The Present

-Geoff Moore, guest blogger and Buckner friend (http://www.geoffmoore.com/)

“I never knew my mother. She gave me away like a present.” That is how sweet twelve-year-old Sienna answered my question about how she ended up at the orphanage outside San Pedro Sula, Honduras. The words keep running through my head as I sit here in my first class seat flying back to the U.S. (one of the few perks of traveling so many miles.) Already, I feel the pull of the life I return to, the schedules and obligations that press in on me as our plane speeds towards America. How can I ever forget the things I have seen and hundreds of “Sienna’s” I have met? Though their stories are all unique, they all ring with the common thread of injustice. Abused, molested, abandon, raped, beaten, dropped off, left, forgotten….words no child should be so acquainted with. And yet, this is the reality for millions of children today. The hard truth is, I will forget, we all will, unless we linger among these, “the least of these.” I hear the prayers; I pray and sing them myself. “Open the eyes of my heart”; “Here I am to worship.”
But, is that what I really want? Is that why I really came? We have played and led worship all along this trip, and I have been profoundly reminded that "worship" is a lot more than singing. I have stood heartbroken, undone and in awe of how desperately messed up our world is. I wish there were easier answers. I wish I could fix it.

But I can't.

So, I will get up tomorrow, give my day to the cause of Christ, and love his children one at a time, the way God made them, knows them and sees them. In light of the size of the problem, it’s hard to not ask, would you consider doing the same? As giant as the need is, there are more of us than there is of them. I can't fix it, but God could use us all too. Widows and orphans... its pure and undefiled. A present indeed.

Here's to not forgetting,
Geoff