I wandered over to this site tonight to discover my place in the world economic spectrum. The results are stagering:

I am in the top 2.8% richest people in the world.
There are 5,831,739,130 people poorer than me.
I am the 168,260,870 richest person in the world.

It blows me away to think I am in the top 3% of the worlds wealth! Now remember, I work in a ministry so I am certainly not blingin it! But this coupled with my experience in Romania has given me a renewed committment to my World Visin kids and focus on global poverty.

Go here, enter your income, and then try and convince yourself you do not have enough to give away to worlds poor. Just try and convince yourself you need another pair of shoes or another shirt while the rest of the world can’t even sip a cup of water, much less a handful of water. Go ahead, I dare you…

be His,

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Let me tell you about a little three year old boy that captured my heart. His name is Amile. He was abandoned by his mother to a hospital around Beius, Romania after birth and he ended up in the REMM facility about a year ago. He is smart, curiouse, funny, active, and an all around cute kid. He latched on to me the first day, along with another little child named Pamilla, a little girl.

I spent a good deal of time with him, far more than with any of the other kids. He loved the swings in the playground, so I spent quite a bit of time pushing him, while he said “ta tali” or higher. He also loved for me to just hold him. When I would first arrive and come to the playroom in the facility, he would run up to me with a big simle on his face and, with outstreached arms, say “sus” or up. He would say “a cola” to direct me over there to one area of the room or playground. His favorite thing was to say ashi, which means shoulders. I would put him on my shoulders and run around. While these acts seemed so insignificant and even worthless to a mind that was trained in a quantity/quality production-oriented culture, these acts of touch and attention were small ways I could express the love of Jesus to him.

When I left him Friday, he melted. The workers told him I was going to go away for a long time and he bawled and bawled. It amazes me how quickly he became attached to me and almost so permenantly, in only 4 days. I think it reveals the desperation of his situation: he is so desparate for a nurturing relationship (especially with a male) and affection and love that he attached himself to me, of all people. Hopefully in the next month he will be put in a foster home, because of the nature of the current adoption situation in Romania prevents him from being adopted. I hope he will be sent of to a good home with two loving “parents” and not float around from house to house. And this is the end to which I pray.

That afternoon I layed my hands on Amile and prayed hard for him, because I learned that week about what happens to these kids when they grow-up: because of the economic situation and lack of jobs, abandoned kids are sent away when they reach 18 and often resort to a life of crime or prostitution to make money. I prayed that he would be able to grow-up in a good home where he will be nurtured and have the opportunity to learn in a school and enjoy a rich, full life. I prayed that he would hear and understand the good news of forgiveness, salvation, and restoration through Jesus Christ. I prayed that God would build him up into a mighty warrior and that Amile would be a powerful force someday for the Kingdom of Heaven.

This experience with Amile, and the abandon children in general, had a profound impact on me personally. It was hard for me to look at these kids and think about their situation without getting angry at the world, and momentarily with God. How could individual people and the world cast aside children like the bones and skin scraps of a chicken dinner? Even more unsettling, how could God allow the suffering of so many (millions??) of innocent, vulnerable babies and children, especially the dispicably mortifying acts done to them? Why does this happen? When, oh Lord, will your final act of consumation bring about a restoration of this world to the way you intended it to be?

My prayer is that these questions, while unsettling, will not paralyze, but spur me to action. I hope now that I am back in this selfish, consumeristic country, I will not settle into medicocrity and self interest. Rather, my prayer is that these questions and this experience will be a catalyst for personal involvement. The Book of James says that pure religion is care for orphans and abandoned children, among others. Through this experience and this reminder from James, I realized I do not have to travel 6,000 miles to purely express religion. I can express my devotion to the Way of Jesus and His love in each small act of love to one person where I live in Falls Church, Virginia. Jesus taught me that through Amile.

be His,
jeremy

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Today and yesterday I spent about 3 hours each morning playing with the abandoned kids in REMM “orphanage”. Technically, the children are not orphans, because there parents did not die or become incapable of caring for them, they just abandoned them to the street or hospital when they were born. The facility houses about 24 2-4 year olds. It is an amazing place!

I was struck that these kids have grown up without a mom or dad. It isn’t like it is a group of children at a daycare or something and will go home to be with there moms or dads at the end of the day. No, this is there life! So because they have no family of there own aside from the workers (which are simply amazing!!) and the other kids, they are aching for attention and love from other people. They love to be held and swung on the swings and picked up and carried on the shoulders. In fact, two kids have sort of attached themselves to me: Pamilla, a 4 year old girl, and Amile, a 2 year old boy. They’ve actually started calling me “papa” and telling that to the other workers…its too bad I will be leaving in 3 days…

Anyway, I have greatly enjoyed my times so far, especially at with the kids at the facility. Look at my other post from today for the other project.

jeremy

PS-Luggage update: apparently it has been located and is in the Hungary airport. Not sure when it will be delivered, though…

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Today we visited with Romanian gypsys in their village outside of Beius. For those of you out of the know, gypsys are the lowest class in the Romanian (and really all of European) society. They cannot get jobs and cannot get anything from the government. They are very poor, and steal and beg out of desperation. We visited them to share the love of Jesus Christ and his message of hope.

The village was a collection of 9-11 shack houses and maybe 1-2 other town buildings. One shack was about 8×8 ft, houses a family, was cardboard (no, literally!) thin, with a collapsing “roof”. The children in this house were in and out of the REMM medical clinic all winter because of the cold. It is amazing to think a family survived the winter in that place! When we arrived in our van, the kids came runnning up to meet us. The village came out to greet us and sang us a song, accompanied by an 80 year old playing the acordian. They sang to us and greated in God’s name.

After our greeting, we sang a song, shared a devotional using a prop/example which I’ll get to in a minute, had a testimony of how life with Jesus changed them, and sang another song. We ended by asking them what they need and how we can pray for them. They said they needed a well for water. In this village, they have no source of drinking water. They must walk to a mountain spring which is atleast a mile away, collect rain run-off, or walk to some closer streams which are dirty and infested with disease. Because they barely have water for themselves, they cannot wash there cloths, something one of the woman in the village explained to us almost in tears. They asked us to pray for a well for clean water, so we did.

What was ironic, and very sad and almost shameful, is that the example used 2 bottled-water bottles. One was empty to signify our empty life and how we try to fill it with other things to satisfy and the other was a full bottle of clean, filtered water which represented Jesus and life in him. The gal doing the illustration then poured the water into the bottle to show how Jesus fills our life like the other things can’t. Afterwards, she was in tears about their desperation for water and the use of this example, and the fact we had access to clean water and could even throw it away in an illustration. Needless to say we were all moved by the encounter and all agreed to purchase a well for this village. It will only cost around $800, which is so cheap and will do so much for these people in very practical ways. We hope to arrange some of the details in the next few days and then return to tell them about the gift and explain more the significance of relationship with God through Christ.

Well, as you can see each day is impactful in so many ways, so many different ways. Thanks for the continued prayer and look back soon for more updates…

-jeremy

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Here is a clean post of all the blogcasts of today’s Worship In The Spirit of Justice. It was such an amazing close to a great five weeks, but I will leave my closing comments and thoughts for another blog post. Enjoy the photos at Flickr and audio files below.

1:05 PM

My opening comments…

1:22 PM

Opening worship, and my beautiful voice!

1:26 PM

More worship…

1:32 PM

Remarks by Muslim Imam Yahya Hendi, Muslim Chaplain at Georgetown University (and my intermittent Amens!)

1:56 PM

An inspiring reading of the prophet Micah by seven Jewish high school students, studying in DC for three weeks how their faith applies to issues of social justice.

2:00 PM

First part: another reading of Scripture, this time by a high school student from Cedar Ridge Community Church, Brian McLaren’s church; Second part: the start of the sermon by Rev. Jim Wallis.

2:05 PM

Continuing sermon by Rev. Jim Wallis.

Unfortunately, I’m an idot and accidentally pressed the wrong button and wasn’t able to capture the last 5 minutes of Wallis’ message. GRRR! Luckily, I did make notes…He basically called on President Bush to do three things: 1) help create a multi-national peacekeeping force in conjunction with the African Union, for the specific purpose of protecting the lives of countless innocent civilians; 2) significantly increase humanitarian aide to Sudan in specific and Africa in general; 3) call the nation to pray for, along with us, the people in Sudan.

2:21 PM

Closing part of Rev. Jim Wallis’ message and a moment of response by those attending the activist rally.

2:26 PM

A closing prayer.

2:39 PM

Some closing remarks by Salih Booker, Executive Director of africaaction.org.

2:40 PM

Final instructions before our march toward the White House. This was a very moving time as we concluded our activism together with a march to the front of the White House. Especially moving was the utter silence by the tourists waiting to snap pictures as 400 people prayed together for a few minutes. Very cool!

2:56 PM

My closing comments…

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