Orphans

PRAYER FOR HOPE: 30 Days, 30 Faces

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THE POWER OF PRAYER IS NOT IN THOSE WHO PRAY, BUT IN THE GOD WHO ANSWERS THEIR DEEPEST CRIES. At Hope Unlimited for Children we have seen God display His power in response to earnest prayer over and over again. Doors that would have remained closed have been opened. Hearts hardened beyond belief have changed. Children’s lives have transformed—and today their own children experience the benefit of our long-ago prayers. Next month we will begin 30 Days of Prayer for Hope. On each of the 30 days leading up to Orphan Sunday (November 8), Hope supporters will receive an email …

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Fits and Starts

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A lesson here, if we will hear it . . . The answers are not always easy, but these are children our Savior loves. And so will we. Enrique is a 17-year-old with a lifetime of bad choices behind him. He was first brought to Hope Mountain when he was 13 and terribly addicted to drugs. He was gone within two hours. Another few months on the streets, and then he was brought to Hope Mountain again. And again, he was gone within two hours. That cycle was repeated over and over again—at least ten times in the next few …

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Moving the Conversation

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This one caught my eye. Because every child deserves a good home — no matter what that home looks like. And we have the responsibility to make sure that homes are safe places for kids. A member of the Hope team sent me a link. Senators Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) and Ron Wyden (D-Oregon), the ranking members of the Senate Finance Committee, have sent a letter to all 50 governors seeking the names of all private foster care providers state inspection and accreditation practices financial information child abuse rates The Senate interest prompting these letters started with a news organization’s investigation …

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Christian Alliance for Orphans Summit 2015

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According to Christianity Today, the Christian Alliance for Orphans (CAFO) Summit has become the national hub for “the burgeoning Christian orphan care movement.” Last year’s conference drew 2,600 foster and adoptive parents, orphan advocates, pastors and leaders from 35 countries. On several occasions it has been my good fortune to attend, to lead topic-specific workshops, and to participate in panel discussions. And I’m looking forward to this year! CAFO Summit 2015 will take place in Nashville, Tennessee on April 30-May 1. While I realize the date is almost upon us, it’s not too late to make your plans to attend! And …

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Privilege, Peripheral People, Rising Lights, and Two Emails

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As I write this, I am sitting in my comfortable East Tennessee home.  My reality is safe, secure, well-fed. But then an email comes from Brazil, telling the story of a family of children brought to our campus, chilling in its matter-of-fact recital of the children’s condition. This group of seven siblings, ages 3 to 17, were discovered in a shack near the City of Youth living in conditions of wretched poverty and malnutrition. The youngest sibling, now a 3-year-old, was a baby who the family ‘adopted’ after he was abandoned by his mother and left to fend on his …

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Five Contexts where Residential Care Works

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A lot of folks are not going to like this post—but these things have to be said. Residential care works. Not for every child, not in every situation, and certainly not when it is no more than the warehousing of children. But, done right, it works. For kids who have been on the streets, for kids who have been trafficked, for kids whose years of being abused, abandoned, or exploited have destroyed their ability to accept love and build relationships, it works. But there is a cottage industry built around blasting residential care. Like the quote in last week’s post …

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Mortal-risk children and residential care

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Eventually, eventually, the story gets okay, but it has a lot of twists and turns to get there—and along the way an important lesson about thoughtful care for mortal-risk children. I’ll also introduce you to a debate that impacts the lives of millions of children. Jaime was a child of the streets. Abandoned by a prostitute mother, he spent his days in begging and thievery—and his nights under an overpass, a piece of cardboard his street mattress. Eventually sent to a shelter, he was adopted for the first time at age seven. By eight, he was back at the shelter, …

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But God. . . (Part 2)

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A little theological digression here before we get back to Graziella’s story… How often in the follower’s life does the story turn on those words? But God. . . The case can be made that the thought embedded there is central to our identity. It is an affirmation that He is the creator, that He is sovereign, and—perhaps most important—that He is actively engaged in the lives of those He calls His own. This whole thing is God’s game, not ours, and He can suspend the rules and change the outcome as He chooses. David said it this way: ”Though …

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But God. . . (Part 1)

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Difficult story here, and I apologize for its graphic nature, but there is no other way to tell it. This orphan stuff is hard, and easy answers almost always elude. But, but, this isn’t our work; it’s God’s, and He is in the business of hard answers. Susan and I first visited Brazil in the fall of 2007. Our first night there, we joined Philip and a group of girls and their houseparents for a pizza party at a local rodizio. The girls were used to American visitors, and all went out of their way to make us feel welcome, …

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Life Wish of a Street Child

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As I’ve mentioned here before, my wife, Susan, blogs at My Place to Yours. She’s my partner on this journey of dirty faith, and this week you get to read her thoughts about a recent story about a street child in Brazil…   Whoever Steals Has to Die That was the headline last week in the Brazilian newspaper. The article (translated below) tells the conversation between a reporter and a 12-year-old boy arrested and awaiting a hearing about his participation in the attempted murder of a thief in the city of Cariacica. Tribune: Did you participate in the beating? Twelve-year-old: …

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Santa: From dirty streets to a clean sleigh

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Stories. The best ones catch us by surprise, bring a smile, and perhaps refocus our priorities. This one—this week—from (missionary/Hope Unlimited for Children CEO) Philip Smith in Brazil: Christmas 2014 in Brazil. Think hot. Sometimes Santa is not who we expect him to be. Sweltering in the Hope Santa suit this year was a former street kid. Luciano graduated from Hope in 1996, got a good job, married, and became a worship leader at his church. A few months ago, he reached out to me saying he felt called to return to Hope as a houseparent. Then in July, he …

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Life Lesson from Orphans #4: Bless as you have been blessed

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It’s a really wonderful part of the worship tradition at the City of Youth. At some point in each chapel service, our kids have the chance to give back.  Not financially, of course, but of what they have. They do this through their prayer requests. During what we might call an offertory, the kids walk forward and place written prayers and prayer requests in a large bowl at the front of the auditorium. Many of the prayers are simple, a line or two composed at the last minute, but nonetheless heartfelt. Lord, thank you for giving me this place to live. …

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Life Lesson from Orphans #3: Dependence gives birth to faith

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Easy lesson here, but it is one we tend to forget. God can handle this, whatever “this” is. Every time I travel to Brazil, I am absolutely overwhelmed by the experiential faith of our kids and graduates. Experiential because it is faith based on a reality that has already been made manifest. They get this faith thing because they have seen the hand of God in their own lives. I have told you before about the impact our graduate church is having on the neighboring community. Our graduates see the drug addict sleeping in the weeds who believes he has …

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Life Lesson from Orphans #2: Gratitude, Entitlement—and Joy

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Thanksliving I have to confess to never having heard the word before yesterday’s children’s sermon. And that first hearing was accompanied by a brief but vigorously engaged dispute between two six-year-olds about whether the holiday actually was Thanksgiving or thanksliving. Plenty of laughs in church yesterday. Thanksliving.  I kind of like that. It is a lifestyle I have seen over and over again with our kids in Brazil. They get it. Theirs is a deep, profound gratitude. A gratitude that humbles and graces when encountered. A gratitude that absolutely bankrupts any attitude of entitlement. A thankfulness for life itself. Those …

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Life Lesson from Orphans #1: Expectations and Outcomes

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It was an extraordinary conversation. The local Children’s Council was visiting our Hope Mountain campus. The problem, it seemed, was that we are creating “unrealistic expectations” in the lives of former street kids. They are well-clothed attend private schools have high-level vocational training programs live as families They come to expect that their lives will be different than those of their parents and the kids who ran the streets with them. They somehow believe that their education, the social skills they learn, their vocational skills—and their dreams—will lead to better lives. But, according to the Children’s Council, hoping for a …

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Privilege, Peripheral People, and Rising Lights

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As I write this, I am sitting in my comfortable East Tennessee home. My reality is safe, secure, well-fed. But when I travel to Brazil, I encounter a far different kind of reality. Poverty beyond my comprehension. Kids who know a life I can never understand. Twelve-year-old boys with death warrants against them from drug lords. Girls taught since early, early childhood that their only value in life is in the depraved pleasure they can bring others. A very different reality… Yet somehow I am supposed to believe that God loves them as much as he loves me. Rich and …

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Orphan Sunday 2014

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Thank you for praying for the children at Hope Unlimited! Today, on Orphan Sunday, we celebrate orphan care that reveals God’s heart. We remember how God first loved us, and so we seek to mirror His love in tangible ways. Defend the cause of the fatherless. (Isaiah 1:17) You, and thousands of others around the world, have raised your voices to speak for one common purpose—to see children’s lives transformed by the Living God. You have made a lasting difference in their lives. And it doesn’t have to end today! Stay connected with monthly email newsletters. Join the Thrive Team …

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Beyond Our Jerusalem

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Day 30:  30 Days of Prayer for Hope But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. (Acts 1:8-9) Our goal is not to “plant the Hope flag” around the world—but it is to see change in the lives of mortal-risk children everywhere. We have discovered that we can impact thousands and thousands of lives by helping other organizations doing similar work understand how we do what we do. We call it Hope Institute; our CEO, …

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Transforming Future Generations

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Day 27:  30 Days of Prayer for Hope But if serving the Lord seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord. (Joshua 24:15) Our mission: Transforming the lives of children at mortal risk, providing them and their future generations with a productive future and eternal hope. It’s thrilling to sit in our graduate church and look around the room at generations …

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A Father’s Love

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Day 26:  30 Days of Prayer for Hope Whoever heard me spoke well of me, and those who saw me commended me, because I rescued the poor who cried for help, and the fatherless who had none to assist them. (Job 29:11-13) Is “father” really a dangerous word? Unfortunately, for many children who come to Hope Unlimited—especially our girls—danger is exactly what the word connotes. Their fathers (or often stepfathers) are the ones who beat, sexually abused, or abandoned the child he should have been protecting. The experienced evil instead of a father’s love. Only when they encounter the Father …

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Help Wanted: Job placement for graduates

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Day 25:  30 Days of Prayer for Hope From the fruit of their lips people are filled with good things, and the work of their hands brings them reward. (Proverbs 12:14) When young people graduate from Hope Unlimited, they have received some of the best vocational training available, served an internship, and are well prepared to start a career. Hope Unlimited graduates are guaranteed a job placement in their fields, thanks to our long-standing connections in the community. Finding jobs for every student means developing good relationships with local businesses, and, most important, providing them an employee worthy of hire. …

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Graduates: Building A Future

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Day 24:  30 Days of Prayer for Hope So this is what the Sovereign Lord says: “See, I lay a stone in Zion, a tested stone, a precious cornerstone for a sure foundation; the one who relies on it will never be stricken with panic.” (Isaiah 28:16) For many Hope Unlimited kids, being launched into freedom can be terrifying. The only period of real independence many of them have ever known were the years spent abandoned to the street by the adults who should have taken care of them. This new beginning is a big—and sometimes very scary—step. They will …

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Anna: Overcoming drugs

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Day 25:  30 Days of Prayer for Hope But as for me, I am poor and needy; come quickly to me, O God. You are my help and my deliverer; Lord, do not delay. (Psalms 70:5) Drugs are constantly available to children from the streets and slums of Brazil. Once at Hope, many of our kids must work incredibly hard—with God’s help—to be free from them. Anna is one of those kids. As a child, she was introduced by a caregiver to the drugs easily-accessible in the slum where she lived. . . . One day he made me smoke a …

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Guilherme: Finding Peace

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Day 22:  30 Days of Prayer for Hope He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds. (Psalms 147:3) Guilherme rarely appeared in Hope photos. He was just too cool. Try as we might, we could never get him to stop flashing a peace sign or wearing his hat to the side; that was just his personality. He was a great kid, full of smiles, but he was definitely his own man. And he ran away. He had done it before, and he always came back. This time though, on his first night away, he was hit by a drunk …

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Biblical Charity

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Day 21:  30 Days of Prayer for Hope And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity. (1 Corinthians 13:13 KJV) Sometimes the King’s English can be a challenge, but it really hits the point here. Charity, in the truest Christian sense of the word, is an outgrowth of our relationship with our God. And it always calls us to look at the big picture for our kids. Hope is not a bowl-of-rice-in-a-warehouse organization. The kind of love—charity—that we show for those God has entrusted to our care must be transformational—long-term, life-changing care. That’s …

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Luis Roberto: Runaway

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Day 20:  30 Days of Prayer for Hope Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here. (2 Corinthians 5:17) The children’s stories do not always end as we want them to—as we pray for them to end. Luis Roberto was a bright, sweet kid who saw his father shot down by drug traffickers. Worried for his safety, his mother convinced the authorities to send him to Hope Mountain. But even at Hope Mountain, Luis often expressed the heaviness he felt of needing to fill his father’s shoes and provide for his …

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Houseparent spotlight: Jardelho and Natalha

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Day 19:  30 Days of Prayer for Hope Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. (Deuteronomy 6:5-7) Like the other Hope houseparents, Jardelho and Natalha have made a ten-year commitment to Hope. They are primary care providers for a home with three sibling groups—a total of …

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Dayara: Dreams realized

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Day 18:  30 Days of Prayer for Hope For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be. (Psalms 139:13-15) Even before she was born, Dayara fell victim to …

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Graduates: Aging Out and Training Wheels

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Day 17:  30 Days of Prayer for Hope We do, however, speak a message of wisdom among the mature, but not the wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing. No, we declare God’s wisdom, a mystery that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began. (1 Corinthians 2:6-7) One of the key components to the success of our graduates is that we do not drop them when they complete their years on campus. In fact, we spend more on them in the year following graduation than in …

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Wisdom for Leadership

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Day 16:  30 Days of Prayer for Hope God said to Solomon, “Since this is your heart’s desire and you have not asked for wealth, possessions or honor, nor for the death of your enemies, and since you have not asked for a long life but for wisdom and knowledge to govern my people over whom I have made you king, therefore wisdom and knowledge will be given you.” (2 Chronicles 1:11-12) Today the Hope Unlimited Board of Directors meets in Chicago for its annual fall meeting. They will review the budget for next year, talk about funding initiatives, and look …

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Houseparents: Family for life

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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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Transformation from the Inside Out

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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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Prayers and Pray-ers

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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

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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

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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

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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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Calling … and Following

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I’ve heard it more than once . . . Okay, I see the numbers. I know there are 153 million orphans out there, and they need to be loved.  I hear the need… and I am really glad you’re doing what you are doing, but God hasn’t called me to do this.   Well, actually He has. I do get this.  I understand your point.  You are not ready to sell everything and move to Brazil, Mozambique, Thailand. But you are called. Look at Scripture’s definition of acceptable religion:  In the book of James – “Religion that God our Father …

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Orphans, the Border Crisis, and the Echo of God’s Love: Part 3 of 3

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If you missed previous posts in this series:  Part 1 / Part 2   Ignoring a problem the world has dropped on our doorstep is not a Christian response. We can—and must—do better for these kids who are part of the “border crisis”, because that is what followers do. We become the hands, heart, and mind of Christ to these children. The immediate cost of caring for the children crossing our border is staggering. We spend $259 per day for each child in an immigration detention center. If we move them to foster care, that cost is $2,500 per month. …

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Orphans, the Border Crisis, and the Echo of God’s Love: Part 2 of 3

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If you missed the first post in this series: Part 1   The echo of God’s love resonates not just in our hearts but also in our heads. When we see the thousands of children pouring across our southern border, we have no choice; we have to act in Christian love, in charity as Paul describes it in 1 Corinthians 13. They are children – not adults who have made informed choices to break our laws and enter the U.S. illegally. We must live out biblical compassion. But, but… love is every bit as much a head thing as it …

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Orphans, the Border Crisis, and the Echo of God’s Love

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They need more than hugs. When we see children in trouble, orphans, a trafficked girl, a little boy who has walked hundreds of miles in search of safe haven, we act. We have to, because that’s what followers of Christ do. We are compassionate, because our Lord was compassionate. We see these children as our own, because we ourselves have been adopted by the Father of Love. But we are also called to be wise, to show that compassion in a way that is more than just a fleeting hug – a way that transforms for a lifetime, an eternity. …

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Street Children: Living on the Edge (Part 2)

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  Last week I shared Part 1 of Daniel’s story. If you missed it, you can read it HERE. This will make more sense if you read it first.   The Book of Daniel – Part 2 Sometimes the stories of the streets, of the street children rescued from the traffickers, of the boys leaving the drug trade, don’t turn out the way we want. Or perhaps there are some detours on the path – on the way to completion of the story. And sometimes the stories demand that we step far beyond our places of comfort, and encounter evil …

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Street Children: Living on the Edge

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The Book of Daniel – Part 1 So we start with the obvious:  Street children, the victims of human trafficking, kids forced into the drug trades live very different lives than you and I. But I think sometimes we forget just how very close to the edge their lives take them. The edge. The edge from which there is no coming back. The edge that is not just fear, despair, or pain. The edge that is death. They have told us for years that the life expectancy of a child on the streets is only three to five years. We …

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Flag Waving, but not Forgetting

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The following post was first published in July 2012. Little has changed… We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. Fourth of July. Maybe my favorite holiday. Flags, parades, fireworks, a little baseball, and brats on the grill. What’s not to like? I do like it, especially the flag part. I’m a waver. I am proud to be a citizen of this country, proud that we are the most generous country in the …

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Noise

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Reading Psalms 46 today. Sometimes this work seems overwhelming – caring for orphans, that is. The world really does not care or there would not be 153 million children left to fend for themselves. Even our churches seem pretty complacent about it. Much more interested in repairing the crack in the stained glass than the holes in the lives of our children. Our children, because they are ours. All 153 million of them. Then there is the constant noise… Societies that hawk sexuality on every television screen, and every magazine – and then profess outrage that little girls and boys …

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Do you really want to end human trafficking? Start here.

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When a girl over the age of twelve comes into our care, we assume she has been sexually trafficked or exploited – or at least abused. And we are almost always right.  Why? Because that is what happens to orphans. These kids are not just at risk. They are at mortal risk. Lives either over or destroyed unless we fix this problem. And there are 153 million of them. Let the number sink in. 153 million children. The United States has a total population of about 300 million; 153 million is everyone west of the Mississippi, and a few back …

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Why the World Cup scares me to death…

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When a twelve-year-old girl comes to us at Hope, we assume she has been sexually exploited. Because that’s what happens to children of the favelas in Brazil. In a place of hunger, of hopelessness, a place of pain, in a place where children are desperate, that’s what happens. A little girl discovers she can trade the only commodity she possesses – her body – and the men at the neighborhood bar will give her a few Reias if she will do what they ask her to do. All of her friends make their money the same way. There is no …

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What is Sex Trafficking?

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I am speaking this week at the International Christian Alliance on Prostitution conference in Green Lake, Wisconsin. This is a really important group of folks who do critical responding to one of the great evils of our age: sex trafficking. As I prepare to go, I think this is a good time to revisit a previous post on the subject. Some time ago, I told you Ileana’s story. Prostituted by her mother in a shed in their backyard in a slum in Brazil, stories like hers are told far too often not only in Brazil, but in so many places …

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When Life is Cheap, Smiles Disappear

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I received this email today. It is reality we see far too often. Tough kids, kids for whom life is cheap, but kids that God loves as deeply and as passionately as He loves you and me, and as He loves our children and grandchildren. Kids that we are called to love. From my friend Corenne: It is rare that I suddenly drop whatever I am doing to write, but feel compelled to do so today. Luis Roberto, 13, is dead. Shot by, well, who really knows. He was a bright, sweet kid, who saw his father shot down by …

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Doctrine, Religion, and Living as Christ Lived

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A few days ago, I threw out an aphorism on Facebook. Perhaps it was food for thought for some deliberative believers, or perhaps I just wanted to stir the pot. It seems a bit of both happened: Doctrine can become vanity, a self-indulgent exercise to escape the hard work of following. A disclaimer here: My professional training is as a theologian. To no small degree, my livelihood is doing doctrine. But I am also called to live within the context of a world of people that Christ loves, andthat he calls me to love, too. I am called to be …

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Five contexts where residential care is the best answer for orphans

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Serious, and important, discussion here. I was reading an orphan care blog a few days ago. The blogger wrote about his new and deeper commitment to supporting orphan care, and how he was ready to make some lifestyle changes in order to financially underpin the work of those caring for orphans. And then his throw-away line: “except I will not give anything to help any orphanage, and you shouldn’t either.” Tough words, but words that reflect many, possibly most, of those who are serious about orphan care. The word orphanage has become an epitaph, conjuring images of a Twistian warehouse …

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Seeking Understanding

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Reading Psalm 90: Lord, you have been our dwelling place throughout all generations. Before the mountains were born or you brought forth the whole world, From everlasting to everlasting, you are God. (Psalm 90:1-2) Okay, God, we understand; all of this is yours. You are in charge; it’s your work, not ours. But You have told us to care for your children, for the least of these. So what is our role? And even more, where are You when our best efforts to touch their lives seem thwarted? I have to admit that I get a bit frustrated with God …

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Separating the sheep from the goats (a parable along the way to revolting numbers)

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  Here’s a bit of Bible trivia for you: There is only one person in the parables of Jesus who is given a name. Do you know who it is? Think about for a minute. Lazarus Do you know the story of Lazarus and the rich man? Lazarus is a poor beggar who lies at the gate of the rich man’s home, hoping to grab a few “crumbs that fall from the rich man’s table.” Interestingly enough, it is not the rich man who has a name, but the poor, crippled beggar. Even more interesting, the name Lazarus means “the …

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Condemning Numbers

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Numbers get to me, especially when we’re talking about orphans, because I connect those numbers with faces of real kids, with real needs, and often, with real pain. Last Saturday, I saw some numbers that were profoundly troubling: Here in my home state of Tennessee, there are 254 children in foster care who are legally available for adoption. And there are 10,000 churches in the state. How can this be? Why aren’t every one of those kids scooped up into loving Christian arms today? When the world looks at our attitudes about orphans, does it see the absolute proof of …

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His Children

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  I was reading Psalm 90 this week: Lord, you have been our dwelling place throughout all generations.  Before the mountains were born or you brought forth the whole world,  From everlasting to everlasting, you are God. (Psalm 90:1-2)   Okay, God, we understand. All of this is yours. You are in charge; it’s your work, not ours. But You have told us to care for your children, for the least of these. So what is our role? And even more, where are You when our best efforts to touch their lives seem thwarted? I have to admit that I …

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Perfection… and Love

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It was perhaps the most beautiful prayer I’ve ever heard. It was a Saturday night service at the City of Youth, with one hundred fifty or so children who call this place home filling the chapel. For the most part, society considers them throw-away kids. They all have scars of abuse on the inside; some wear them on the outside. After a song or two, it was prayer time. Pastor Derli nodded toward a teenage girl near the back row, and she worked her way to the front of the auditorium. Gleice took the microphone from Pastor Derli, and bowed …

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Endgame OR Cures, Not Band-aids IV

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This isn’t a grand social experiment. We don’t poke some street kids, an orphan, a few trafficked girls with the needles of our conscience, feed them a bit of gospel along with a bowl of rice, and then leave the rest to nature. So you fed a thousand kids today, and gave them a drink of clean water. Good, fine. Now what happens? I want to know what happens to these kids five years out, and I want to know what happens to their eternities. And, not or. Only when we keep both in focus will we truly be faithful …

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Why Mission Trips Are Usually Social Tourism OR Cures, not Band-aids (continued again)

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The conversation took place last summer. I was sitting in my office talking to our student intern; a really godly, thoughtful twenty-year-old. She had just returned from a college mission trip to Taiwan. It clearly was a life-changing experience for her, and I did not want to dampen her zeal or extinguish the fire burning in her eyes. But I did want her to think deeply about what she did and why she did it. A significant part of her group’s time was spent at a shelter for street prostitutes. Each evening, the young women came in from the streets, …

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Cures, not Band-aids: Continuing the conversation…

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I want you to care about orphans, about the hungry, and about the poor. And I want you to act. Now. But I also want you to think deeply about what you do and why you do it. Cures do not involve social tourism, warehoused kids, or one bowl of rice a day. True, New Testament engagement with the least of these means acting intentionally, sacrificially, thoughtfully. It requires long-term commitment. Jesus always acted with the big picture in mind. Look at the encounter with the Samaritan woman. “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that …

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Day 2: Darkness Showing Through

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  Read:Psalms 121:1-3 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   The city of Vitória, and its surrounding communities, is one of the most beautiful areas in Brazil. But soon the darker side of Vitória becomes apparent: signs in hotels along the beachfront warn that soliciting minors for sex is illegal; the children’s prison at Cariacica looms forebodingly; and favelas with subhuman living conditions are everywhere in this …

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Day 1: Hope For The City

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  Read:Psalms 68:5-6 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. Campinas, Brazil is a city of great wealth and extreme poverty. It is a world leader in private helicopters and personal armored cars per capita. Yet, nearly 40% of its three million inhabitants live in squalid slums (called favelas). Children living in these desperate conditions are abandoned, abused, and exploited as their parents struggle to survive. Families live in cycles of …

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30 Days of Prayer for Hope 2013

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There are 153 million orphans in the world today, and many more children are abused, exploited, or abandoned on city streets or even inside their own homes. With so great a need, sometimes it’s easy to wonder—where is God? The Bible tells us He dearly loves and has a plan for each suffering child. In Him, we all have a certain hope. He loves them more deeply than humanly possible. And He calls us to be the hands, feet, and heart of that love. We believe that prayer makes a difference in the lives of the children the world has …

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Life-Changing Valentines

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  My wife, Susan, recently wrote about Hope’s Valentine project at her blog, My Place to Yours. With her permission, her words are reprinted here. My word for 2013 is shelter. Simply hearing the word brings to mind thoughts of safety … stability … home.  I suppose it’s because I’m one of the fortunate ones. Many (most?) of you are, too. While I’ve had my share of challenges in life … some I pray none of you will ever experience … there’s never been a time when I wondered if I was loved or a time I questioned my long-term safety or …

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Unwrap Hope

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I’ll admit it. I don’t understand the rush from Summer to Christmas. I prefer to enjoy my days without wishing them away. But I do understand anticipation. I like watching the eager anticipation of little ones as they prepare to celebrate the birth of our Savior. I like teaching them about gift giving, about how it commemorates the bringing of gifts by the Magi. And especially the looks on their faces as they tear through wrapping paper to open their presents on Christmas morning. As our thoughts begin to turn to the gifts we want to give (and receive) this …

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Thrive Team

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EVERY child deserves the chance to Thrive . . . and YOU deserve a chance to help! Through the years, many supporters of Hope Unlimited for Children have asked if we have a child sponsorship program. Because Brazilian privacy laws expressly prohibit us from linking a sponsor to an individual child, we have always had to answer “no.” Even so, that did not change our desire to find a way for supporters to connect with our kids. Out of this long-time desire, our new Thrive Team program was born. While not linking a sponsor to a specific child, Thrive Team …

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Flag waving, but not forgetting…

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We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. Fourth of July. Maybe my favorite holiday. Flags, parades, fireworks, a little baseball, and brats on the grill. What’s not to like? I do like it, especially the flag part. I’m a waver. I am proud to be a citizen of this country, proud that we are the most generous country in the world. And it all goes back to those words: Life, Liberty, and …

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Fewer Churches, More Church…

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I’m serious here. There is an apocryphal story, almost certainly not factual, but a good story nonetheless. Let’s call it a parable. In the thirteenth century, Pope Innocent IV was in the papal coffers surveying the vast collection of coinage in the church’s treasury. St. Thomas Aquinas, out for an afternoon stroll, stopped by for a visit. Standing amidst all the wealth, Innocent called out, “Ahh, Thomas, no longer can we say, “Silver and gold have I none.” Thomas replied, “But neither can we say, “In the name of Jesus, rise up and walk.” I live in a small, southern …

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Failure

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The interviewer sat in a chair a few feet away from Philip: “What is the most difficult thing you face in this work?” The question hung in the air several seconds; a cloud passing over Philip’s face. He composed himself and began, “For me, the most difficult thing,” he paused, struggling for control again, but tears wetting his eyes. “The most difficult thing is when we invest our lives in a child, and we see the transformation; we see the change. We think this one is going to make it, and then a few months later he runs away to …

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A Difficult Call

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I have told you her story before, but I come back to her today to ask a really hard question. Prostituted by her mother at age nine, Natalie herself became a mother by the time she turned 11. I remember seeing her stand before the graduate church, confidently telling her story. It was hard to believe that Natalie was the same scared, horribly abused child the juvenile authorities had brought to Hope seven years earlier. In a very real sense, she wasn’t the same; she was transformed during her time at Hope. A few minutes later when she introduced her young …

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Because every child is a story yet to be told

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We use that phrase a lot. And we believe it, because we have seen the stories unfold before our eyes. Two weeks ago, I saw the story of Patricia, one of the girls in our graduate transition home, begin to be written. Patricia came to us, like virtually all of our kids, a victim of abuse, exploitation, and abandonment. When Patricia arrived at Hope, she quickly showed herself to be a good student, with a special drive and focus. In a rare occurrence, she completed high school by the time she was ready to leave for the graduate house. But …

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Tiago

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It was the first time I had ever seen him on a basketball court. He ran with a limping, broken, uncoordinated gait.  It was obvious he did not understand the game; he chased the ball no matter which team had it, slapping at it as he had seen the other boys dribble. Occasionally, someone would toss the ball to him, and he would run toward a basket and clumsily throw the ball in the general direction of the goal. The boys, all younger than him, knew that any really competitive game was impossible with him on the court.  But they …

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Recharging (or charging for the first time . . .)

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I’m writing this while sitting in an airport 5,000 miles from the kids in Brazil. Though there are ample reasons to be home—plenty of chores, a grandson on the way in the next few weeks, taxes (although, to be honest, I tend to be more of the spectator as my wife crunches numbers), and always, always, so much that needs to be done for Hope.   But I need to be in Brazil.   I find my passions for changing the lives of these kids not growing cold, but at least ebbing. I need to see the need.  I need …

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But with God…

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I listened with horror as the social worker, Adriana, told us Fran’s life story. With her mother dying of AIDS, custody of Fran was given to her older sister. That was when her nightmare really began. Instead of caring for her, the older sister prostituted her 12-year-old little sister, selling her on a nightly basis. Her story only got worse from there.    I interrupted Adriana’s recitation by asking, “What will happen to her? In the U.S., she would be so scarred that she would probably be institutionalized for life.”    Now it was Adrianna’s turn to look at me …

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Breaking the Cycle

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Transforming the lives of children at mortal risk, providing them and their future generations a productive future and eternal hope.     Mission Statement (emphasis added)   One of the most disturbing realities of the abandoned or exploited child crisis is that it is almost always multi-generational. As such, it is self-propagating and constantly growing. Virtually every child who comes to us from the streets or from a situation of abuse is “simply” the most recent in a family lineage of lost children. A prostitute mother has six or eight children for whom street life, abuse, and exploitation is the norm …

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To be a child

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They called him The Jackal.   He was only 12 years old, but his exploits took him far beyond his years. A field commander in one of Africa’s many civil wars, he was known for his fearlessness and, ultimately, for his brutality. He stood before the NBC cameras with an intense stare as a reporter posed the question: “What will you do when this war is over?”   “I want to be a child.”   I want to be a child. An extreme example? Yes. But the yearning to be a child, to have someone provide, to be loved, to …

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Valentine’s 2012

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Last February I introduced our readers to Hope’s annual Valentine’s Project. We transform Brazil’s Day of Love to make it a special affirmation and learning time for our girls, and we inviting you to participating with us. Because many of you are new to “The Least of These,” I am reposting last year’s blog.   It is an appalling truth that many of the girls at Hope have been sexually abused and exploited. Thanks to the grace of God, that is forever in the past as soon as they reach our campus. Unfortunately, it’s a more difficult and much slower …

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Sovereignty

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Reading Psalm 90 this week: Lord, you have been our dwelling place throughout all generations. Before the mountains were born or you brought forth the whole world, From everlasting to everlasting, you are God. (Psalm 90:1-2) Okay, God, we understand; all of this is yours. You are in charge; it’s your work, not ours. But You have told us to care for your children, for the least of these. So what is our role? And even more, where are You when our best efforts to touch their lives seem thwarted? I have to admit that I get a bit frustrated …

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Beginnings

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New Years, 2012. Already?   A friend and I were talking a few days ago about getting older, and how time seems to accelerate with age. He told me that his elderly dad had recently remarked, “This has been the quickest life.” I am finding that to be more and more true myself.   Fortunately, throughout our lives we have chances to press the reset button, and the beginning of a new year is a natural time to do that. I don’t make New Year’s resolutions per se, but I do find myself deciding that some part of my life—usually …

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A Christmas Wish

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  I have never done this before in this blog, and I promise I will not do it very often, but I need to say this. Give. Now. As we make final preparations for Christmas, there is a world around that is hurting; there are millions of people in need.   Millions of children on the streets. Tens of millions living in poverty. Hundreds of thousands of girls forced into prostitution. These numbers are so huge we want to throw our hands up in despair. But we must never forget:  Every one of those millions is a child.     …

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Advent (again)

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I have to admit that I often find myself conflicted at this time of year. (Perhaps even conflicted about using the word “conflicted”; it seems far too trite, too trendy a word to approach a serious subject.) There is so much right about Christmas:  celebrating the coming of our Savior, hearing the wonderful music of the season, the lights, the smiles of anticipation and then realization on the faces of children.   But there is also much to give us pause: conspicuous consumerism, embarrassing scenes of adults fighting over the must-have toy of the year, excess. These things leave me wanting …

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Why not the best?

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We received really exciting news from Brazil last week. Just as in the U.S., Brazilian states put great emphasis on standardized testing to measure the effectiveness of their schools. The state of Espirito Santo, where our Hope Mountain campus is located, just released statewide standardized test scores, and Hope Mountain had the highest average scores of any school in the state. The average student score statewide was 418; the second highest school’s students averaged 516. The scores of the students at our Hope Mountain school averaged 620. As you read those numbers, remember where our kids come from: Our residential …

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Salvageable

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My friend, Barry, has a very interesting business, and it strikes me that his model is a really good metaphor for how we might view the orphans of our world. I’m going to tell you about that, but first let me give you some background on his business. Barry buys and sells steel. As you may know, steel usually comes in thin sheets – 48 or maybe 60 inches wide – and often over 100 feet long. The long sheets are then coiled and sold to manufacturers as “cold rolls.” With standard cuts, there is often significant waste. If, for …

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VIEWING the Story of Hope

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A different kind of post today… As regular readers know, last weekend Hope Unlimited for Children celebrated 20 years of work with street children in Brazil. My wife posted about the event on her blog, My Place to Yours, and she’s given me permission to share an excerpt here with you – so you can celebrate with us! Hope’s 20th Anniversary Celebration was held in the 8,000 square foot multi-level Redwood Hall at CuriOdyssey in San Mateo, California. These photos are “broad stroke” overviews. I’ll take you on a close-up tour in a minute … Upon entering the lowest level, …

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Twenty Years of HOPE

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Two decades ago, two men boarded a Pan Am flight for Brazil. They had heard of the plight of street children there; international attention had turned its focus on Brazil after reports that these children were being systematically murdered by police vigilante squads. Jack Smith, his son Philip, and David Swoap had felt God’s call to do something, anything, for these kids, and so Jack and Philip had cashed in their airline miles to make the trip south. Not much of a plan, but a heartfelt conviction that every Christian had an absolute obligation to care for those Jesus called …

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Changing a culture

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I get very excited when I think about our numbers at Hope: over 200 children in full residential care, 450 teenagers in day vocational and academic programs, 470 children in our preschool — and these numbers don’t even touch the families of our students or the graduates that we minister to every day. Feel-good numbers.   But then the other numbers hit me: millions of children still call the streets home, 400,000 girls forced into prostitution every year. And that’s just Brazil.   No matter how much money we raise, no matter how many sponsors we enlist, no matter many …

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Are you serious?

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Last Sunday Philip and I both spoke at The Moody Church Fall Missions Conference. The church got its very start as a ministry to homeless children and orphans, and thankfully, they haven’t forgotten their roots. Dwight L. Moody was a traveling shoe salesman in the mid-19th century, but his passion was for the children living on the streets of Chicago. Just a few years after his conversion in 1855, he and two ministry partners turned an abandoned saloon into a Sunday school mission for children. The church quickly grew and, although it left the saloon behind many, many years ago, …

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Prayers and Pray-ers

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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 we cannot claim that our walk with God is good if all the other parts of our lives don’t reflect that …

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School time

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It’s that time of year. I saw this year’s first flashing school zone light last Friday. For those of us living in the relative affluence of the US, the end of summer and the start of school is axiomatic; going back to school is what children do every fall. We understand that education is one of the foundation stones of society, so we place great importance on the rituals that signal the start of the school year — shopping for school supplies, back-to school parties, and the first visit to see the new classroom and meet the new teacher.   …

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Toward What End?

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I will never forget the night we met Fran. It was our first night at Hope, and only her second or third. My wife and I had traveled to Brazil to see the program there firsthand. A pizza outing for some of the girls at Hope Ranch let us meet a few of the kids without being overwhelmed. While most of the girls actively engaged us—they were very accustomed to English-only Americans on mission trips—Fran shyly caught our eyes and smiled, head down. It was obvious she was new and didn’t yet know the ropes.   The next day we …

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But I don’t want to love them…

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For the great majority of the world, orphaned does not mean parentless. In fact, just the opposite is true: only about 20% of orphans are biological orphans; the vast majority of children we call orphans have parents. But they have been abandoned, have run away to escape abuse, or have been removed from their homes because of abuse, exploitation, or neglect. I don’t like these parents—and that is really not strong enough to express how I feel. The one critical task they have been given in life—TAKE CARE OF YOUR CHILD—they have failed. And, more often than not, it is …

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A Lesson from Africa

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Gary Schneider was just an American visitor in the Zambian church service. But he was struck by what he saw and heard there. The African pastor passionately pleaded with his church to take seriously the biblical call to care for orphans. The local community had seen more than its share of orphans, products of the AIDS epidemic and poverty. Gary watched as members of the church came forward to give of their meager resources—money, food, even the shoes off their feet.   Soon the vision of that one church spread across Zambia, and, in 2003, Gary joined with Every Orphan’s …

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But What Happens When the Model Doesn’t Work?

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Over the last two decades, the model for care of orphans has greatly changed. Decades ago, long-term, large homes were the prevalent model for orphan care. Big dormitories, or at least large group homes, dominated the landscape of care facilities. Without question—and especially in the emerging world—this model had its problems. Sometimes the problems were fairly minor—kids needed more interaction with society outside the grounds of the orphanage. At other times they were quite severe—children essentially warehoused to get them off the streets and out of sight. Think Oliver Twist repeated around the world. Abuse of children in these facilities …

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No place for any child

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A children’s prison? Surely what I meant to say was correctional institution, or even reform school, but not prison. We all know children do not belong in prison. Prisons are for adults: hardened criminals, repeat offenders, those a danger to the public. But children’s prisons—which are often more violent and oppressive than their adult counterparts—are a growing worldwide reality. It is estimated that there are some 1 million children in prisons worldwide. Some time ago, a group of Americans visited the children’s prison in Cariacica, Espirito Santo, Brazil—the very prison that led to this April’s formal condemnation of the nation …

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Forgiveness

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But first be reconciled to each other. Natali had a lesson to learn. As a young graduate of Hope, she knew that the choices she would make in the first months on her own would profoundly shape her life. Her witness led her boyfriend to Christ, and he quickly became a leader at the graduate church. As they moved toward marriage, she encouraged him to be reconciled with his family. He was, and then he asked the tough question: “What about you and your mother?” A bit of background… By the time she was ten, Natali’s mother was prostituting her …

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When Love is Not Enough

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We know our hearts are in the right place. We really, really, want to make life better for these kids. So, why can’t it be easy? The first year of Hope, two decades ago, every single boy ran away. We gave them a safe place to live, good – and regular – food, all the things that make life normal. But it wasn’t enough; they all ran away, rejecting the life we had built for them. They needed not more, but something very different. What transformation demanded was that they had structure, boundaries, discipline. Our breakthrough came when a retired …

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A New Mission Field: Children in Prison

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Today I welcome Philip Smith, co-founder and CEO of Hope Unlimited for Children. From earlier posts, you may be aware that Hope recently agreed to explore the possibility of joining the state of Espirito Santo in looking for ways to transform their children’s prisons. As with any new endeavor, we are always aware of the possibility of “mission creep,” — and taking our focus away from the street children we serve. In an effort to prevent that from happening, Philip visited one of these prisons to ask the question, “Are these our children?” This is what he found – in …

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Light: Shining in the Darkness

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I am pleased to welcome Jeremy Stanley this week. Jeremy is a storyteller at heart. From the Hollywood Hills to a leper colony in Kenya, everyone has a story to tell. Having spent many years in the film & television industry in Los Angeles, Jeremy’s focus and passion is now exposing injustice and sharing stories of hope and redemption around the world. It’s easy to find despair in the darkness. It envelops you. It overwhelms you. You hear stories of children being murdered in the streets.  Of little girls losing their innocence and prostituting themselves at desperately young ages.  t …

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Materialism

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Have you ever thought about the “why” of materialism?   Sunday night I left Tennessee for Brazil; left my very comfortable home for a 16-hour, three-leg flight. I was met at the small Vitoria airport by one of our houseparents. We traveled through the relative affluence of the ocean-front residential section of town then began to wind our way up broken streets to Hope Mountain. We passed squalor; we came within feet of the brutal children’s prison at Cariacica; we saw filthy children sitting on street curbs.   Discomfort. Back in the beautiful Springtime of East Tennessee, it is very …

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Was He one of us?

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My friend grabbed me immediately after the service. “I finally understand that verse.” A question in my eyes. “The ‘I had no place to lay my head’ verse. Tonight, for the first time, I understand it.” We were at Saturday night worship the night before Palm Sunday at The Net Fellowship, a church formed by former street children who are graduates of Hope Unlimited’s residential program. Joining the graduates, their families, and members of the community who have become part of The Net were about two hundred children who presently live at the two Hope campuses in Campinas, Brazil. And …

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But God wasn’t finished yet…

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I wrote last week of God’s miraculous provision in preserving Hope Mountain, but that was only the beginning of what God had in store that day. There was a third point to the Vice-Governor’s proposal to us. But first, a bit of background. Hope Mountain (HM), to no small degree, came into existence 11 years ago because our Board was so moved by the horrific conditions they saw when they visited the children’s prison across the valley from HM. Sixteen children crammed into small cells built of block and iron bars; a hole in the floor for a toilet; a …

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But God had something else in mind…

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A few months ago, the Board of Directors of Hope Unlimited for Children reluctantly voted to close our Hope Mountain campus. It was not without pain to make the decision; the need is desperate there, and hearts, efforts, and money had been poured into the transformation of this former prison facility into a place where the lives of boys could be transformed. But, a decade into the project, only marginal local support had joined the U.S. investment, and the cost of running the project was threatening to strangle the Hope organization.   The Board made the decision provisionally: if Hope …

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Maddie

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Today I welcome Maddie to the blog. Last summer sixteen-year-old Maddie and her family visited Hope Unlimited’s City of Youth in Brazil. She recently spoke at a chapel service at her school about her experiences in Brazil.  These words are excerpted from her presentation. Imagine a girl who lives in a comfortable suburban house surrounded by a loving family. She attends Stanford games and vacations in Newport Beach with her family. She attends private school. Imagine another girl who lives in a home of cardboard and plywood, without plumbing or electricity. She walks barefoot on a dirty, trash-filled street. Her mom suffers from mental illness …

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A Heart Made New

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When Carlos first arrived at the City of Youth two years ago, he was just like so many of the kids who have come to call the City of Youth their home. He had virtually no contact with his mother and became a child of the streets when he fled a physically abusive father. But we soon realized there was something different about Carlos. He was weak, often short of breath, and simply did not have the robust appearance that a young teenage boy should have. A pediatrician in Campinas scheduled Carlos for a battery of cardiac exams. Before he made it to …

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More revolting numbers…

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This isn’t about our capability to change the world; it’s about our will to do so.   I’ve written on a number of these blogs about the plight of at-mortal-risk children. They do not choose to live as they do; all choices have been taken from them by poverty, by culture, by environment.   The challenge of changing the world is not about our capability: according to the Borgen Project, spending just $19 billion between now and 2015 could essentially eliminate global starvation and malnutrition; $12 billion per year over that same time period could provide education for every child …

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What is Trafficking?

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In January you may have read Ileana’s story, a story told far too often not only in Brazil, but in so many places where young girls are seen as commodities rather than as creations in the image of God. In many countries, what happened to Ileana is not called prostitution. Because Ileana was sold in her own home by her own mother, the law identifies this as abuse, but not prostitution; a ridiculous distinction that does not recognize the extent of the devastation Ileana suffered.   Not only is what happened to Ileana prostitution, it’s sex trafficking. As defined in The United States’ …

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Feliz Aniversário!

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The post this week comes from Karen Rodriguez, a member of Princeton Alliance Church in Plainsboro, NJ. A group from Princeton has been in Brazil this month ministering to our kids and refurbishing the sanctuary. How do you get to spend your birthday? Do you get to go out with your family to a nice restaurant? Do they shower you with love, affection, and gifts in many forms?  Do you get to pick any cake you want and have people sing to you?  Does your dad sing the birthday song to you a week before your birthday and continue to …

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Oh Lord, hear my prayer

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At the City of Youth, our flagship campus in Brazil, we have a mid-week chapel service for the kids.  During the service we have an offertory.  Our kids, of course, have no money to give, but come forward and place written prayers and prayer requests in a large bowl at the front of the auditorium.  Many of the prayers are simple, a line or two composed at the last minute, but nonetheless heartfelt, “Lord, thank you for giving me this place to live.”  Others are longer, maybe running a page or two as a child pours out her heart to …

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A New Beginning

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It is an appalling truth that many of the girls at Hope have been sexually abused and exploited. Thanks to the grace of God, that is forever in the past as soon as they reach our campus. Unfortunately, it’s a more difficult and much slower process to change their self-perception. These children have been taught since birth that they have value only as a sexual object. But Hope Unlimited is about transformation. Our story is of a tragic beginning absolutely overwhelmed by a triumphant end. Each February, churches and individuals across the U.S. add a little something to their Valentine’s …

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The Ripple Effect

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Jack and Evangel Smith are two people who changed the world. In 1962, they were Presbyterian missionaries teaching at a mission school in Ethiopia when they started a school for homeless kids in their back yard. This was a mission on top of their mission, but they were so overwhelmed by the poverty they saw, they felt they could do no less. Seeing the desperation around them, they told one little orphan boy, “Tomorrow we will start a school for street children. We want you to come, and bring your friends. But,” they warned him, “don’t bring any thieves.” The …

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lleana’s Story

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The kids at Hope Unlimited come from different backgrounds. Before they are sent to us, they might endure neglect, abandonment, abuse, exploitation, or even torture. Our staff and social workers labor tirelessly to help our students leave the darkness of their pasts behind them, but each child will forever bear emotional and often physical scars. We are their safe haven, and in order to protect their privacy, I will always change the names of the students whose stories I tell, and I will never tell anyone’s story without permission. Last year a visitor from the U.S. asked one of our …

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Are we serious?

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Do we take Jesus’ words seriously? The numbers don’t look like it: 200 million children worldwide are either biological or social orphans; 24,000 children die of hunger or hunger-related disease every day, two million girls and boys are forced into the sex trade every year.  In Brazil, the country where I work with mortal-risk children, up to three million children have been abandoned to the streets; once on the streets they’re lucky to live five years. What is our answer to their cries for help? In this blog, I’ll introduce you to the struggle of some of the world’s most …

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