Packs of children passed me every day when we lived where every face is brown like the water and the air. Bare foot kids in too big clothes looked longingly at school yards and fast food bags, like magnets to them in our town of 16 million. Where do you start to make a difference, to begin a ripple, when there are more needs 
than you can ever count?
One friend said we lived in a black hole.
But out of the black hole came a face. When the sun relented and the heat quivered beneath 100, we drove through a deceptively Western-style drive-thru restaurant on a dirty corner. Before bags of french fries tricked us into thinking we were back in the USA, thin brown fingers knocked on my window in front of a gleaming white smile. Barely tall enough to look in the glass, the eyes were hungry, but hopeful. Begging, while my children sat buckled in their seats, wearing clean clothes over healthy bodies.
There was no denying the slim body’s need inside the baggy clothing above unprotected feet on pavement, but in the darkness under the mango trees, eager grown up hands lurked, waiting to take any money prizes. So we gave none, but we shared food there at the window where we could see it swallowed.
After a while, the face had a name to go with the needs. Rona. And when needs have a face and a name, it’s easier to pray, and we find ways to give and be a source of change.
There are only a 1/2 million in my hometown now, but I still pray for Rona.
I’m thankful to have relationships with national partners who care for children like Rona. But most people don’t personally have a partner who “knows a Rona” and will be there to meet her physical and spiritual needs. We want to have a reliable person we can be confident in to meet needs and share Living Water. Compassion International provides a way for people to confidently make a ripple in the life of a child. They doesn’t just meet needs of outstretched hands; Compassion works through local churches to provide long-term spiritual food and care, providing for hunger and thirst of the heart and soul. When needs have a face and a name, it’s easier to pray, and we find ways to give and be source of change, to create a ripple.
Will you look for a child you can pray for today? Just click here to meet one child in one place, and lift up a prayer on her behalf. It’s easier to pray when you know a name.
Dear Lord,
Remember Rona. I know You see her and her needs and her longings. Be her protector and her defender, keeping evil people from her. Fill her hand and her body with the food she needs, and open a door of learning for her. Most of all, open a door of faith for her heart and help her to seek for you in the midst of the darkness where she is. Would you send someone from your church to reach out to her and be Your hands and feet to her? You know she’s fatherless, Lord. Would you be her Father and give her the comfort that comes from being Your child?
Amen
