Something

I often find it difficult to understand why God allows people and especially children to suffer. The World Orphanage Project states:

• Ukraine has over 100,000 orphans.
• Only 10% of these are orphaned due to death of a parent; the rest are social orphans – due to alcoholism, abandonment, or imprisonment of parents.
• Many social orphans have experienced abuse and violence from parents who were drug addicts or alcoholics
• Orphans typically grow up in large state-run homes, which may house over 200 children.
• Many children run away from these homes, preferring to live on the street.
• Children usually graduate from these institutions between 15 and 16 years old and are turned out, unprepared for life outside the home.
• Many girls will end up in prostitution. Those who run prostitution rings target orphaned girls, who are especially vulnerable due to their lack of options and lack of people who care what happens to them. Though promised good jobs, they end up on the streets and brothels of cities across Europe.
• Most of the boys will commit crimes once leaving the orphanage. Many of these will die young of violence or end up in prison. Most inmates contract TB in prison.

(http://www.worldorphanproject.com/statistics.html )

I have also read that a study of 3500 orphans age 18-25 that  showed:

-the suicide rate is 10%

-70% of the females are or have been involved in prostitution.
-60% of males are or have been in jail

Every day as I stand in front of my classroom, I feel overwhelmed knowing that as many as seventy percent of the kids looking up at me are facing such a grim future. Overtime my prayers have changed from "Why,God?" to "Ok, I know you put me here but now what am I supposed to do?". And today God replied "Something".  Yes, I heard God speak. Not in loud thundering voice or even in a small quiet voice but in a devotional I was reading.

A popular song by Casting Crowns asks:

 But if we are the body
Why aren't His arms reaching?
Why aren't His hands healing?
Why aren't His words teaching?

And if we are the body
Why aren't His feet going?
Why is His love not showing them
There is a way? There is a way?

Most of us are familiar with the example given in 1 Corinthians 12 .( http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20Corinthians+12&version=NIV )

We are described as parts of the body of Christ and verse 18 says, " But in fact God has placed the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be.".Bodies move, breathe, think and feel. Even if a person is sleeping the body doesn't stop fuctioning. There is always "something" to be done. God is not just sitting back and watching the children suffer. He is waiting for his body to get up and do something to stop it!

So, I'm here-where God put me. I will do "something". I will reach. I will teach. I will show love. Can I change the future for these kids? I don't know. I do know I can't do it alone. I am just one body part. I need help. Feet don't walk on their own, hands don't reach on their own. What part of the body are you?