ORPHAN NEED MET

This blog post was originally going to be titled, URGENT ORPHAN NEED.  But God is amazing and through the prayers of many and a few close sisters in Christ whose hearts were stirred to action yesterday, I title this blog post Orphan Need Met instead and give God all of the glory. 

Some super precious orphans who have stolen a huge piece of my heart and I'm sure they've stolen many of your hearts too, had the hand of God move on their behalf yesterday...they are Pastor Nahum's orphans. 

If you just started following, then you should know that Pastor Nahum does not have a permanent structure to house his orphans.  They live in tents and this creates a huge problem with huge amounts of suffering attached to it particularly during the rainy seasons.  Their tents get flooded with just one heavy rainfall.  They have to empty their tents of all of their belongings and attempt to salvage what they can only to set everything back up in these same tents to wait for the next downpour.  For these last several months Pastor Nahum has been on a path which gave him every reason to believe the funds he needed to build his orphans a home would be available to him by the end of this month.  Pastor Nahum and his orphans were hopeful their home would be built in time to protect them from this rainy season and worse yet, the hurricane season quickly approaching at the beginning of June.

Although, there is no longer physical evidence of any immediate support available to help Pastor Nahum complete his orphan home at this time, we remember we dedicated this foundation, home, and all of the orphans who will live in it one day to the Lord, our God...we rest in knowing it's in God's hands.  So, these kinds of situations, the kind where you can’t physically see hope or possibilities, the kind where you are left crying out to God in desperation...these are the kinds of situations incredibly familiar to Pastor Nahum.  They present perfect opportunities for faith…for God to show up in the fullness and splendor of His glory and power. 

Our journey with Pastor Nahum has been a beautiful dance with the Spirit.  In spirit we have carried their burdens and lived through the miserable poverty piled high upon their already existing poverty as a result of the tragic January 2010 earthquake, the horror of the cholera epidemic that began sweeping across their broken nation in October 2010, then they were hammered by Hurricane Tomas in November 2010, and let’s not forget the instability and dangers of spontaneous eruptions of social unrest triggered by the corruption of the 2010-2011 presidential election.    

And now today the rains are falling heavy once again with no sign of relief.  As a father loves his own children, Pastor Nahum loves his orphans and in this love he has prayerfully sought out a solution.  He wants to move his orphans out of the tents and into a more suitable structure while waiting for their permanent orphan home to be finished. For only $5000 and about 2 or 3 weeks he can have a small two room (one room for the girls, one room for the boys) cinder-block structure built with a sheet metal roof to temporarily house his orphans.  It's not his first choice for protecting his orphans but it's a hundred times better than the tents and it's really all he can do at this point.  A medical team from Indiana who has been in relationship with Pastor Nahum for a few years now just gave $1000 to help him with this urgent need.  

So now I lift up my voice and hands with my utmost praise because our God is faithful to reveal His glory when we cry out in desperation.  Our God has a way of taking what the world sees as small and insignificant and making His glory known through multiplying these very small gifts into something with eternal kingdom value. It happened yesterday at the Weatherford Chick-fil-A.  There were just four of us moms sitting together at Chick-fil-A sharing the immediate needs of Pastor Nahum's orphans among ourselves and like a gust of wind, the Holy Spirit blew over us.  We all were sitting there sort of looking at each other wondering what just happened.  We all knew it was supernatural.  We all knew it was God.  Each of us fought back the overwhelming tears of joy... the kind of tears that well up when you are touched by God's love and grace in His gentle way.  God moved each of us to give what we could towards Pastor Nahum's need so he can immediately build his orphans the small two room temporary home to get them out of the tents.  Just like that...collectively the entire amount was covered.  That moment of shared fellowship with Jesus through the Holy Spirit left us all humbled and gracious that our God loves us enough to allow each of us to participate in the beauty of His Kingdom.

To all of you who have poured out prayers for Pastor Nahum and his orphans I want to say thank you sweet sisters and brothers and encourage you to continue praying for them.  Their needs are still great.  God is hearing your cries on behalf of these precious orphans, He is responding, and He is being glorified!  Holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was, and is and is to come. I believe it.
With God, all things are possible.