Break my heart for what breaks Yours

There's a line in the song at the end of this blog that says, Break my heart for what breaks Yours.  I've known this song for a few years, but recently it has been the song of my heart.

When we get close to the heart of God, we hear his heartbeat for people.  We can hear His heart break as we come into contact with people who need His care most – who need that extended touch of love that they have neglected to receive; who have not known the grace and mercy that only a Father can give, and who look to only God as their source of supply and provision.  

When I came to Ethiopia in 2009, I wrote a poem as a therapy for what I had seen and what I was still trying to process.  It was called “New Flower” and you can read it here.  I read it out at church when I got back to New Zealand as my Powerpoint presentation failed to come together in time.  Instead I struggled my way through this poem and then totally choked up on these lines:

The Street boys in Ambo so dirty and torn

Not just their clothes but the families in which they were born

No dad or mum to kiss them goodnight

No house to call home, no hope in sight

So broken and hungry but kings of the street

Orphaned and lonely no shoes on their feet

Feeding the street boys in Ambo 2009

This was the heart breaking God did for me when I was here and then when Asaua came to Ethiopia  a year later.  Our heart was for the street kid and the orphaned.  I went back home and struggled with the fact that we had spare room in our home and in our communities, but these boys lacked the basic necessities of life.  This is the reason why we joined in the work at Blessing the children- because they were reaching out to orphaned children. 

This past week, God has once again broken our heart for the orphans in Ethiopia.  Even though we work with orphaned children, our hearts had become desensitized to their plight in some ways because we hear their stories every day and we feel like we’re doing something about it.

We attended a conference about the orphan crises in Ethiopia these past two days and I told one lady how we have 145 children in our programme, to which she replied “wow, that is so many!” But the response in my words and on my heart is that we are hardly scratching the surface.  There are around 5 million orphaned children in Ethiopia – that’s more than the population of New Zealand!  Orphaned children who either have no parents or just one, and the vast majority of them are orphaned because of HIV. 

Testimonies were shared at this conference and scriptures were given to endorse the reality of our mandate as Christians to care for the orphans and widows.  Some of these scriptures were as follows:

James 1:27 Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.

Matthew 25:31-40 When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his glorious throne. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.

“Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in,  I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’ “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’ “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’

Micah 6:8 He has shown you, O mortal, what is good.  And what does the Lord require of you.  To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.

Isaiah 1:17  Learn to do right; seek justice.  Defend the oppressed. Take up the cause of the fatherless; plead the case of the widow.

Ephesians 1:3-6  Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will—to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves.

1 John 4:7-11 Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.

The theme that ran through these verses is that adoption was God’s idea- He, out of His love for us, adopted US!  The heart of the gospel is adoption.  He desires that we take up the cause of the fatherless, that we are used by Him, because He first loved us, to show His love to others – the least of these, those who need to be fed, loved, clothed, given shelter and when we do this, we do it for Him.  There is Jesus in each child we care for.  His heart beat is as close to them as it could ever be.   God’s sheep should do it instinctively because their heartbeat is that close to His.

A few days ago, some children who walk around our streets, and who often say hello to me were all together as I walked past.  These children are often seen climbing up on the rubbish dump trying to get some food.  They have no shoes and have obviously not been washed in a long time.  I like these kids because they don’t often ask me for anything, which compels me to give to them.  I didn’t know what their story was, but I have become more curious.  I tried talking to one girl the other day but she couldn’t give me any responses and I found out that she doesn’t speak Amharic. 

As I walked past them the other day, with my daughter Lydia, one boy said to me “Money” (in English), to which I replied “No” (I hate it when kids say money to me.) Then he said in amharic “Caramella yellum?” (You don’t have lollies/candy?) To which I replied “Caramella Yellengium” (I don’t have any lollies/candy)…so he asked one final question in Amharic – “What do you have?” and as I thought about what to reply, as I literally had nothing on me at that time, I said “Fikir, Bizu Fikir” (Love, much Love).  He said in amharic “Bonet? Bizu fikir Alish?” (Really, you have a lot of love?) Which I replied in Amharic “Yes, I have a lot of Love”. This is all I have to give - the love of Jesus.

And this is what these kids are hungry for, more than anything else.  As me and Lydia walked around to the guest house last night, we heard the children talking in an empty building they currently call home.  They look after themselves, but like the street boys in Ambo, they have no one to call mum or dad, or to tuck them in to bed at night, or to send them off to school with a packed lunch in the morning.  They are the kings and queens of the street.  We are compelled to help these children, if even temporarily.  There is something that needs to be done and as a representative of Christ, we can’t turn a blind eye. 

Our hearts are broken, as we pray and sing, break our hearts God, we must be ready to action the brokenness He shows us for His people..  Who will these children be?  What is their potential in Christ and how can we help them to realize it?  What can YOU do to help?  We’ll let you know.