Visit them. . . .

Today’s reading distresses me so much that writing about it is almost impossible. Piper’s book was written more than thirty years ago. Are these stats better now? Or worse? He says:

There are an estimated twelve million homeless children on the streets of Brazil. Their parents lost them in the crowds, put them out, died. However they got there, they are there. They beg, they steal, they sell their bodies. They eat garbage. Some policemen and others moonlight by contracting to kill street children so that they will not menace the city. In 1992 an average of four hundred of these children were killed monthly in Brazil. It’s the same in other big cities. The Philippine government estimates that there are fifteen thousand child prostitutes in Manila between the ages of nine and twelve. One estimate suggests that in Thailand there are eight hundred thousand girls between twelve and sixteen years old involved in prostitution.

Google AI says the numbers in Brazil are about 7 million homeless children, 250,000 to 1 million others in Manila, and at least 20,000 without hope and enslaved in Thailand’s major cities. Even if these numbers are exaggerated, what are God’s people doing about it? The Bible says:

Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world. (James 1:27)

Physically visit them? I cannot do that for these shunned and hunted orphans. We have widows in our large complex that I can visit, yet my heart hurts to think of so many children in such dire straits. Our church points to organizations that target rescuing these kids. They include: Chain of Love and International Justice Mission, yet the most an average person can do is pray and send money. Prayer puts the burden in God's hands and money provides the resources needed. Both are better than nothing, yet the implication in the Word of God is to doing something more personal. Jesus would and can.

Unstained from the world seems not connected to visiting needy people. However, the world is defined in another passage:

Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life—is not from the Father but is from the world. And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever. (1 John 2:15–17)

Summed up, loving the world is being so involved in what I can gain from life that I have no desire and no time nor reason for helping others have a life that matters. And isn’t that what God wills for me? For those kids?

PRAY: Father, my heart hurts. I can send money. I can visit a few widows. I try to keep worldly desires out of my motivations and actions. It seems so little compared to the size of this problem. I know You are powerful and merciful. What do you want from me in regard to this incredible need?