Hope for the fatherless

As I looked upon Vivian on Sunday, with blood dripping from her fingers and tears streaming down her face as she stood over the toilet trying not to shake or weep, all I could think of was “where is her mother or her father?” and “what is she to do without a mother to take care of her?” Yes, she has Auntie Aggie, Brendah, and Maureen, but they have 16 other children to feed and tend to. They would take care of her and she would recover in due time, but they are not her mother and she knows that as well as they do and as well as I do.

Every day, I am constantly reminded that this world is fallen. Many are without Christ and we are desperate for the renewal and redemption that only Christ can bring to such broken systems and relationships. I am reminded of this when I see the jealously, envy, pride, deceit, and apathy that lay waste in the depths of my heart. I am reminded of this when I look through the slums and see hundreds of children abandoned and starving. And I am most recently and potently reminded of this as I followed Vivian’s trail of blood through the house to where she hovered over the toilet with no mother there to tend to her or comfort her. This breaks my heart and it breaks my Heavenly Father’s heart even more.

After gathering the facts from all the other children huddled around, I learned that Vivian was lying in the bottom bunk bed when the top bunk collapsed and cut open her fingers. After a quick look at her fingers, it was clear that one finger (her 4^th distal phalange to be exact) needed stitches. Thankfully, a decent medical clinic is only a few miles from where we live. Unfortunately, it was a disaster getting there due to an awful storm that had just completely wreaked havoc on the area by torrential rain that flooded our house, revealing countless leaks that had previously gone unnoticed.

As if the flooding was not enough, it started hailing! I never thought I would see the ground covered with chunks of ice in Africa… The hail was soon followed by lightning. Now, let me clarify that I absolutely love storms. I love to be in them and I cannot help but marvel at the Lord’s power and majesty displayed through such sheer force. However, lightning here, and especially today, was not like anything I have ever seen or heard before. I was legitimately scared for my life, yet exhilarated all the more. Just last week we had another storm and one strike of lightning killed 21 people and left another 100 wounded. This lightning is some serious stuff.  Needless to say, the lightning I saw Sunday was the largest, loudest, and brightest lightning I have ever seen and it struck just past our house. The rain was so torrential that the streets were flooded to where it completely covered the tires of the vehicles.  All of this to say, the traffic was beyond what I can describe and poor Vivian had to sit on my lap in a car for an hour to travel 3 miles down the road to the medical clinic.

We arrived, waited some more and then finally saw the doctor who agreed that she definitely needed stitches as all of the muscles in that part of her finger had been cut through. The nurse looked at me, a muzungu (white) woman, and then at Vivian, an African girl, and asked me “Where is the mother?” the same question I had been asking myself for the past several hours. After informing the nurse that she was an orphan, but that I was going to take care of her, I determined in my mind that I would care for, worry about, and pamper Vivian during her treatment as if she was my own daughter. Now you are probably thinking that I’m being dramatic about such a small encounter. No, her life was not in danger necessarily, but she was in pain and without a mother or a father, which pointed to a deeper pain that she inevitably felt on Sunday and not for the first time.

I don’t know what was going through Vivian’s head on Sunday, but I do know that she was shown love, the best that I knew how to love her. No, I’m not her mother, but when I held her in my arms for hours and she was content to lay there and neither say a word nor shed a tear, I know that the Lord used my love and affection to show her a deeper love that covers over the pain of being fatherless and motherless.

I pray that the Lord would soften your heart for orphans as He has softened mine. I pray that He would break my heart and your heart for what breaks His. Scripture is abundantly clear about our responsibility to care for the orphan, the fatherless, the helpless, the widow, the vulnerable, and the least of these.  As the Lord fills you with compassion for orphans, I pray that you would not merely let your heart be troubled, but that you would seek the Lord about what He is calling you to do on behalf of the orphan.

As the pastor of my church preached Sunday morning, “compassion always leads to action,” which was modeled perfectly by our Lord and savior Jesus Christ who went as far as to lay down His life at Calvary for me and for Vivian and for the rest of humanity. Would you be so bold as to ask the Lord if He has plans for you to sponsor or even adopt an orphan? My prayer is that you would be willing to take action wherever the Lord fills you with compassion.