Monday, November 10, 2008

Hope Lives

Last night, I was asked how God was taking the bits of broken pieces of clay in my life and reshaping them into something good. Other people were asked the same question and they reflected on their own personal tragedies - some of them profound like the death of a child, their prodigal children or a history of abortion. While I have chapters in my own life that God has taken, reformed that part of my broken spirit into something good and then did his work through me to touch the lives of his people. Nothing in my life has affected me more than what God has laid on my heart through our sponsored child, Azalech in Ethiopia.

When we first started sponsoring Azalech, I really was not (what I would call now) a "good" sponsor. I had my sponsorship automatically withdrawn from the bank and it happened without my even having to think about it. But I rarely wrote. I couldn't think of how I could connect with this child. But I would get desperate letters from Azalech begging and pleading me to write to her. But I was too busy. How do you explain to a child in Ethiopia that you are too busy?

And then a letter came in June 2007 that would change my life forever. Azalech wrote :
"Peace of Christ be with you. Thank you for writing to me. I am very hapy and showed the letter for my friends. Thank you again for all your help for me. I am praying for you and your family. This is rainy season and it is raining but during the afternoon the weather is very hot. In Sunday School I learned about the Good Samaritan Woman. Would you write to what you learned in the Sunday School? I will be graduated from KG and will join Grade 2 and [I] pray about it. I never celebrate my birthday. (I had sent her a birthday gift, her first ever). My health is very good. My mother died ten days ago. My father came from an unknown place after my mother was buried. He asked me to withdraw my class and to go with him but my sister was not allowed to go with him. She said that you don't withdraw your education and I can help you by working some hard work and God gave you good mother from the other part of the world. Please pray for me and my sister. She is 16 years old."

I tell you, this letter brought me to my knees.

I do not know how Azalech's mother died. I do know that she had been ill for some time. I have not asked if it was AIDS or not because it really doesn't matter. But statistics would tell me that it was likely AIDS.

I can only imagine the despair that Azalech's mother felt while she was ill. I can only imagine the prayers she lifted up that someone would look after her daughter. In the 18 months since this letter, I have prayed and reflected on it and have realized that Compassion International was the answer to her prayers. As Azalech's sponsor, I was the answer to her mother's prayer. It is through me that Azalech's Mother's Hope Lives.

With the estimated 2700 children orphaned by AIDS EVERY DAY, Azalech's story is repeated every 14 seconds. I have yet to meet someone who hears her story who isn't touched by it. I have become a Advocate for Compassion International so that I can take Azalech's story and the hope of her mother and tell everyone who will hear me. Compassion International, Advocates like me and Compassion sponsors are picking up those broken shards of clay of those affected by poverty and AIDS and are reshaping them through the saving grace of Jesus Christ and the work of the Holy Spirit.

Releasing children from poverty, in Jesus' name,
Andrea G.

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