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Orphans and College Students: Mentoring to Make a Difference
With nearly 143 million orphans worldwide, orphan care is a problem the Church needs to face head on. What part are you willing to play? As a college student, you probably aren't ready to adopt a child. So what can you do? According to Mark Andre, plenty — become a mentor.
Seeing the Face of Christ
Have you ever considered that, if our all-powerful God notices when a sparrow falls from a tree, He must know when a child becomes an orphan? But do we see them? Do we care for them? Honestly, I'd be lying if I said that this thought never perplexes me. But then I think back to a day when I was an EMT in New York City.
It was a dreary, rainy night. The wiper blades streaked the windshield as we made our way through the streets of Queens. "Another 'psych' call," my partner mumbled. Disgruntled, I nodded. I filled out as much of the paperwork as I could — 14-year-old male, acting out, and so on — until, at last, we turned down the street. A blue strobe from the police car marked the house. Slinging the medical bag over my shoulder, I ventured toward the front door.
Garbage littered the threadbare carpet and an odor hung in the air. Angry voices came from the other room, guiding us to the epicenter of the action. I picked my way through the dimly lit room toward the kitchen, where a teenage boy in handcuffs was cursing profusely at the police, his guardian — really anyone nearby. Kneeling at his side, I treated a cut on his arm, evidence of a recent struggle. Basic protocol completed, and tension between this foster child and his guardian mounting, we knew that it was time to take the boy and make an exit.
A light was out in my ambulance and the darkness seemed to crawl in from all angles. "It's not my fault," the kid moaned, "Somebody stole my radio." The boy struggled to defend himself, seeking the freedom that his teenage mind construed as justice. Welling up within the boy was the struggle between his desire to be free and the bitterness of his present condition. Then came the soul wrenching remark, "There is no justice in this world for people like me."
Suddenly, it was as though my eyes had instantly adjusted to the darkness about me. I looked at the boy, and in his face, twisted by his suffering, I saw the face of Christ.
My heart, hardened by the daily grind of my work, shattered into pieces. Tears welled up from within me. I experienced what the scripture describes in Ezekiel 11:19, NIV: "I will remove from them their heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh."
Dumbfounding the police officer, I pleaded for him to remove the cuffs. And, moving to the boy's side, we sat together, silently mourning his situation.
The Least of These
In Matthew 25:34-35, Jesus tells us about a day when "the King will say to those on his right, 'Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink'" (NIV).
Could it be that God is asking us to see His image in those who bear injustice and suffering? Could it be that God hides Himself in the stigma of the "unlovable"?
The King responds, "I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these, you did for me" (v. 35). Wow! This passage captures the very heart of God, the heart that longs for us to look into the eyes of the one who is hurting — the broken — and see the face of Christ. As we minister to the scarred individual, we are reaching out and touching Christ Himself.
As I stood in the streets of New York that night, I knew that I had been on holy ground.
Our Debt of Love
Herein lies the challenge. Will you look into the face of the orphan, the widow, the sick, the stranger, the prisoner and the poor? Will you look past their actions, agonies and stigma? Will you look past all their hardness, deception and grief? Will you resist blaming them for their situation or lecturing them about solutions to their problems? Will you look with eyes free of judgment, fear and disgust? Will you just gaze into their eyes and seek to absorb just a piece of their suffering? Will you purpose to see in them the face of the One who took all your inadequacies and sin and nailed them to a tree?
Oh, the debt of love we owe!
Maybe orphan care is less about orphans and more about God crushing our very hearts. Maybe it's less a matter of rescuing children from neglect and more a matter of rescuing us from the mire of self-absorption. Maybe it's not about just looking at a broken life, but more about being broken as we see the face of Jesus.
Becoming a Mentor
"So, how do I actually meet an orphan?" you ask. "How do I get the chance to see Jesus in the face of one so needy?" My first response, especially for you college students: "Become a mentor."
In New York, I served on the board of Long Island Youth Mentoring (LIYM). Mentoring provides opportunities for committed adults to spend time each week investing in the lives of neglected high-risk youth. Many of them are foster kids, much like the young man whose wounds I tended that rainy night in Queens.
The LIYM Web site contains several videos demonstrating the need for mentors to pour into the lives of otherwise-neglected youth. You can see them at liyouthmentoring.org.*
Role models demonstrate responsible behavior and provide guidelines for young people to follow. More than anything else, mentors give kids love. They need you to invest in them … to say, through your consistent involvement and selfless actions, "You are worthy to be loved, and I love you."
C O F F E E S H O PI challenge you to investigate the possibility of becoming involved in youth mentoring. Allow God to work through your life and provide a positive role model for a confused and hurting child. You can find a mentoring ministry near you though the Christian Association of Youth Mentoring at caym.org/index.html or by calling 877-33-MENTOR.
It is my prayer that God will challenge your heart in the coming weeks to answer the call to become involved in the life of a young person.
*Note: Referrals to Web sites not produced by Focus on the Family are for informational purposes only and do not necessarily constitute an endorsement of the sites' content.
As director of Focus on the Family's Orphan Care Initiative, Mark Andre is able to utilize his experience in leadership, management, business and ministry to mobilize the Church in addressing the plight of the orphan. Among other jobs, Mark has been a successful commodities trader and an EMT in New York City. And in 1999 he and his wife Joan adopted three children from Ukraine.
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