Sekepe is a micro-lending and business skills training ministry that I launched with a friend and supporter in the summer of 2009.  We wanted to be a catalyst to ministries helping women break the cycles of poverty.

In September of ’09, I was in Mexico City and meant Rosi Orozco, a Mexican congresswoman, who through her civil association had started a foundation / safe home that rescued and restored girls from human trafficking.  Rosi and I sat next to each other over dinner and we talked about the need for some business training and experience to help prepare the girls for a new life once they leave the safe home.   The next day, I met with some leaders at Casa Sobre la Roca who were helping launch entreperneur projects but it never seemed to work to work on a loan.  Then last Spring, I felt lead to open the discussion again.  So when I was down last May, I met with German Villar, who directs the Camino a Casa foundation and we agreed to move forward.  And over the summer, we worked out the budget and got the loan approved by the Sekepe board.

Previously, Camino a Casa had a small bakery project where girls made baked goods and sold them on Sunday morning at church.  German’s desire with Sekepe’s help is to take this to another level and make it a legitatamate business.  We also talked about it being something the girls could get paid for more than just raise funds for the foundation since the last thing we wanted to do was re-exploit them.

So this month, I took $2500 down to Mexico and German and I signed official papers for a loan for “Milk and Honey” – the new name of the bakery and catering business.  They already had an oven and other equipment but our small loan will enable them to pay for culinary classes for the girls, baking materials and a marketing strategy.  German is lining up shops to sell their baked goods and will advertise catering options for parties.  Milk and Honey will be run by 20+ girl who are survivors of human trafficking who are experiencing the promised land…. and Sekepe gets to play a small part.

Jesus and his disciples had gone to Tyre on the coast of Lebanon.  It was another  retreat.  A nice beach community this time.  He entered a home hoping no one would know (Mark 7:24-30 & Matthew15:21-28). But word got out.  A Greek woman living in Syria found out the healer was in town.  She was in crisis.  Her daughter was held captive by an evil spirit and tormented.

She came.  She plead.  She begged.  She cried.  Jesus seemed to ignore her.  Strange.  Not what I expect.  Does he look the other way?  Does he shut his ears to her cries? The disciples urged Jesus to send her away. Her begging is driving us mad.  Get rid of her.  Make her stop. Let’s face it, when someone is begging like crazy, its a little uncomfortable.   It’s not proper.  It seems out of order or uncouth.  Even when I respond to beggars, I respond out of frustration, not compassion.  Just stop bothering me!

Jesus finally seemed to wake up.  He told her that she wasn’t in his target audience.  Sorry.  Move along now. Next. But instead of leaving, she worships.  (Though I am not sure when I think of worship I think of begging & pleading all the more.) “Lord, help me!”  Desperation.

“It isn’t right to take bread out my children’s hands and toss it to the dogs.”   “Charity begins at home. I have to feed my children first.  You are foreigner.  You are of a different race, a different religion. You are probably poor and dirty too.” I can hear the disciples’ say: “Thank you, Jesus!”

But she doesn’t go.  Is she crazy?  But where else would she go?  What would she do?  ”Yes, but even the dogs are allowed to eat the leftovers.”   “I just want your leftovers, your miraculous crumbs, a small portion of your great mercy and power.  I have no hope if you don’t respond.  It’s hopeless without you.  Please. It’s my daughter whom I love.  She needs rescuing.” Jesus responds.  He praises her faith.  Immediately the girl is set free.  Rescued.  Restored.

I am heading out this afternoon for a 4 day trip to Mexico City.  Along with five others from the Boulder area, I will attend a joint US-Mexico Human Trafficking event and then visit those we are collabrating with in ending this tragedy.  Our desire is to come alongside them in this effort, to encourage them and to help bring about his mercy and justice.  At the congressional event, we will help tell the story using media.  My microleanding minsitry, Sekepe, is helping partner in a bakery where rescued girls will work and learn cooking/business skills.  So I am also bringing down our intial loan for this project.

And most of all, we also will spend time with ‘Syrophoenician women’ who plead for kids who are being tormented day and night by evil.  They cry for kids who are like daughters to them even if they are unknown.  They need his mircaculous crumbs of mercy as evil has a stronghold in the form of a heavily armed cartel.

Perhaps some may say its a distraction.  Not really what should be about.  Why leave your family for a week? Take care of your own.  Maybe they think the time, money and effort come be spent on a ‘higher calling’.

Maybe some only see this issue strategically. How it opens doors for proclamation. But Jesus didn’t deliver her daughter from evil so that he could be known throughout Tyre or even Syria or Greece.   In fact, he left this town and went up the coast to Sidon right after this.  Jesus acts because he cares.  He is moved by her faith that is shown through persistant desperate prayer.   It’s not a tactic to him.  It’s a person in need.

Lord let your crumbs fall… let the crumbs of your mercy, power and justice fall to those on the outside.  Those trapped by evil.  They who need rescuing.  Children.  Little boys and girls.  Precious to you.  Lord, let me be shameless in pleading for your mercy and justice.  May I  be about setting captives free.  May we be about seeing your Kingdom come, your will be done here on this planet as it is in heaven.

One Jesus’ most famous miracles happens at one of his lowest times.  Jesus has gotten word that his cousin / forerunner has been beheaded so he withdraws to be alone.  To a remote place.  A desolate place.  A place to rest.  (Mark’s account has this happening both after this news and the disciples coming off a mission trip.  So it was a case of the 12 needing a time to rest & recover and the need for our Savior to have a quiet place to rest & recover.)

Maybe the greatest miracle is not that Jesus fed 5000 men - not counting women & children - with a small boy’s picnic lunch.  But maybe its that he welcomed 5000+ when he really wanted to be alone.   When you are grieving as Jesus was, you are not looking to deal with a crowd of people demanding your time.  You want quiet… a retreat… solitude.    You are in a funk and need to just emote.

But Jesus has compassion on these shepherdless people.  He took time to stop and teach them and heal their sicknesses.  It wasn’t a convenient time.  Surely they would have understood if He had said, “Guys look I just lost someone I care about.  Can you give me a little space?  How about coming back next week? ”   He feeds them….  miraculously….  and feeds his disciples who had not eaten either.   He cares. He meets needs.  He minsters.

When they had left, when they disciples were in a boat on the lake, then Jesus went up into the hills to be alone.  Then he took care of himself.

There are a lot of people hurting.  Multitudes in need.  Many hungry.  Many sick.  Many in need of understanding.  Many in need of a miracle.  Many like sheep without a shepherd.  Jesus cares.  Jesus ministers even when its not convenient.  Jesus responds to crowds differently.  Jesus is moved with compassion.  (And if you read on in John’s account these people really didn’t care about him even though He cared about them.  They just saw Jesus was a free meal ticket like a big Genie or something. Hmmm sounds too familiar.)

Tomorrow and the rest of the week, I will be among crowds.  I will be in airports and in one of the largest cities in the world.  May I see individuals and not crowds.  May I be moved by compassion.  May I take time to minister and not be caught up in myself.

Oppression.  Not a happy topic.  I’d rather forget it or look away.

Oppression is when someone in power cruelly burdens another.  It can be physical or mental.  It is slavery.  It is an abusive spouse.  It’s adult who takes advantage of a child.  It’s a totalitarianism.  It is psychological torture.  It’s not paying an employee fair wages.  It’s racial injustice.  It is seeing people as less than human.  It’s the horrific act of trafficking of women and children.  It is real.  It is wrong.  It exists not in the past but today.  Everywhere we look…   in our neighborhoods and (living in a global community) in our world.

Jesus said that he was sent to release the oppressed. But its not just that He came to set the oppressed free, its that He was oppressed and He came to set the oppressed free.   Jesus entered the depth of the most vile inhuman act.  He embraced the pain to take away the curse.

Free. Released.  What would it feel to be a slave set free?  To be freed from torture?  From physiological, emotional or physical abuse?  Somehow I think of that scene in Band of Brothers when they came upon the concentration camp.

But its more than just being set free… its being restored.  Fully restored.  A new life.  A new hope.  A new identity.  Dignity.  Value.  That is what Jesus came to do.  He makes all things new.

He didn’t come to make he happy..  or rich… or satisfied.  He came to set me free.  He sends me out to set be a part of His Kingdom of setting others free.  Not sure some happy little conversation but a whole salvation.  Helping people be made whole –  in their body, in their soul, in their relationships with other humans, in their ability to know a God who loves them.

Oppression.  Not a happy topic.  I’d rather forget it or look away.  But I can’t.  He demands that I be about things He is about. If I say I follow Him, I must love the things He loves.  And how much more would I understand Christ and His love if I set my heart on setting people free?

Yesterday, we had our gathering of leaders from churches in Boulder County partnering together with iEmpathize to serve those helping to end human trafficking in Mexico.  It’s been a while since we met with summer and all.  It’s always good to each together with these folks who I have come to become friends with and I’m excited about what we are trustign the LORD to do together.  Quite frankly, I am always humbled by the time.

I wanted to start us off by sharing a passage about justice.  I felt we needed to just pause and remember why we do what we do.  You know there is easy to get our motives twisted because there are a lot of payoffs for a church in Boulder to be involved – its fun to do it with other churches, it makes Christianity look cool & hip, this issue touches people’s hearts and pocketbooks if you know what I mean, it provides opportunities for people to get involved...  But the real reason we should want to be involved is because its the right thing to do.  It is loving our neighbor in need.  it is a God-thing because He loves justice and mercy.  And there are little kids all over the world who are being abused and need to be rescued & restored.

I hadn’t  decided to which verse to pick on God’s heart for justice.  Just that morning thought of a few and decided that the last two verses of Psalm 10 might be appropriate.  As I got ready to read it,  felt I should just read the whole Psalm for context.  You know its like reading one line of a poem and not getting the full meaning of the author.  I hadn’t read the whole chapter in a while and was amazed at how appropriate it fit the context.

I encourage you to read it with me and think of a little girl – imagine a sweet innocent face – being tricked by a predator perhaps by a promise of a better life.  A little girl – maybe orphaned, certainly vulnerable – being taken captive.  Maybe she’s in mexico.  Maybe she’s in Thailand.  She could be Russian, Chinese or even a little American girl in your own town.  Now she is being used an instrument of vile, gain counted not even as a life by her traffickers.  Her little body being abused over and over again.  She is tramped, helpless.  Innocence is shattered.   Imagine her calling out in despiration for help.  Maybe she doesn’t even know there is a powerful God who hears, who cares – the one who is a helper of the fatherless.  As we read it, let’s join in the call for God to arise and make things right… to see His will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

Psalm 10

Why, O LORD, do you stand far off? Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?

In his arrogance the wicked man hunts down the weak, who are caught in the schemes he devises.  He boasts of the cravings of his heart; he blesses the greedy and reviles the LORD. In his pride the wicked does not seek him;  in all his thoughts there is no room for God.  His ways are always prosperous; he is haughty and your laws are far from him;  he sneers at all his enemies.  He says to himself, “Nothing will shake me; I’ll always be happy and never have trouble.”  His mouth is full of curses and lies and threats;  trouble and evil are under his tongue.

He lies in wait near the villages; from ambush he murders the innocent, watching in secret for his victims. He lies in wait like a lion in cover; he lies in wait to catch the helpless; he catches the helpless and drags them off in his net.  His victims are crushed, they collapse;  they fall under his strength. He says to himself, “God has forgotten; he covers his face and never sees.”

Arise, LORD! Lift up your hand, O God. Do not forget the helpless. Why does the wicked man revile God? Why does he say to himself,  ”He won’t call me to account”?  But you, O God, do see trouble and grief;  you consider it to take it in hand.  The victim commits himself to you; you are the helper of the fatherless.

Break the arm of the wicked and evil man; call him to account for his wickedness that would not be found out.

The LORD is King for ever and ever; the nations will perish from his land. You hear, O LORD, the desire of the afflicted; you encourage them, and you listen to their cry,defending the fatherless and the oppressed, in order that man, who is of the earth, may terrify no more.

We have a common enemy you and me.  In fact, this enemy is the enemy of us all – short or tall, slender or heavyset, young or old, male or female, rich or poor, no matter your race, no matter where you were born, or what you believe.  We all have the same enemy.  This enemy is death.  We all face the reality of death.  It has affected all of our lives or will one day.  We can’t escape it.

Death, cruel death.  This enemy, this curse, separates loved ones.  It creates pain and suffering.  It evokes grief and sorrow.  It devastates.   It destroys.  We can try to deny it.  We can try to ignore it.  We can try to tempt its fate.  We can become numb to it when we read the headlines or see a movie where lives are wasted left and right.   But there is no denying.  We are live in its cross-hairs. The clock is ticking.  One day when we least expect it, we will face death.  Maybe today.  We know this.  We see it when we look in the mirror.  We don’t want to think about it.  But we know it.

Death should not be.  It is wrong.  It was not God’s plan.  There once was no death.  There was no pain, no suffering, no separation. Death entered the world with its twin – sin.    And how painful & cruel  the first death must have been for Adam & Eve who not only lost a child but a a child murdered by the hands of their only other child.

But yet though we all face it – generation after generation – in every place on the planet –  death is sure to lose .  The creator came.  He to save us all from this common enemy.  He looked death in the face.  He experienced  its pain.  He took on death.  Then… He defeated death.  He conquered it.  He arose. He took away its power.   He gave life in its place.

And this is not just some wish or a blissful thought that we try to envision to numb the pain of death.  Its not some fairytale.  More than five hundred were eyewitnesses to this firstfruit victory.

One day this reality will be fully revealed.  Now I see through a dark glass.  Then I will fully understand.  We will shout in victory:  “Death, you slime, you have been swallowed up!  Game over – you lose.   Hey Death, where’s your victory?  Come on now.  Where, tell me where, O Death is your sting?” One day.  The last enemy to be destroyed will be Death.

There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.  He will make everything new!  Death will experience death. How ironic is that!

And yet right now, I – we, all of us on planet earth - still face this enemy.  We still feel its sting.  Even in a sure victory, we still live under its curse.  We still grieve.  We still know its pain and the hole it creates in our lives.  But the paradox is that this future is also a reality.  Death has no more power.   I don’t have to fear death.

I hurt, but I have hope.

My mom was born on June 8th, 1935.  She was born in Coral Gables, Fl.  My grandfather was from Georgia but had come to Florida in his work with Southern Bell and met my grandmother whose family had moved to Miami area earlier.  My grandmother was born in England and had moved to Canada as a baby.  Her family had moved to Florida to find work.  My grandmother was a nurse when she met my grandfather.  They had been married a little over a year when my mother was born.   But I won’t say how old my mom was when my aunt, Eleanor, was born since she is here today.

When my mom was 8 years old she made a decision that affected today.  She made a decision to put her faith in Jesus and follow Him.  She followed him and trusted in Him all her life.

When my mom was about 10 or 11, her family moved back to Georgia.  They settled in Cobb County in Smyrna where she graduated high school and then she went to Mercer University.  After graduation, she then went to seminary as she was preparing to go to the mission field to teach Missionary Kids – MKs – but God redirected her life to raise PKs – Preacher’s Kids.   Working one summer in Rockmart, GA as a church secretary, my mom met my dad and they fell in love.  My dad had been called to be a pastor and was looking to go back to school so my mom encouraged him to go to where she had graduated – Mercer.  They dated for a year long distance and then got married the following year.  So she became a wife while my dad was going through college and also a mom as my sister Belinda was born the following year.  Then they went back to the same seminary where she had started – Southwest Baptist in Fort Worth Texas – and my sister Laura was born.  So Laura’s a Texan.  Then when they finished seminary and my dad took his first fulltime pastorate in Oxford Georgia and I was born in 1964.  Our family moved several times through the years as my dad pastored several churches and had different assignments.  I will share a little more about that later.   But want to share a little more about our family and who they are.   Laura married Jose in 1990 and they have 4 children – Isaac, Joseph, Claire & Elizabeth.  In 2000, the year Elizabeth was born, I married Robin and we have 3 little boys: Luke, Jack and Drew.  Her dad – my Grandfather – went home to be with the LORD when I was in High school in 1981.  And in 1994, my Grandma Daisy went home to be with the LORD.

I want to share a few things about my mom.  Hopefully I won’t be too verbose.  The three things I want to share are three different roles as I thought about my mom.

One is the role is a pastor’s wife which is an incredible job.  There are 500,000 clergy in America.  Of those 500,000, 200,000 will wake up on Monday morning and consider quitting their job.  About 40% every Monday morning consider quitting.  My dad was a Southern Baptist pastor and every month, 1000 Southern Baptist pastors quit the ministry.  Because it’s a difficult job being in ministry: the pressures, the Spiritual battle and living with the weight of leading a congregation.  And there is, I am sure none of you are like this, but there is always someone who is critical; no matter what you do.   They will say things.  To be a pastor’s wife…  and we were often a lot in small-towns… people are critical of how you dress or how your kid’s were raised.  I’m sure I contributed to some of the backlash my mom might have received.  The one thing about my mom though- and my dad and I talked about this the other day – was that she never complained.  She never complained about moving.  She never complained if we were living a little tight if the pastor’s salary wasn’t that much.  She was faithful.  She was an encourager to my dad, beside him all those years.  I think that’s why many leave — you need someone beside you to encourage you in that great task of leading a church.  My mom was that.  I spoke with her several times and she would say, “Andy, your dad is discouraged and I don’t know how to encourage him.”  And we would talk about it and of course she did.  She was there for him.  Faithful.  Continued to follow the LORD the whole time. Content with my dad being the one up front and just being there for him.

Another thing about my mom is that she was an educator.  She was a first grade teacher even before I started school.  And when we moved to Washington County, there was an opportunity to work with what they called in those days, ‘training centers’.  These were created for the mentally handicapped back because we didn’t know what to do with them in the traditional schools.  Mom began teaching and assisting the director of the training  center.  She also went back to school and got her Masters in Special Education.  She worked with Special Education up until her retirement.  When we moved up here, she first worked in Hall County’s Training Center.  And then when I was in High school, they begin to move Special Education back into the school, and most kids were placed back in the classrooms but they had a unique class for those with multiple handicaps.  There was one class in the county for elementary kids who had multiple handicaps and my mom taught that.  These kids would have both physical and mental disabilities – perhaps like in a wheelchair but also mentally handicapped.  You know teaching is a wonderful profession.  You can always have a hope that some former student will come back and say “I’m now a doctor and you had an influence on my life”.  Burt if you work with the mentally handicapped, you know they can never do this.  As a society, we often don’t know what to do with the mentally challenged.  We look away or we will not draw near.  But my mom was drawn near and worked with these children who were special and dear to her.  Year after year.  Maybe you’ll see incremental change but not huge change.  All you can do is just faithfully serve them.   It’s a noble thing but I think it’s also a godly thing.  It’s the character of Christ.  Jesus focused on the least – the people at the bottom of society – the widows, the poor, crippled.   He came to heal the sick not the healthy.  The bible says what credit is it if you love people who love you?  But can you love people who don’t have the capacity to love you in the same way.  Jesus said that when he returns that people who worked the least of these, ‘you did it to me – when fed the hungry, when you cared for the sick…  And I believe, though he didn’t say this verbatim, “when you cared and worked with the mentally challenged.”  I believe that every day when my mom was teaching and working for these children – the least of our society-she was working with Jesus.   She was working with Jesus that’s what he said.  It’s amazing.   People will stand up and say, “ I cast out demons in his name, or healed in his name or taught in his name” and Jesus will respond, “I never knew you.”  You can do those things and not be doing them for Jesus but yourself but Jesus said when you served among the least, He will say that you not only did it but you did it to me.   And I believe, He said this to my mom when she first saw his face a few days ago.

The last thing about my mom that I was to share is the role of a mother.  I’m sure it’s always a special thing of mom and her son.   And to add on to it, I was the baby.  I had a unique relationship with my mother – close.  I loved her.  There was an understanding all through life.  You know, your mom is always there when things hurt but there was something more a closeness.  You know our family, much like any family, would have conflict and I to confess – I always took my mom’s side.  Every time.  Well once I didn’t take her side and it shocked her.  And I don’t recall exactly what it was but there was a time I felt some injustice but I remember my mom sitting with me as I wept and was frustrated.  She was there with me, loving me, believing in me and saying ‘it was okay’.  And that is what I remember of my mom – being there.  Long hugs.  A generous woman whom I love.

In 1998, I felt the LORD was calling me to China.  I was single at the time and had been on my own for a while but felt impressed to process this with my parents in an honoring way.  I felt the Lord was calling me long-term to China.  Little did I know a few months later, I would meet Robin and the LORD would change those plans.   But at that time as I talked with my mom, I knew this was a big deal.  I would be gone for holidays and not sure how often I would be able to come home or when I would.  My mom said, “Andy when you were followed the call of the LORD right out of college, it was initially hard for me.  But as I talked it over with the Lord, I was reminded of the passage when Jesus said to his mom, ‘I must be about my Father’s business’ and I prayed, ‘Andy must be about His father’s business.  And I will give him to you’.  She said to Jesus, ‘I will trust you with Him no matter where you call him, I will trust you’“.

You know my mom through the years, even though I lived in a lot of places overseas or in Colorado, she never said, ‘why don’t you live closer to us in Georgia or why are you raising grandbabies away from me’   She might have thought it but she never said it.  She never stood in the way of God’s call because she trusted that God was good and He had called me.  She had given me back to him even though we were close and it was hard.  Being in ministry and helping young people go into the mission field, I see this a lot in ministry where parents cannot let their kids follow the LORD.  But my mom never did, she trusted.  Even though she longed to see me and wanted me close by, she let me go.

I was reminded of that on Monday as I heard my mom while in ICU had taken a turn for the worse.  Part of me didn’t want my mom to go.  It was too sudden… I wasn’t expecting that.  Who would want that?  But I said “Jesus, just as she trusted you with me, I am trusting you with her.   She is in your hands.”

She is in a better place.  She is in a place where she doesn’t have to count points anymore.  She is in his glory, face-to-face.  No pain.  No suffering. No curse.  Forever.  Our life is a vapor.  The time away from her will be so small in comparison to eternity.  She sees him Face-to-Face.  How could I stand in the way of God calling her home!  And of course I couldn’t anyway.  That’s where she is.   She is with him.  My wife reminded me that even though we are saying bye today, she has been with Jesus since Tuesday morning.  A new body.  An eternity.  And I will miss her just like she would miss me when I was gone.  But I will see her again and we will hug again.  But she is with her Savior who she has walked with and known for a long time.

I appreciate you coming and just wanted you to know that I had a wonderful mom, and a good friend and I can’t wait to see her again.

John Charles “Jack” and Andrew Bogan “Drew” McCullough turned 5 today!   We are so blessed by these boys.  

In Matthew 25, Jesus gives that famous theology-rockin’ passage of separating the sheep and the goats based on how they responded to the least of these my brothers & sisters.  It’s in the feeding the hunger, giving water to the thirsty, clothing the naked, providing shelter to the homeless, ministering to the sick and visiting the prisoner that we meet Jesus and in turn receive the reward of entering into his Kingdom.  Parenthetically when we don’t do these things, we are cast out of his presence.  Paired with other passages found in James and I John will rock your theology!  …Hopefully.

This past week in the South African township of Nellamapius working with Beam Africa Network, our team has encountered Jesus.   Because kids are in school  (its winter here) our mornings are filled with going into the community and visiting people in their homes.   People either live in 1 bedroom cement block homes and tin shacks called Makukus.  The Makukus are often have no electricity or running water and are 1-room homes in that everything – kitchen, sitting area, bedroom are all one room smaller than most bedrooms in America.

The people are always at home because unemployment may be as high as 80% in the townships.  One family I visited had several generations living in the homes and surrounding makukus all trying to survive on just the granny’s pension.  It barely covers the rent, electricity and water bills.  We have come across sick because they can’t afford the clinic (or it has no medicine).  And since they can’t afford the clinic, the are still sick or injured.  And since they are injured or sick, they can’t work.  And since they can’t work, they can’t afford the clinic.  Do you sense the despair?

But the worst….  the most grievous, the most painful, the most unjust situation I have seen I first saw on Thursday.  A widow and her two children were living on the outskirts of Nellmapius on a farm.   Her husband had been a worker for this white farmer.   He died after being gored by a bull.  They live (if I can call it living) in a depapillated farm house with a partial roof.  There is no electricity.  There is no water.  There is no toilet.  They have to walk several kilometers to a river to bath or go to the toilet.  or they go in yard as it reeked of fowl odors.  The widow can’t work because she has arthritis.  She can’t get assistance for medicine.  The officials give her once look over and deem her not sick enough for aid.  She has nothing.  She has no kitchen.  She has no food.

But the worst is this cruel farmer.  His farm is surrounded by similar shacks.   He does not pay his workers.  He cares more for his cows than these people.  It is inhumane.  He is ruthless.  He is oppressing them.  He would force this woman off his land but she has no where to go and who would live in this ‘building’ anyway.

I had so much rage when I saw this condition.  This women is the six-fold least of these.  She has them all.  I had just led our team that morning to look at Jeremiah 22 where God condemns a king who did the same thing.  He compares this cruel king to his father Josiah who did what was right and just, who cares for the poor and the widows.  God himself says: “Is this not what it means to know me!”   But he pronounced judgment on the cruel king that he will die with no one mourning his death and his very body will be drugged outside the city like a dead ass.

Yesterday, we delivered a food parcel to this family.  It is still very small.  They will die unless this condition changes.  The red-tape of government and the racist hate of the landlord stand against her.  Beam Africa will continue to stand on her behalf.  To help her with relief and fight with her until change happens.  I don’t know what it will take perhaps the equivalent of 60 minutes needs to expose this to the nation and shame others into action.

I have resolved that I will not leave this when I return in a few days.  I can’t leave this from my mind.   I will cry out to the Righteous Father on her behalf.  I will be like the persistent widow in Luke 18.  I will not stop until this prisoner has been set free.