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.
-James 1:27
What if you could not take care of your children or were about to lose custody of them due to any number of circumstances such as losing your job, being homeless, going through chemo treatments, domestic violence, or being in bondage to a life-dominating sin such as drunkenness or drug use? Would you hope for a solution that included staying in regular contact with your children without losing custody while people help you through your circumstances, leading to being together with your children again?
There is such a solution; it is called Safe Families for Children. Safe Families is a Christian-based ministry, not tied to the government, which seeks to help people in true need without enabling them by caring about the physical and spiritual well-being of families. Safe Families for Children consists of volunteer families who take children into their homes to love them, care for them, develop a relationship with them and share the hope of the Gospel of Jesus Christ with them. Safe Families also helps the parents of these children do whatever they need to do to get to a place where they can be reunited with their children. The parents retain full custody of their children while a safe family not only cares for the children, but attempts to develop an ongoing relationship with the parent(s) hoping to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ with them also.
Once upon a time the church took the lead in caring for widows, orphans and others in need. In our culture, much of this has been handed over to the government and other non-Christian organizations. In many ways the church has dropped the ball when it comes to helping those in need in our culture and has missed a great opportunity to show love to people and to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ with them in the context of ongoing relationships. We often settle for the much more comfortable and easier approach of hit and miss mercy ministry outside of real relationships and the messiness that can come with them.
Dorinda, Anna, Leah and I had the privilege and responsibility of having a six-year-old girl stay with us over the last eight weeks due to her mother’s health condition and not being able to care for her children for a time. Sure, it was a little frustrating at times. Our schedules had to be rearranged a bit; we could not do things exactly as normal. However, as Jesus taught, only in dying to ourselves do we find true life. We had to learn to die to self in new ways to serve God, this little girl and her family. This was for our good because we grew through it, and our greatest good is to become more like Christ. Not to mention, that in light of what Jesus has done for us by serving us by dying on the cross for our sins though we deserve nothing but his wrath, it was really not that much of a stretch.
We all had the opportunity to love this girl, serve her and share the gospel with her on several occasions. She joined us in family worship. We played and laughed together. Dorinda helped her with her homework after school (we enrolled her in school the day she came to stay with us). And Dorinda talked with her mom daily on the phone, caring for her and developing a relationship with her.
As of last Friday the little girl is back home with her mother. Safe Families has already been helping the mom to not only transfer this little girl to a school near her home, but is also helping to get her younger siblings in pre-school. We plan to visit the family within the next couple of weeks.
Are you looking for a way to help those in need both physically and spiritually in a relational way that will rearrange your life at least in some ways, but will more importantly be used by God to make you more like Christ? If so, there will be a Safe Families representative at a ministry booth this Sunday, April 3, with information. My wife, Dorinda, will also be there to help answer any questions from our experience. The Safe Families for Children website is: (Local site) www.insafefamilies.org (National site) www.safe-families.org.
Pastor Tony
