Last month I was blessed to attend a training held by Crisis Care Training International, a ministry of WEC International, in which I was empowered to work with children in crisis. During this intense training, my spirit was grieving for the broken children around the world as I heard some heart wrenching statistics and saw videos of those hurting little souls. One of the modules was exclusively talking about street children. Based on one of the statistics mentioned in class, there are approximately 100 million extremely underprivileged street children who struggle to survive in today's cities. And if you were to count one street child per second, it would take you 3 years and 2 months to count them all! I still can't wrap my mind around that staggering statistic.
The street children face many challenges and traumas on a daily basis in order to survive. One of those dangers are the street sweeps done by the police, people in the community, and even contracted individuals who go out looking for them only to hurt, torture or kill them. In the book "Street Children", edited by Phyllis Kilbourn, I read something that blew my mind and here's what it said:
"This childhood-if we can call it that- ended several years ago on the main street of Ipanema, Brazil. The body of nine-year-old Patricio Hilario da Silva was found with a handwritten note tied around his neck. It read, 'I killed you because you didn't study and had no future. The government must not allow the streets of the city to be invaded by kids.'"
It is evident that the person who killed Patricio had no idea he killed a boy with purpose and destiny in God's eyes and that His kingdom belongs to children like him! To give you another example of what a child in crisis goes through, but most importantly to remind you of the hope we find in Christ, watch this video and listen to the lyrics of a song titled "Beautiful Slave".
Beautiful Slave Video
Yes, the need is great and the numbers of broken children are huge, but my God is still seated on His glorious throne and has given us hope, Jesus Christ! His finished work on Calvary was sufficient to restore and heal all of humanity. He has heard the desperate cry for help, love, acceptance and freedom from these children and is seeking them to heal and restore everything the enemy has stolen from them. He wants them to be children who are in Christ! How can I be so sure of this and why do I have such a deep compassion for these children? Because I was once a child in crisis myself, I silently cried out for someone to rescue me. He heard my cry , came to my rescue, healed and restored my soul! Now the hope of glory, Jesus, dwells in me and all I want is what He wants, to see broken children and families restored.
