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. …

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 …

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, …

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 …

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 …

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 …

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 …

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 …

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 …