Hoping in the next generation

This week at work I have been in the midst of taking steps towards taking over our project in Southern Sudan, which is for right now building schools in a neighborhood in Juba. It will ultimately house 600-700 primary age children, ages 5 to 14 years. The school will also provide education for adults as well. Part of learning about the inner workings of the project is understanding the population we are helping. Many of the children we are helping live with the reality of no parents to give them a home, so they turn to the life on the streets of a desolate land. A land where there are no fathers.

Fast forward to this evening when for the first time I watched the movie Black Hawk Down. This film profoundly affected me. There is a scene where one of the Rangers, played by Josh Harnett, is called an idealist by his peers because frankly, he is an idealist, and asks why he doesn't just see his job as a mission and actually see a measure of hope in the situation. He tells them that there is a choice to be made: that we could either go in and help the people or watch a nation destroy themselves on CNN. It is a choice. Albeit a risk.

This week I was overwhelmed, not with my responsiblity but the weight of need in the region I am focused on. There is such great need in Southern Sudan, a place that is literally at ground zero in every respect. So I go back to what the Word says. That we know a God "who gives life to the dead, and calls things that are not, as though they were." The Christian Church is hanging on. One of our pastors visited D.C. just before I came on board and spoke to reps at the State Department and then rounded churches in the area. So many of the pastors have been killed in Civil War. His congregations composed mostly of widows. But still his words resound in my mind and heart, "that he asks God to change Sudan in his generation."

So for these children I pray. That we would know the love of the Father, so that we might love a fatherless generation.