I met a woman today who is trying to figure out how to take care of around 1500 war orphans on Mt. Elgon. She filled me with stories of a war where one tribe was fighting with itself. There was a leader who reminded me of Joseph Kony only more violent. She told me of thousands of women who were raped. She spoke of children who had watched their parents cut up with machetes. This matron was the head teacher of a school for all of these orphans, but she didn’t have money to feed them or really to even continue to operate the school. What do you say? I didn’t have the money to support them. It seemed too massive. I’m not sure what all would need to be done.
So I took her letter that explained the situation to Emmanuel, our CRF leader at Eruli. He read the letter and told me that he had another farm, and he would try to take care of them. His rationale was very simple—“children shouldn’t suffer.”
I’m not sure what Emmanuel will do, but I guarantee you he will do something. He is already taking care of 600 orphans. I don’t know how he can do any more. But he will try. No, he will do more than try. He will save as many as he possibly can. I often feel like I am walking on holy ground when I am around Emmanuel. Some people seem too good to be true.
I love Emmanuel’s farm. Children come there without food, parents, and hope. And then they find happiness. There is not enough food, but somehow children are surviving. There are hardly any books, but somehow children are learning.
Chris Goldman is over here with me. He said that it is like a revival going on here. But it is a revival to save these children. He told a young boy that when he was older that he would look back on this time and see it as the time when people rose up and through a movement of God saved their country by saving the children. There truly is a movement of God going on here. Emmanuel said that it’s all about James 1:27. It is about the widows and the orphans. It is about the kind of religion that God loves. And it is happening all around us. It’s contagious. It’s important. It is a religious awakening. I think that God is always on the side of the oppressed. It seems to be a biblical theme. It seems God is always on the side of the orphans. It is a very clear statement.
