Grace Puddles

This morning we woke up to an incredible amount of pee.  

Lifa walked out of his room naked, dazed and dripping. BUCKETS of pee. His first words of the morning: “Go look at my bed!”

AN OCEAN. Standing water. In his bed.

And by water, I mean pee. This is my real life.

So, like any responsible mom would do, I busted out the baby wipes and wiped that little boy down till he smelled just like a clean baby’s butt. Because we also woke up to a house with no running water.

As I pulled out wipe after wipe, I remembered all the moments and memories that were far more repulsive and inconvenient than this one. I remembered Lifa’s night terrors and going days without sleeping because he was afraid to. I remembered both of our tears while he learned safety and security the hard way. I remembered the disgusting journey of training his body to absorb nutrients – even the sideline details like having to teach him how to chew and swallow without worrying that someone was going to take his food away from him in the process.

Our story of resiliency, redemption and grace comes with a lot of body parts and malfunctions. It’s been messy, and it often smells real bad.

Today’s river of pee actually made way for a tidal wave of gratitude from the deepest places in me.

Look at how far we’ve come.

He has a bed. He has a house, a room, Spiderman sheets. He can come out naked, find his mom, and laugh about his uncomfortable, inconvenient mess. He knows it’s going to be ok.

I couldn’t help but think this morning about how overwhelmingly thankful I am to have an entire half of a house that smells like pee and some soaking wet spidey sheets.

If this is the biggest manifestation of all of the transitions and hardships Lifa’s seven years have taken him through, then that puddle of pee is the greatest reason to celebrate I’ve ever seen! 

I don’t ever want to forget how far we’ve come. I don’t ever want to stop seeing the small victories along the way. Even when it looks like pee puddles.

Last week a woman sat in a churchyard and released her own buckets of body fluid. (I'm almost embarrassed that this is really a point of connection for me... please forgive my imagery and ridiculousness. I spend a lot of time with 7-year old boys.)

Tears streamed and soaked the bruised face of the mother who faithfully comes twice a week to cook for hundreds of children at our after-school program. She shared with a group of volunteers and staff at Ten Thousand Homes that she had been beaten all night in her one-room shack while her 11-year old son watched in horror.

Her night terrors are still alive and active.

Her long nights rage on.

There’s a long way to go before the celebrating starts.

But there are still puddles of proof that something is happening.

This weeping woman is the same mother who stayed locked in her own prison of shame for 8 years after her second-born son was stolen from her arms in the night. She never let a tear fall, and she told another person. She stayed strapped in the bondage of victimization and brokenness until just a few months ago.

I was there the day she opened up. My arms wrapped got to wrap around hers in the midst of that  miracle moment.

Today, my arms feel tied and  I’m wrestling with anger and disillusionment in the middle of this dark and lonely chapter in her life.

She did the right thing. She shared. She cried. She reached. 

But they won’t reach back.  Culturally, my reaching for her would only escalate the situation and create a more strained and dangerous environment for her and her child.

Why won’t the people and the church reach?

They don’t know there’s such a thing as a reach with open hands instead of closed fists. 

They don’t know a touch that doesn’t scandalize, steal or shatter. 

How can they reach if they’ve never been reached for? Where do we go from here? I still don’t know that answer.

So, on the same day I giggle over a new morning’s soaked Spiderman sheets, I cry for the lonely bruises in the darkest hour of the night. I am celebrating the puddles of proof on that little boy’s bed that there have been some hard years and some long nights.

A new morning has come and this new day’s problems only remind me of how far He’s brought us.

I have to remember that same truth for this mother and son also. Because there are puddles of progress and promise running down her face. That face was locked up like stone for years, and now it flows with tears that reach.

The dark nights aren’t over.

There will still be sheets to wash.

There will still be bruises to heal.

And when I don't know what to do, I’ll keep looking for proof that something is moving.

Someone is still making streams of grace that moves through the desert places.

The Kingdom came on a messy, dark night.

The Kingdom is coming on a bright new morning.

On that morning, Grace will no longer stream like messy puddles in the middle of a sullied story, but will reach with strong, scarred hands to wipe away those tears and to close the gap.

We celebrate sheets, and we celebrate the scars. But we don’t get used to them. We keep reaching, and we keep finding new puddles of grace to celebrate.

Hope Puberty

I moved to South Africa 5 years ago. FIVE YEARS.

An organization I’d never heard of said they wanted to be a part of building hope and home. And so did I. So I packed up life as I knew it, and I went to see what that looked like at Ten Thousand Homes.

To see what building hope looks like, you have to go to the places that need it.

For me, that looked like entering the yards, the shacks, and the hospital beds of the people whose eyes don’t sparkle and whose bodies betray them. (Yes, I did get in the hospital beds with them.) It’s looked like heaping plates for hungry bodies, baking cakes for the uncelebrated, praying and crying together through grief and loss, sitting in police stations with young girls reporting the unfathomable, dance parties on the playground, inviting them over for Sunday Lunch, holding up the arms and energy levels of the nurses providing constant care, testing for HIV and making plans, and modeling how to live like a family.

Hope for tomorrow can come in a million flavors, but you can’t taste it when you’re starving today.

For the past five years, building hope has looked a lot like digging the trenches. It’s really dirty and difficult. You go down instead of up. You just get knee-deep in mess.  Trust me… the backlash of trying to teach malnourished bodies to absorb nutrients is a lot messier than a shovel and dirt.

But after all that hard work, you get to build a foundation. There’s a place to start building something strong and that will last. 

Hope lasts. And makes everything looks different. It looks different than a dirt pile and different than a pile of bricks. 

And, pretty soon, it will look like a place to live.

When I enter the church yard for our after-school program today, armloads of sparkly eyes will pounce me; Ruth will hug me and pick me up so high I will wrap my legs around her waist; and we will get to work in the secure and beautiful routine we’ve established together.  When I drive through Dwaleni this morning, the babies whose bodies I carried to the hospital will be skipping and giggling to school in their new uniforms while their mom cleans their new house and applies for jobs.

I may have only influenced a Condor-load of people in Africa, but that little group isn’t starving or homeless anymore. Their bodies can absorb nutrients; their heads have a safe place to rest at night; and their hearts can hold hope.

So now it’s time to build it up.

 

(Look at my house today, y'all!)

Hope-building is changing. It’s growing up.

It’s becoming a place to abide instead of an emergency to respond to.

And as happy and holy as that might sound, I’m struggling.

When our bodies grow up, we have growing pains, awkward body changes, and, suddenly, you get BO. (Fine… I admit it… I’m freaking out that I just had to buy deodorant for 7-year old Lifa.)

So, I guess what I’m trying to say is: I’m going through awkward body changes, and Lifa stinks.

 

The application...

The verification...

THE MAN.

Those little distended bodies in the communities are being transformed into strong and thriving students. And now everything about how we work as a part of the Body of Christ is changing.

It’s like hope puberty.

We have a foundation, and we’re ready to build. We have bodies that can get up and dance.

We don’t need to change the dirty diapers of crisis and chaos anymore. We can teach them how to think and thrive and believe on their own. We can teach them how to build it too. That one Condor full of nourished bodies can start nourishing bodies.

Right now, instead of staying constantly covered in dirty children, ringworm, snot and tears (which happens to be my happy place), hope-building looks like planning meetings, vision-casting, research and education, program development, and things that involve not being continuously covered in whatever we find in the trenches.

And I need some hope deodorant or a hope training bra or something. The next stage of life is coming, and it involves higher capacity, higher influence and trusting God to transform the desires of my heart to the things He’s calling me into.

The Body is growing, increasing, and extending in beautiful ways. This is what it’s supposed to look like. She’s becoming a beautiful bride. I’m thrilled to be a part of it, and I’m humbled and honored that the Creator of the Universe cares enough to grow me up and let me get glimpses into a deeper love. I can’t imagine what it looks like – that day when we’re not building hope, but we’re dancing in the Father’s Home. He takes us step by step, stage by stage, and He transforms these awkward steps and stages into something beautiful.

Pray with me in this place of hope-growing and body-changing. 

Good things are coming. The Body is being made beautiful. 

And I’m just awkwardly trying to learn how to love in a new way.

Unpacking

Five years ago today, I crammed as much of my life as I could into a tiny space. I left my career behind, distributed my possessions out, and said goodbye to friends and family. I released financial security and the culture I knew. IT'S BEEN FIVE YEARS!

I didn’t start this January 14^th like I did the January 14^th of 2010, when I was squishing my life into a thrift store suitcase.

I started this January 14^th with a little boy in his underwear curled in my lap for prayer, with a dance party, and with a new school uniform.

After four years of letting him go, laying down my understanding, expectations and interpretations of my Father’s whispered words to me, something unbelievable has happened…

LIFA IS LIVING WITH ME THIS YEAR FOR SCHOOL!

AND I spent the weekend moving out of the cottage and into a larger house on the base, thanks to the help of my TTH family. We set up the most beautiful Spiderman room with bedding and toys that have been stored in suitcases for a year and a half while we’ve waited for enough space to unpack.

There was SO MUCH unpacking. The house we are building isn’t finished yet, so this is just a temporary place, but I unpacked it all. I had to make it feel like home. For years, I’ve had suitcases full of house stuff stacked high and covered to make end tables and nightstands in the cottage. And now we’re using actual furniture, and we’ve unpacked those suitcases.

They were suitcases full of memories of people who’ve come with bags full of love and of times when God spoke to me to plan for His promises, not basing my decisions on my present circumstances.

It’s the beginning of a new era.

A long time ago, God told me to build a house. To make a home.

So I did. I just didn’t have the walls or the roof or the rooms.

Or even a bathroom door. Important side-note: We currently have TWO bathrooms, and they both have DOORS.

It’s time to unpack, to spread out, and to live like I’m Home.

Because if I can’t live well, how can I love well?

If I’ve been given space, how could I not thank Him by using it? 

And if he’s never belonged to a welcoming, safe and loving home, how will he know he belongs in His Father’s house?

This isn’t the grand finale, or the happily ever after…

We haven’t finished our house. We don’t have a birth certificate. I haven’t had time to paint my toenails in a month.

This is the end of cramming life into suitcases and hyper self-consciousness about the way stereotypes or my insecurities say I’m supposed to live.

I was made in the image of the most generous Lover, an extravagant Father, and a secure Home. I’ll look only at His face to see my reflection and how to live with the days He has numbered for me.

The only thing that could be worse than living like what the stories and stereotypes say about how people who “sell out for Jesus” should live, would be if the people I came here to love let their identities become what the stories and stereotypes say about the impoverished, the sick and the orphaned.

There will be stretches and seasons ahead of letting go, laying down, packing up, cramming in, and who knows what else.

But on this January 14^th, I had a first day of school banana split party; I tucked in the most exhausted basketball player with skinned knees; and I plugged in a brand new freezer. (We are going to have ICE and SMOOTHIES and FROZEN THINGS!)

I’m still unpacking His promises one by one in this unpacked temporary home.

I’m going to live all the way, so HE can love all the way through me.

I’m going to make space for banana splits, dance parties, and things that are very, very cold.

I’m going to open my house, and spend myself on building His home.

Thank you family and friends for praying with me, crying with me, encouraging me and loving me through every twist and turn of these past five years. You’ve been His arms around me, and held my arms up more than once. I’m inviting you in, further, more intimately, and more openly into this next five years… this new era of unpacking, making space for more of His glory, and being a full time mama. Please pray with me for His perspective, His strength and that I steward what He’s entrusted me with wisdom and without holding back.

And please stay tuned for a First Day of School video… because it’s gonna be good.

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