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My hope is built on nothing less …

I was thinking back and I realized that for the most part I write two types of stories. 

I write stories about the kids in the orphanages.  I write about how they touch my heart.  The struggles they face.  The special moments with them and the heartbreaking moments with them.  I try and help people understand how much I love the kids in the orphanage and hate the orphanages.  I write about how much I wish I could change the life they live.  I try as hard as I can to convey how heartbreaking it can be to work with the kids, not because I’m trying to play on peoples emotions but because it is really heartbreaking.  I always feel like these stories are depressing, because, well, it depresses me.

And then I write stories about what I see God doing through his people in Ukraine.  I write stories about thkids from Safe Haven and how they help us.  The joy and the growth I see in them.  I write about how what we see Anya and Bogdon doing inspires us so much.  I write about Tanya and Slavic and how their faith inspires me.  Unfortunately, I don’t write about these stories enough.  And, I fear that I may be more articulate at expressing the depressing than the uplifting.

We live in a broken world and when you work with children in the orphanages in Ukraine that is crystal clear all the time.  Parents choosing not to love beautiful and wonderful children, orphanage staff doing what benefits them instead of what might help the kids.  We so much neglect, apathy, hate, pain, despair that it can be very easy to get depressed. 

But it also reminds me everyday that the world is this way because we made it this way.  God doesn’t make us treat each other the way we do, he even tells us not to.  And I remember that the only way the world will get better is through the healing power of Jesus Christ.  So I am grateful for where God has put me, because I know that I need God, but its easy easily forget that and try to live my life without him. 

As I thought about the negative stories I write and the positive ones, it helped put things into perspective for me.

I have no hope in the orphanage system of Ukraine, its stupid and its not going to change.  I have no hope that the social services system will ever get its act together and do right by these kids.  I have no hope that the Ukrainian government will rid itself of the corruption that keeps so much of the budget from reaching the kids.  I have no hope that children in Ukraine will stop being abandoned.  And its not just Ukraine, its the world over.  The US government isn’t going to fix the problems.  Non-profits won’t change the world.  There is no system or organization that will ever make any kind of lasting impact on the world.

But I have hope. 

I have hope in Jesus.  That he can change lives.  I know he has changed mine, and made the impossible possible when I have stepped out in faith to follow him.  I have hope that our selfishness can die and our angry hearts can love when we give up trying to direct our own lives. 

I have hope in Christ’s body the church.  I have hope in faithful Christians who open their homes to kids from the orphanages. I have hope that the kids can be changed by families who genuinely love them and show them where that love comes from. I believe it when God promises that he has a plan for them, to give them a hope and a future.  I have hope that followers of Christ from around the world will help brothers and sisters in other countries reaching out to a few abandoned children because they believe Christ gave his all for those children. 

This is the gospel.   The world is fallen, but there is hope.  That hope is Jesus.  And though it is difficult at times, I am so blessed to live in a place where I can see it so clearly. 

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