A Call to Pray

I did not want to believe what my ears were hearing.

Triplets born by cesarean section. One had trouble breathing at birth and died.

A mother goes crazy after the birth of her child. The father flees not only the home, but the country. The child is left alone. 

A case of postpartum psychosis causes a mother to hold her child by his feet and bang his head against the wall.

A black trash bag is found in a cemetery with a placenta and baby inside. The mother had the child out of wedlock and was afraid, so she left it to die. Miraculously, the infant was found and survived. The name he has been given in dagara means "God wants him." 

An orphan is brought by a relative to our city, but is turned away because no place is found where the child can stay to be cared for. 

These are the true stories that Rebecca and Juliette, the burkinabe women who oversee the Infants in Distress program here, tell us in our team meeting this week. When they were asked to give a report of what had happened in the past few months, these were the real life situations they described. 

Case after case of orphans whose parents have either died, gone crazy, or abandoned them. Story after story of sick and malnourished infants. 

I sit there listening, half way wanting to break down and cry and half way wanting to jump up and demand that we do something right now. But then I remember that is why our team is here. That is why I am here. 

Rebecca and Juliette also reported that some of the highest officials and leaders of our area want to meet and talk with us. They have heard about our land up on the hill and our desire to build a center for infants in distress. Right now, our program for infants in distress provides milk and medical check ups for the children, but there is no physical center for them, no safe facility where they can be nurtured and given around-the-clock medical care. 

If there were a center, that one orphan would not have had to be turned away. That one triplet might not have died. 

And so these officials want to meet with us and hear about our plans for 2015. They want to support us in the development of a center for infants in distress. 

The need is here. The interest is here. The community support is here. We just need the organization, resources, and leadership of the church here to make it happen. 

We need to pray. 

The center for infants in distress will be a Christ-centered facility to give orphaned, malnourished, and sick children a safe place to come and receive nourishment and constant medical care. Unlike an orphanage, the center will only give short-term care in order to first restore health and then place these children as quickly as possible with families. For this reason, the center will also include a family education center where families can be trained and given spiritual support. We don't want orphans to stay in an orphanage; we want them to be cared for by the church. We want the Dagara church to be known as the church that cares for orphans. 

And so we need to pray. 

When I listen to the stories of the people here, especially of the women and children and orphans, my heart is broken and then my mind goes into action about what can be done. I think about the song, "God of this city", and I sing, "Greater things have yet to come, greater things are still to be done in this city."

We have work to do. We have some praying to do. Will you join me in praying for the establishment of a center for infants in distress? Will you cry out to the Lord on behalf of the women, children, families, and orphans of Burkina Faso, especially the cases that Rebecca and Juliette shared with us? Will you ask boldly for the Lord's favor so that we can acquire the support, resources, organization, and leadership that we need to make it happen? Will you pray for the Dagara church to rise up and take care of their orphans? And will you pray for the future of such a center, that God will bring the hungry and thirsty to that place, a place where they can hear about Jesus.