I can’t sleep. I went to church tonight and while I came away with a sense of this is where I need to be I am so worried about the kids there. See I live in the nice part of my town. I live where people play golf, walk their cute little dogs and don’t worry about crime much. The church we just joined is in the middle of the town and on the other side of the church, is the “hole.”
The hole is where the kids that ride the bus come from. They are the poor children with no manners, no Christian background, no money, and no “real” parents. They are the ones that come dirty and hungry and who have driven off 1/3 of the church members. They are also the reason we joined the church.
Most people in the church are OK with these “bus kids”, but really don’t do much to help them. They pray for them and hand food out to them, but I don’t think they think about them at night…especially not at 12:30am like I am. God has done something to me that I just can’t explain! These children are like my own now.
We had our business meeting tonight at the church and the food pantry numbers are way up. They had 10 families today alone come to get food. People are calling looking for money to pay electrical bills with just to keep the lights on. I’ve never been part of anything like this before and I am scared.
I was talking to the children’s director tonight at church. She wants to do a school drive for these kids to try to get school supplies together for them. I told her I had the same idea and what ever help she needed I would give. I mentioned that we might want to send a letter home in August telling the parents that we had collected school supplies for the kids and then have a special prayer service the Sunday before school starts and dinner on the grounds. There we would hand out the supplies to the kids. She liked the idea so we will talk to the pastor about it next week. We are just trying to be helpful and yet really reach the parents of these kids!
We started talking about the “bus kids” and how it was hard to really get to know them as they would be there for a while and then just disappear. They would either move away or be evicted and you lost them. I had never thought of that before! I’m now worried that I could loose the 2 girls I was talking about.
I also found out that their Mother had called the church wanting to know if the church offered any free classes in the day time for the kids. The impression the children’s director got was that she was just trying to dump her kids. I talked to my husband tonight about it and he agreed that we would offer for the girls to come to our house.
I also introduced myself to the boy I feel God wants us to be involved with tonight. He was shocked that I asked his name and introduced myself. His mouth just hung open not knowing what to say to me. I just smiled and asked his name and said it was nice to meet him and then he got on the bus, the bus that took him back to “the hole.”
My Christian blog readers please pray for us. Please pray for these kids! The economy is getting worse and worse and I feel our time is short before the house of cards come falling down. I am doing everything I can to prepare and I am even preparing for these kids. I keep having the fear that their parents will abandon them because they can’t take care of them. I have 2 twin beds in the attic and a bunk bed in the little girl’s room that no one sleeps in. We would take them in with no questions asked! I’m just afraid I will loose them before we can establish that close of a relationship. I know fear doesn’t come from the Lord, but I am so afraid right now! Please, please pray for us me that God will use me for what ever purpose He has and that I will never miss the message from Him about these kids!
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