Houseparents: Family for life

Day 14:  30 Days of Prayer for Hope A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows, is God in his holy dwelling. God sets the lonely in families, he leads out the prisoners with singing; but the rebellious live in a sun-scorched land. (Psalms 68:5-6) Hours after the children scuttle off to bed, houseparents gather for a late-night dinner and prayer meeting. Almost every night, as dinner winds down, the houseparents form a circle, and—holding hands—they intercede before God for each child. Together, their passion for every child in their care is palpable. These special houseparents sign ten-year contracts …

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On Mission

Day 13:  30 Days of Prayer for Hope Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. (Galatians 6:9) Every year, hundreds of visitors grace our campuses with their presence. They come from the local churches and communities, from the U.S. and Europe, and from all over the world. They come for one reason: to be on mission — sharing the love of Christ with the children of Hope. They leave changed, just as the children are changed. One of the realities of New Testament …

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Transformation from the Inside Out

Day 12:  30 Days of Prayer for Hope Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—His good, pleasing and perfect will. (Romans 12:2) When children come to Hope Unlimited, they bring short lifetimes of destructive behaviors with them. Sexual promiscuity, drug abuse, violent acting out, theft, and dishonesty are all part of a street kid’s life. Hope Unlimited’s staff—and, importantly, children whose lives have already been transformed—work diligently to help newcomers put harmful life choices behind them. …

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Cultural Noise

Day 11:  30 Days of Prayer for Hope Nations are in uproar, kingdoms fall; He lifts his voice, the earth melts. (Psalms 46:6) Our children come to us steeped in a culture that places values on all the wrong things: materialism, carnality, and disregard for those in need. Much of what the team at Hope does is help children listen for the quiet voice of our Sovereign Lord—calling them to a deeper faith in Him, to care for others, and to practice spiritual disciplines. Please pray with us that in the midst of the cultural noise, the voice of God …

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Gleice: Perfect

Day 10:  30 Days of Prayer for Hope Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. (Psalms 51:10) Gleice walked forward, took the microphone from Pastor Derli, and asked the other children to bow their heads with her. Then, quietly, she said, “God, thank you that I am perfect in your eyes.” We never know what baggage, guilt, and negative self-images children bring with them to Hope. But we do know that our God can heal these hurts as He restores the children. As another girl—one who had been prostituted by her own …

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Earning Their Trust

Day 9:  30 Days of Prayer for Hope Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as his children. For what children are not disciplined by their father? If you are not disciplined—and everyone undergoes discipline—then you are not legitimate, not true sons and daughters at all. Moreover, we have all had human fathers who disciplined us and we respected them for it. How much more should we submit to the Father of spirits and live! They disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, in order that we may share in his …

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Protecting the Innocent

Day 8:  30 Days of Prayer for Hope Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. (Jeremiah 29:12-13) When a twelve-year-old girl comes to us, we assume she has been sexually exploited. Because that’s what happens to children—especially girls—in the slums of Brazil. We have seen the story repeated many times over. In a place of hunger and hopelessness, a place of pain and desperation, that’s what happens. Children living in desperately poor favelas with parents …

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Alone

Day 7:  30 Days of Prayer for Hope If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast. (Psalms 139:8-10) In dark alleys, in backs of long-haul trucks and crude slum shacks, trafficked and exploited children feel alone, abandoned, and hopeless. Without intervention, many will never know how precious they are to God and to us. …

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A Cultural Current

Day 6:  30 Days of Prayer for Hope “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” (Jeremiah 29:11) Before coming to Hope Unlimited, the children we serve are often swept into destructive lifestyles by a cultural current pulling them towards drugs, crime, sexual exploitation, and poverty. A central part of our philosophy is maintaining a campus culture that, instead, directs the children in a positive trajectory. We count on older children, whose lives have already been transformed, to help …

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Paulo Vitor: Abandoned

Day 5: 30 Days of Prayer for Hope But you, God, see the trouble of the afflicted; you consider their grief and take it in hand. The victims commit themselves to you; you are the helper of the fatherless. (Psalm 10:14) Paulo never knew his father, and he was abused and neglected by his mother. She turned him in to the authorities, saying she did not want him anymore. She abandoned her son. Thankfully, he recently found a home at Hope. He asks every day about when he might return to the only family he has ever known, but his …

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Culture: A Powerful Tool

Day 4:  30 Days of Prayer for Hope Don’t urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. (Ruth 1:16) We have seen it happen so many times: a squad car arrives at the City of Youth with a terrified child in the back seat. The child does not know why he has been picked up and does not understand why he’s being brought to this place. That’s why, instead of adult staff members …

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Bruno: Rejected for the color of his skin

Day 3:  30 Days of Prayer for Hope There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. (Galatians 3:28) Bruno has been with us only a few months, and he has already known a lifetime of pain and rejection. He was abandoned by his mother—then his adoptive family returned him to the juvenile authorities because of the color of his skin. Bruno is black, and those who promised to care for him sadly decided they could never love and accept him. Thank God he’s now …

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Noticing the Need: Children caught in prostitution and sex trafficking

Day 2:  30 Days of Prayer for Hope The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’ (Matthew 25:40) No one truly knows how many children are exploited every day in the Brazilian sex trade. There are certainly at least 250,000, and some estimates run as high as 2,000,000. Hunger, drug addiction, and poverty drive the children to prostitution. Statistics can sometimes be numbing, but we know every one of them is precious to our Lord. Hope Unlimited takes a special interest …

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Hope for Brazil

Day 1: 30 Days of Prayer for Hope I lift up my eyes to the mountains—where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth. He will not let your foot slip—he who watches over you will not slumber. (Psalm 121:1-3) Brazil is a country of great wealth and extreme poverty. In most of the country’s large cities, one can look out from a precarious shack in the middle of a favela and practically see into the window of a luxury high-rise condominium next door. Children living in the desperate conditions of …

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30 Days of Prayer for Hope – 2014

Dear Friends: Last year we at Hope Unlimited for Children invited our friends, supporters, and partner churches to join us for 30 Days of Prayer for Hope. The response was overwhelming. Without any question, we received more positive feedback from that simple request than anything we had done previously. We quickly realized that we needed annually to set aside a time to pray together. Beginning on Friday—and for the next 30 days leading up to Orphan Sunday on Nov. 2—I will post a very short devotion, Scripture, and prayer prompter here on this blog. I ask that you pause for …

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Can you barter with a pinecone?

My wife, Susan, writes a blog, too. She beat me to the punch on a post I was contemplating, so I asked for permission to share her thoughts on the topic here with you. She graciously agreed.  As written by Susan Nowell at My Place to Yours …   Well, can you? Barter with a pinecone?  I honestly don’t know. I’ve never tried. Have you? I’ve filled baskets with pinecones, used them in tablescapes, hung them from Christmas trees… I’ve even shown you how to clean them! I haven‘t ever tried to bleach them, but some of you have. In …

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Prayers and Pray-ers

Many of you readers are new here, so I’m reprising this post from several years ago. Its words are timeless…   Reading 1 John again this evening… “But if anyone obeys his word, God’s love is complete in him. This is how we know we are in him: whoever claims to live in him must walk as Jesus did.” Must walk as Jesus did.” That’s a tough one; one I’m not sure I have completely worked out. But I do know that it starts with relationships — both with God and with others. And I think John’s point is that …

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Leaking Grace

I want to leak grace. I want the presence of God to be such an overwhelming reality in my life that this clay vessel simply cannot contain that reality. David said it this way in Psalm 23: You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows. When people look at me, I want the grace of God to be first thing that comes to mind. I want the grace of God to be the basic fact of my existence. But I often find myself empty. Not just not overflowing, but nowhere close to even full, much less leaking from excess. …

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Orphans, residential care — and outcomes

It’s a refrain I hear pretty often. “Orphanages are bad. All of them.” That sounds good, and perhaps it echoes the well-meaning hearts of those motivated by Christian love to see every child in a family. Besides, we shudder —with good reason—when we see the cold walls of nursery orphanages in eastern Europe or places where young children and teenagers are essentially warehoused. “Please, sir, said Oliver, “I want some more.” God forgive us for ever treating children so. And so, in that line of reasoning, unequivocal statements are made: For all orphans, residential care is bad. We immediately assume …

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Orphans, One-Way Streets, and the Grace of God

I remember an uncomfortable saying from my childhood. It was always directed toward the generic needy, unfortunate, or sin-ensnared of the small town in which I grew up. You know, the street person, the addict, the mentally ill. There but for the grace of God go I. It carried a not very subtle classism or elitism, and always, always, the undercurrent that we deserved our station in life. God had looked on us with favor—and, deep down, we knew we deserved it. And they deserved their place, too. It was a very easy way of pointing out the imaginary line …

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