Lighthouse state

I think we have come to Sierra Leone at just the right time. I believe we are here to pray and to be an encouraging breath of fresh air and hope. My prayer is that we are just that! My heart aches for Cami and the WMF staff here. The questions they are asking right now are not easy to ask or simple to answer and the answers are not easy to decipher or simple to apply.

As an outsider here to the program, I see so much of what the Lord has already done. I see former street boys and girls that were living without purpose. I see God's children that were naked and hungry and are now clothed and fed. The Lord doesn't give a cut and dry road map for helping cultivate and instill worth and long term responsibility into the orphan that you feed and clothe. I believe this is because every orphan and abandoned child is unique and not one remedy will cultivate in every heart what Jesus purposed for them. When parents or families fail to invest into a heart the love and value of being a child of God, this responsibility shifts to the church as the hand and instrument of God. However, the difficult position to be in at this stage is that they cannot make these kids WANT to grow and mature. It has to be something the individual owns and seeks out for themselves. Most of these kids have been in the program for around 3 years. I think (and I could be wrong) that the staff is weary of calling these kids to a higher standard of maturity and responsibility. Every single one of these kids are remarkable creations and have talents to offer this world. However, I truly believe that most of them didn't have a fun and enjoyable childhood and that is what they are trying to relive now. The beauty is that the Lord can restore what was taken by the enemy without having to relive a lost youth. A lot of these kids are close to the age of the rest of the servant team....late teens and early twenties. I think they need to start seeing themselves as men and women who have the responsibility to choose what is next for them. I wish for them that they would stop needing so much hand holding in those important areas. So, those are my petty two cents on the rut that Lighthouse seems to be in right now.

I write all this because I love these kids and to be honest, I see a future and a hope for them that I believe can be accomplished through prayer. I believe it with every fiber of my being! I know so many of you are faithful prayers and so I ask that you will pray with me...pray that as the staff here asks important questions and that important answers will be given. Please against discouragement and weariness and pray for hope and vision. Sometimes things must be cut down to regrow into something beautiful, but only the Gardener knows just when the right time for that is without killing the plant. Please pray that the WMF would be His pruning instruments in and at the right season.

Thank you for your prayers and praise Jesus for Hope!