two decades were stolen. Yesterday, I found …
Hope for the Journey
You have to see this to understand it. And when you see it, only through prayer and surrender to God, can you attempt to not be overwhelmed or even paralyzed by the need. And even then, it takes the wisdom, experience, and sometimes research to really grasp the complexities and the truly devastating effects of poverty, disease, hunger and thirst. …
Protecting Lydia
My son is in a school for children with learning differences, carefully protected by the support and therapies the school provides. I watch everything I say, to make sure my daughter grows up with a healthy understanding of herself and her image. I’m vigilant that my youngest child isn’t exposed to nuances that will encourage him to grow up too …
Happy 2015
I’m quite positive the year 2014 is one for the books. And as I reflect on the days and months that have passed this year, the words “thank you” hold a place of purity and beauty in my heart that I want to share with so many of you; because YOU have journeyed through this remarkable year with me. And …
Welsey’s Story
We were three hours away from the middle of nowhere on a hot November day in Africa. Drum beats coordinated tribal dancing and women who seemed to be 100 years old shrieked and blew whistles. The celebration was complete chaos as we prepared to give beds to 100 orphans in a remote village in Northern Uganda. That morning, the chaos …
Let Them Be One, As We Are One
I sat today across the table from American and German men who have never met each other, and share nothing but broken Russian and a passion for marginalized children of Moldova. As the man from Germany spoke of his conviction that now is the time to build family homes for orphan care I watched the other, a friend I had met …
Poison
Today, I heard too many times about parents who wanted to, or attempted to, poison their children. These are parents who so desperately cannot afford to care for their children that they see ending the child’s life swiftly as the only solution.
Pictured are Stephen and Peter – brothers who are 7 and 8 years old. They come from a family of 8 children and their mother could not care for them. Josephine initially found the boys picking through public trash containers, hoping to find scraps of food to eat. Unable to feed Stephen and Peter, their mother tried to…