Choices.

Wake up, wash face, brush teeth, head upstairs.  What should to have for breakfast today?  Pancakes, French toast, omelet, egg sandwich, oatmeal, cereal.. maybe drive thru McD’s?  The list is too long to go on.

Choices.  God gave each of us the freedom to make our own life decisions.  What we eat, our careers, where we live, who we live with, what time we wake up.. all these things as United States Citizens have the freedom to decide. 

Imagine having these choices stripped away..

5:30 AM woken by blaring music over a speaker.  Jump to the side as your foot accidentally falls off your mat onto the cement floor, while doing so bump the girl sleeping next to you.   Head to the bathroom to shower with 15 other girls jammed in, brush teeth before water is turned off due to the low rain this monsoon season.  6:30 AM head to Chapel.   7 AM sweep the trash off the dirt play ground with a wooden twig broom.  8 AM breakfast (idli and sambar), 8:45 AM head to school in uniform.

The girls here decide close to nothing for themselves.   Decisions are made for them.  The only real choice they have is to how to respond to their situation.  Keep the hope that one day they can rise above this by receiving good marks in school, or loosing hope and dropping out to return to the poverty they came from.  They can be hopeless and just going through the motions, mad and wear a frown on their face while lashing out at others.  However, some hope, hope to be doctors to help the less fortunate, and change their world.  Some want to be missionaries and spread the love of joy they have found in the little possessions they have. 

With over 100 girls in the orphanage, each child has a different story that led them here.  many of abandonment, others of death, some of drugs and crime.  Each reason leaves its mark.  It is inspiring to see the ones who are smiling still.  The fact they can play amazes me.  The little time they forget where they are and be “normal” children. The only true comfort they daily receive is the hope in Christ’s promise to us all.  Still that is hard to believe with no one to hug them, encourage them, and tell them it will be better.  Then it hits me, for some it won’t be.  But for the perseveres, the hopers…

We can only pray they do not lose sight of God’s gracious promise of restoration, if only we believe. 

Remember next time you are angry the grocery store is out of your favorite snack, there are some who do not even know the experience of having a snack is.

Pray for them, that God may take away the evil that tells them they are nothing, and going nowhere.  Pray they feel love, that they stay hopeful, for perseverance, and that they come out stronger because of their hardships.

Pray for yourselves, pray for your neighbors, that we do not lose hope that God is good, that he is right, and that he knows what is best.  Thank Him for today, and thank Him for the freedom to choose.