How to End the Orphan Crisis on a Sunday Afternoon

There is a whole lot of sickness and need – the kind you talk about and the kind you don’t.

There are only fragments of families – the sharp debris of suffering littering lineages.

There are not enough places to stay, not enough food to eat, and not enough hope to look past today. It leaves legacies of violence and perpetuating poverty.

They call it the “orphan crisis”.

It makes some people squirm and scoff.

It makes others jump on planes to come see, know and reach.

It makes some scrub their hands and carry hand sanitizer.

It makes others bow their heads and open their hearts and resources.

But how do we make it stop?

I saw it for myself yesterday, y’all. This is the real answer…

YOU HAVE A PARTY.

Not just a pretty, one-more-thing-to-do, ain’t-nobody-got-time-for-this holiday event.  A CHRISTMAS PARTY.

It was set to begin at 9:30am on Sunday morning… So, around 11am…

All that sickness, need, starvation, hopelessness, homelessness, familylessness got all dressed up in red and green, walked through the red mud, filled up a sweltering church, and sang. And then partied.

My church decided to have a family Christmas party this year.

The church people come to when they want to encounter “the orphan crisis”.

The church that told me in 2010 that they didn’t know anything about family, but they wanted to learn.

The church whose members only included 3 men 3 years ago, exemplifying the cultural norm and the real issue labeled “the orphan crisis.”

My church ended the orphan crisis yesterday.

The men did what men do – they stood around piles of meat and talked man talk while they cooked.

The women chopped vegetables and chit-chatted.

The grannies sat under the tree and watched the kids play.

THERE WAS A JUMPING CASTLE.

It felt like the greatest family reunion of all time.

There was a feast. More meat than we knew what to do with was served to more than 200 people – many who wouldn’t have the pleasure of enjoying meat or any type of feast this Christmas.

There was dancing and celebration with everyone from the babies to the grannies… and some crazy white girl who just couldn’t resist gyrating with a GoGo. (Don’t judge me.)

Children who’ve never received a gift left with treasures.

In that yard, we were a family.

How can there be an orphan crisis in the middle of a family?

How can there be starvation and poverty at the feast filled with gifts?

A little church in South Africa rallied up what they had… mostly each other… and a really fat pig.

A little group of ladies in Rosebud, Texas pulled together what they had… $360.

That’s all it takes to change the world, folks. Eternally.

For one afternoon, everybody had a place in the yard and in the family.

And, you know what? It was probably the first time some of these young men had the opportunity to stand with other men and learn what men of character talk about.

And the first time there was someone there to watch some of those children play and give them something for Christmas.

It was probably the first time some of those moms stood next to someone else and shared a burden.

It was probably the first time portions were abundant, and everyone knew there would be enough.

All it takes to end the orphan crisis is a family. 

And we’ve got that.

Even if skin and names and languages don’t match. 

We’ve got that.

The first day of the end of the orphan crisis started right in the middle of the mess with a lot of details that didn’t line up to be Messiah material. A pregnant, unwed teenage girl with no place to stay that was fit for humanity… much less the Savior of the world. But that’s where He came. That’s where He started. In the middle of the filth with a few who believed and with enough to make a family.

That unsanitary start promised that it would be messy, but it would be finished. He promised that He would not leave us as orphans.

The mess won’t stop. But there's plenty of room and reason to get the party started!  

My Christmas season took a turn toward disheartening this year. Yours might too. But the Reason of the Season says, “Take heart!” In this world we will have a mess of trouble, but He has overcome the world.

The mess won't stop being messy. But that's where He loves to show up. 

So let's get dirty and throw a party.

We have the promise of the happy ending.

All we need is each other until then.

Let’s dance.

Surely

I woke up Friday morning with a man and his ladder on my mind.

The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob chooses to identify Himself by this man’s existence. But on Friday morning, in Genesis 28, Jacob the swindler had to make a quick exit from life as he knew it after his shady, selfish scamming left him on the bad list of a brother with a lot of weapons.

That wild child on the run found himself all alone, in the middle of nowhere. He had just fled from family and was sleeping with a stone for a pillow. God showed up, and gave the first picture of heaven coming down to earth - right there in that rock-bottom resting place. Not a baby in a manger just yet, but also not a rainstorm of mass destruction because the people were screwing up…

The God of Jacob went straight to the screw up and gave him a sneak peak. Angels ascending and descending, making a place of promise for the convicted refugee.

That man woke up and said it, “Surely the Lord is in this place and I was not aware of it.” (Gen 28:16) He looked at his place of exile, and said, “How awesome is this place... This is the gate of heaven.” Then he took that stone, anointed it and he made it into an altar.

He just had to see what was really there, rather than what was happening around him. He just had to see that surely, the Lord is in this place.

Boom.

I decided right then and there that’s the kind of Friday I was going to have. The kind of Friday where, no matter what I walked into, I would say, “Surely the Lord is in this place.” I would call it down to earth. And I would turn the stones into pillars of promise.

I didn’t even have time to eat breakfast before I got the frantic phone call to get Friday started.

Five days before, Mama Siyabonga had gone out to buy something. She never came back. She left 11-year old Siyabonga behind, along with her ID and possessions. She just didn’t come back.

She’s one of those hard-core, been to hell and back kind of mamas. You wouldn’t believe the stories if I told you, but I can tell you she never recovered. She shut down, and pain, anger and victimization became her most defining features, even consuming her mental functioning. 

They say she’s disappeared before. But that was before…

This year, she joined the Sunday Lunch family. 

She's on the far right, and Siyabonga on far left. LOOK at those smiles.

This year, she joined the church, opened up her heart, and became the hardest working member of the  faithful workers who cook and serve hundreds of children at our after school programs. 

This year, she danced and smiled and laughed. 

The hardened, face of stone had become softer and more beautiful with each week This year, she became family despite all the circumstances life has dealt her.

December came. And she left. Nobody knew why.

At Thursday’s after-school program, pre-pubescent Siyabonga, held my hand and clung to me like a baby boy lost in a supermarket… or like a big boy lost in the world without a mama.

We went looking for her. I drove down roads I didn’t know existed and tried to be the incognito white girl in the bright red Condor while they showed Mama Siyabonga’s ID picture and asked for her. No one had seen her.

We prayed, and decided that if she didn’t show up the next day, on Friday, we would file a missing person report and continue the search. And early on that Friday morning with Jacob’s ladder, I got the phone call. “Kacy, she’s here. But she says she’s not staying. She’s packing her things.”

I picked up a church member, Lucricia, and was there in minutes.  We found her, stone-faced and on a mission. She had sent Siyabonga to hire a car to come pick them and their stuff up. They were getting outta there. I watched her wrap her very few possessions in the picnic blanket I had given her. The one that I gave her to spread out in the name of Family, to invite people into her life with on that last Sunday.

Here's the story about the blankets

Surely, the Lord is in this place.

I rubbed her back and prayed to the God with a ladder that reaches down to the runaways. Lucricia spoke words of Truth, love and belonging to her in their native language, and then translated my words into their language. That stone face wept. It never softened, but it shook and it shed broken tears.

I grabbed the hem of that blanket and told her, “I didn’t give you this blanket to help you run away. This isn’t what family does. Family doesn’t leave angry or hastily.”

 I told her that, if she would stay until the new year and still wanted to leave after that, I would help her move. Siyabonga had returned by this point, and was helplessly and hopefully leaning in. I imagined his silently pleading was similar to mine.

Let her see that surely the Lord is in this place, and let her see Him here. Let her realize the reaching of the God of Mama Siyabonga is more real than the stone, the loneliness, the shame and the exile.

She said she would stay if she could find a new place to sleep.

Mama Siyabonga, Lucricia and I went walking down dirt roads in the early morning hours to find a room for rent. With every step, I breathed out a fact and a prayer: Surely the Lord is in this place.

This mom and her son belong in our family. 

There was no room at the inn. For real.

It was time for the Savior to enter our little piece of the world on a Friday morning, and there was no place to stay. We kept walking. And I kept breathing, Surely the Lord is in this place.

He is. And He was.

We found a place. And we made the necessary plans. In less than 15 minutes, we witnessed reconciliation between Mama Siyabonga and a friend, made a plan to help her access electricity, moved all of their belongings in, and Siyabonga was beaming with excitement and relief. And I was giving them a ride to town to buy groceries.

Heaven came down long enough to make a home on this earth. Again. Just like that crazy night when there was no space and no place, the Father made a way.

He turns mangers into miracles, stones into altars.

He sets the lonely in families and releases prisoners from darkness.

‘Tis the season to remember when the heavens entered humanity. The stone was rolled away because this world and death itself couldn’t keep a lid on Life.

I’m not going to pretend like Friday morning ended happily ever after.

The stone never melted into a smile. I watched Mama Siyabonga recklessly run through an entire month’s worth of money. The place they will stay houses a boy that could be a horrible influence on sweet Siyabonga, and the yard is full of empty beer bottles and assorted other disasters in the works. But surely the Lord is in this place.

We all have a story that hasn’t reached happily ever after yet.

We’re all standing in the middle of something.

Siyabonga

But surely the Lord is in this place.

A bunch of shivering shepherds, wandering wisemen, and a teenage mom were certainly standing in the middle of something.

And surely the Lord was in that place.

On this Sunday morning, I am declaring Jacob’s words over Mama Siyabonga’s situation, and mine and yours.

He was afraid and said, “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God this is the gate of heaven.” Genesis 28:17

Hope and Hangovers

Today, we went to visit two different families for the same purpose: December.

December in South Africa is a month of no restraints.

It’s like the people, who spend 11 months of the year just trying to stay standing under the back-breaking weight of oppression and bondage, let their knees buckle and their gusto give out on them. They turn toward chaos; they turn up bottles; they turn away from the anchor for their souls.

Christmas is more like a frat party with bright, new clothes than a spiritual celebration. In spite of the reckless lifestyle, there is a cultural expectation for children to receive new clothes for the year at Christmastime. Otherwise, they feel ashamed by their poverty in the midst of the other brightly clad children.

Y’all… the spectrum of skinny jeans is off the charts on Christmas Day.

So we went to visit two families on the first day of December to try to help them see above the cultural customs and make some pre-decisions for their families. Because sometimes hope looks like making a pre-decision.

Both families seem to have the odds stacked against them… There is not enough money for food each month, much less the new clothes they need and the big expense of school uniforms approaching in January.

In their lives, shame is louder than starvation. The way it’s always been and the oppressed oppressors dwelling in neighboring shacks drive people to make decisions to spend on skinny jeans and hair extensions rather than food for their family. And sometimes hope looks like setting your sites on Truth rather than talk: “Your first job is to feed your family. We can trust God to provide the rest.”

I’m not sure anyone has ever told them that.

The first family we sat with had done the homework I’d given them the week before. The head of the household handed me an itemized list of their monthly expenses, as well as their clothing and school uniform needs. She’s in grade 10 and raising a family of 5. They pulled out the newspaper ads they were sitting on in the dirt to show us pictures and prices of each item. We sat there together on newspaper ads under the mango tree and etched out hope. Right there in the skinny margins of the tight budget, we wrote notes in the areas we were trusting God to provide for. And then we left room for Him to do it.

“Your first job is to feed your family.” They committed to buying enough food for the month first. Then we took silly Christmas pictures, hugged and kissed each other, and said real, family goodbyes.

Just a few speed bumps and a couple more dirt roads later, we arrived expectantly at our next house. We’d just been together the day before for church and the mama knew we were coming to help her with December. We sat on the porch we had helped build and waited…

Finally, this mother that I love like a sister stumbled up. Completely wasted. She started shouting and slurring, “KACY! I can’t do it right now. I’m too drunk! I’m too stressed about my kids. I don’t have enough money to buy them clothes for December. I’m too stressed. I can’t do it. I’m too drunk.” Like a broken, boozy record, she wept and spewed her drunken sorrows. 

There would be no budgeting, Christmas pictures or hope-making pre-decisions on that porch that day. I put cookies in child’s desperate, dirty little hands, kissed their innocent faces, and told the mother that I loved her, I never wanted to see her like this again, and to call me when she was sober.

Her situation is no different than the first household’s.

Why did they stand up, and why did she stumble in shame?

Why is that narrow gate of Truth so narrow?

You can’t stumble in. You have to decide on it.

What about all the cookie-filled hands that aren’t big enough to choose their gate yet? That don’t know how to make a pre-decision? That live in the aftermath of her decisions?

Today I got to hold a family – a family who doesn’t have enough of anything – in hope, in joy and in promise. And I had to let go and lay down another one, at least until the hangover clears.

Is that part of the narrow gate?

Guiding and giving it all to the one where God guides you and says, “THIS ONE”?

But what about that one? And those little ones?

As we roll away leaving cookie crumbs instead of hope, He reminds me…

I’m not the Shepherd. I just sing the Shepherd’s song. 

He reminds me that this one, that one, and every one of these has their own angel watching over them and keeping eye contact with Him.

Even in debauched December.

He reminds me that HE is the One that created these sheep and knows each wandering, stumbling step they take away. When I leave the porch, He is the One who lays down his life, to leave the 99 and go for the 1.

He stirs advent’s song in me as the sounds of December threaten to drown out hope. He is coming. But first He’s going to get that one so they can come too. He’s coming, but He wants everyone to be there.

So we keep singing Shepherd songs, and we keep walking onto porches and sitting on newspapers. And when He says, “THIS ONE,” we love without holding back. And we thank Him for going to get that one that He so loves.

Because that holy night we remember and rally around in December was just the pre-party, the Gate, for the happy, happy day ahead. And He wants everybody there.

“See that you do not despise one of these little ones. For I tell you that their angels in heaven always see the face of my Father in heaven. “What do you think? If a man owns a hundred sheep, and one of them wanders away, will he not leave the ninety-nine on the hills and go to look for the one that wandered off? And if he finds it, truly I tell you, he is happier about that one sheep than about the ninety-nine that did not wander off. In the same way your Father in heaven is not willing that any of these little ones should perish.” Matthew 18:10-14