JMI has borrowed this expression of William Wilberforce to remind us who we’re seeking to serve when we set up services in various countries. We’re searching for the least, the last and the lost, particularly among orphans and acutely vulnerable children.
In May of this year, our search took us to the Amazon River in Brazil for an exploratory trip with an organization called Ray of Hope. Along the flooded banks of the Amazon we heard story after story of tragedy and need.
The story that touched me most deeply was from a very young mother with an infant and a three year old son. Her husband had abandoned her late in her ninth month of pregnancy along with her son into a battered old canoe and pushed them off into the blackness of night before the morning sun could light her way. About 6 a.m. the canoe began to sink. Her son couldn’t swim, but was treading water as best he could to keep his head above the murky waters. Providentially, a man in his boat was making his way along the edge of the jungle and was able to rescue them, taking them to his village where the mother delivered her baby. It’s where they live now through the compassion of an extended family with barely enough resources to care for themselves.
In June and July, JMI will host two Rolling Hills Community Church teams and a team from Bellevue Community Church to do summer camps for orphans in the Republic of Moldova. We will also take in a group of new girls into our transitional living facility, Grace House. All of these children face an uncertain future…one, the likes of which we can scarcely conceive for ourselves.
It’s all a sobering reminder of our own good fortune, the responsibilities that come with privilege in life and how much we struggle against being least, last or lost.
You’re invited to join us in the most interactive ministry imaginable. At times, it can be messy, heartbreaking, scary and beyond anyone’s control. It can also become the reason for your existence, totally fulfilling and consuming most of your thoughts and prayers.
Write me (steve@justiceandmercy.org) to find out how you can start making a difference in a child’s life and see how that child can make a proportionately equal difference in your own!
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