We had an amazing day at the children’s home last week. It was hands down the best day we’ve had for a really long time. We were a large group that day because the other children’s home was gone on an outing so everyone came to our hogar. The preparation time before we went to the home was pretty hectic and we wondered if our plans were too ambitious for the day. When we arrived to the hogar, though, and began our program, we found the boys connected and interested in what we were doing.
David and Goliath
The IT really ran the program. I asked to step back and photograph the goings-on, and it was great to see the IT really stretch themselves to present a puppet show all in Spanish. We started the first program of the theme ‘Warriors’. They prepared a drama about David and Goliath and one of them gave a short message after, speaking about courage, fearlessness and strength. They had an elaborate, multi-step craft planned for the boys that had to do with David’s bag of stones, and there was some anxiety about whether it would be too challenging.
It went wonderfully.
The boys were sent out to search for 5 smooth stones (which could have easily become a time of stone throwing, but praise God, it didn’t). When they came back to the tables they either wrote or drew some of their fears onto the rocks. Most didn’t want to do it at first because they didn’t want to show any weakness in front of the other boys. With some encouragement, though, they began writing and drawing. The younger ones wrote down fears like ghosts or zombies, but some of the older boys really wrote down some deep fears like being alone, a family member dying, and being bullied.
The most special part of the day then came when the boys came to us to pray over what they’d written on the rocks, and that God would take away those fears. It was incredibly moving to have that experience with the boys, praying one-on-one with them. Some of the boys, as well, were touched by it and had tears in their eyes. They were able to get rid of their emotions in the next step of the craft, when they went out to the soccer field and tried tossing their rocks into a bucket from far away.
The afternoon was really wonderful. After the program was done we continued playing with the boys. My sister taught us a game awhile back that we did that afternoon with the boys, and it was awesome! 
A boy jumped on the back of one of the guy leaders and then had to climb forward, over the shoulders of the leader, down the front, through the legs, then back up the back of the leader to their starting point, all without touching the ground. When two full-size adults do it, it’s hilarious to watch and really hard to do, but with little boys participating it was a little bit easier for the leaders to help out and pull them back into position. Still hilarious, just slightly easier. There was also a lot of other roughhousing happening and it was great to see the boys laughing and having a wonderful time with all of the physical play.
It was really a great day at the children’s home. God blessed the afternoon and I pray that the boys see Him answering their prayers.
I’m going to copy and paste a story that I wrote for OM International’s news website (which is really a pretty awesome website that you should check out, updated all the time with new stories and photos of things happening around the world with OM – a great resource for information and prayer inspiration – http://news.om.org ). I wrote the story in third person and with a british-style of English, so that’s why the story is going to sound how it does, but I wanted to share this with you all as well because it was a beautiful experience that also broke my heart. Please hug a child today, whether your own or one you care for, and tell them they are beautiful, loved, and have value.
Loving Every Child
Chile
The young boy did not come over to greet the OMers when they arrived at the children’s home in Santiago, Chile, where he lives. He didn’t participate in the programme the OMers put on. Instead, he stayed in the corner of the yard all afternoon, digging in the dirt.
After their programme, one of the OM team members, Whitney Guthrie, went over to see what the young boy was working on so earnestly. She bent down next to him and saw a small pile of worms next to his foot, the results of his toil.
“¿Qué haces?” she asked. What are you doing?
“Venga, Tía,” he responded. Come, Aunt. He led Whitney over to an enclosure in the yard where two chickens scratched in the dirt. He sat down in the dirt and held out a worm towards one of the chickens, smiling as it stretched its neck out to snatch the worm.
Whitney watched as the little boy, one by one, fed his painstakingly-gathered worms to the chickens. At one point, he pulled one of the chickens into his lap to let her eat straight from the pile of worms in his hand. When she had gobbled them, he gently and quietly talked to her.
“Here, let me clean your beak off,” he murmured. “You’ve got mud on it.” He lifted the hem of his t-shirt and wiped at the chicken’s face, the hen remarkably calm throughout his ministrations.
As the boy put the chicken down and left the enclosure, Witney called him over and knelt down in front of him. “You know, I love watching you with animals,” she said. “You really like them, don’t you?”
“Yeah, they’re great,” he replied simply.
“I’ve seen you with the dog of the home, too, and you’re very gentle and loving,” Whitney said to him. “I want you to know that I love seeing that side of you. You have a great heart. I love you a lot. You know that, right?” she asked.
“Yeah, I know, Tia,” he answered. “I love you, too.” He grinned at Whitney, gave her a big hug and ran off.
The boy, Luis*, is 13 years old and has been in different children’s homes since he was a baby, along with his older brothers. He has experienced so much insecurity and rejection in his young life that he now has difficulty connecting with other people, preferring the company of animals over that of the other boys at the home. Please pray for this young boy’s heart, so loving and already so scarred.
*Name changed
"Rex", the ever-patient dog of the hogar
I go to a children’s home (hogar de niños in Spanish) here in Santiago two or three times a week to spend time with the around 40 high-social risk boys who live there. I’ve been going there ever since I arrived, about a year and a half ago, and those boys have my heart. It’s incredibly difficult work and one of the most fulfilling things I do. These are not your Sunday-school kids; these boys have experienced things that no one should experience- abuse, neglect, abandonment, and much more. When I get to see a light turn on in them and an “ah-ha” moment happen, it’s incredible.
About a month ago, Monday was a very difficult day at the hogar. We arrived at the hogar with a program prepared but first we just spent time with the boys. A young boy about 9, we’ll call him Charlie (an obvious gringo-name replacement to care for his privacy), at one point playfully and lightly smacked a girl from our team on her face and ran away with our soccer ball. I walked over to him and said I wanted to talk to him. I knelt down and said, “Charlie, you know you shouldn’t hit the tia, right?”
“Yes, tia,” he replied, smiling at me (“tia” means “aunt” in Spanish and is the term of respect used by the children).
“She’s a girl and it’s not right to hit girls,” I reminded him. “I’d really like to you to go apologize to the tia.”
“Okay, tia,” he said, and ran off to do so. I thought, well that went well, and it’s nice that Charlie’s in such a good mood today. He is a boy whose moods change rapidly and dramatically.
We got underway with the program and it went well, that is, until Charlie had a meltdown. He began to fight with another boy and then ran off in a full-blown rage to begin throwing things. It was the worst behavior we’d seen in awhile at the hogar. We continued our program with the background noise of his anger, and by the time we wound down so did he, so that he returned in time to participate in drawing his ideas of his future, and the future God has in store for him.
He quickly blew off the idea of the drawing, though, and when another little boy showed me his drawing of wanting to be a firefighter, he laughed at him and said, “God doesn’t have a plan for your life.”
“You don’t think so?” I asked him, “because I do. What about your life? Does He have a plan for your life?”
“Nope. He hasn’t cared so far,” Charlie replied. The other little boy ran off to play, but Charlie stayed close, obviously wanting to talk. I asked him why he felt God didn’t care, and this little boy of 9 years old just looked at me with incredibly old eyes, eyes that had seen too much in his short life. I asked him if he believed in God and he said, “Yes, I believe.” He looked at me again for a long moment, then quietly asked me, ” Tia, if God loves me, if He has a plan for me, why did He make my mom a drug-addict?”
My heart broke.
“I don’t have a good answer for you, Charlie,” I said. “God didn’t make your mom a drug-addict, but there are sad and really hard things in life. God loves your mom. He’s even more sad than you are.” I stopped and prayed for the words to say to this little boy. We ended up speaking for a long time, a surprisingly long time for a 9 year old, and about deep things related to his life and to God, about Charlie’s anger and his hurts. At the end of our conversation I said to him, “You know, Charlie, when you were so angry this afternoon, when you were throwing things and almost hitting people, I was scared. I was scared that you were going to end up hurting someone. It made me sad to see how angry you got and how you acted.”
“I know, Tia”, he said with his head down a little, “I’m sorry.”
“I say this to you, though, Charlie, because I want you to know something. Even though I was worried and sad today, I still love you. Even when you get so angry and can’t control it, when you’re throwing things and breaking things, I still love you. There are times when I don’t like your actions, but I love you.” He gave me a small smile. “Charlie, God loves you so much more than I ever can. My love for you doesn’t change when you’re happy or angry, and neither does His. He loves you so much, Charlie, and He has amazing plans for your life.”
We talked more that day about a lot of things, but at the end of our time there, as I was leaving I reflected back on what just happened and I was so humbled by what I’d experienced, what God allowed me to experience. This little boy, this angry little boy wanted so badly to talk, to be heard and to have someone share with him. I pray for his beautiful heart, hurt, scarred and angry, and also filled with love, creativity and a wonderful sense of humor. I pray that God touched his heart that day and that He will also take away Charlie’s uncontrollable anger. He is a beautiful, much-loved creation of our Heavenly Father.
One of OM Chile’s ministries is our Children’s Ministry, where we go to two children’s homes here in Santiago and invest in the lives of the children living there, children who are at high social risk. Some of the children are orphans, some were abandoned, and many of them were removed from their families because the situation was bad enough that a child should not be raised there.
During a children’s program a few weeks ago we had the opportunity to talk with one of the boys one-on-one after a drama about God’s love. He’s a quiet, often-sullen boy of about 13 years who came to the children’s home six months ago. When he arrived he was a very angry young man who fought with anyone who crossed him and was uncomfortable with receiving or showing affection. Over the months he has warmed up to us a little but is still very reserved. That day after the drama, we asked him if he had anything he’d like to pray about and he just shrugged. When we asked him if he believes in God, he shrugged again and said, “Yes”. “How much do you believe in God?” we asked him and he immediately replied, “50%”. We asked what was the reason for the 50% and if he had prayed before to God. He said no, he prayed before and God didn’t answer his prayer. He then proceeded to tell us that the one thing he wanted was to be back with his family, or at least to have someone visit him. He never received visitors and was very lonely. He missed his mom.
Hearing him share this with us in a low voice, with his head down, it was hard to keep tears away. We asked him if we could pray with him and if he would like to try praying again. It was a short, simple prayer, but it was a plea from this boy’s heart to take away his loneliness and to reconnect him to his family. When he finished we told him we would pray specifically for his prayer request every day, too. He was really surprised by that but we told him he’s important to us and we want to pray for God to fulfill the desires of his heart.
Recently it’s been a time of vacation from school here in Chile. We’ve continued going to the children’s home twice a week but there have been much less boys because many have gone to spend time in their families or with godparents. The other day we asked for an update on how some of the children are doing whom we hadn’t seen for a bit. It was such wonderful news to hear that the reason we hadn’t seen the boy with whom we’d prayed wasn’t because he was on vacation but because he had gone home. Praise God! His home situation had improved enough that he could be reunited with his parents and siblings. The children’s home will still monitor the family, but he is back home. What an amazing answer to prayer. We are praying now that this boy will remember our conversation and see just how faithful and loving his Heavenly Father is. We are praying that, through this experience, his 50% might look a little different now.
One of the most powerful, wonderful, and at the same time incredibly heavy ministries I am honored to be a part of is OM Chile’s children’s ministry. Every week I go to a boys’ home and invest in the lives of the 40ish boys there ranging in age from 7-18. I spend Monday and Thursday afternoons there with the younger ones, Wednesday evenings are spent with the teenagers, and at least one Saturday a month, sometimes two are with the boys as well. They have captured my heart. We in the children’s ministry have been working hard to create a Prayer Parent project that will ultimately result in each child from the two hogars (children’s homes) where we work having someone caring for him or her through prayer. Friends, family members, church members, supporters; anyone who really feels the Lord leading them to be a part of this may be a “parent”.
As we worked to accumulate the information for the project, explaining about children’s homes in Chile, the specific children’s home to which the child is connected, what life is like for some of these children, and specifics about the child’s life, history, and prayer requests for the child, it has been a heavy undertaking. The heaviness comes in learning more about my boys, learning about their pasts, their hurts, the reasons why they’ve ended up in the children’s home. Blissful ignorance is gone and my heart hurts for the amount of life these young, sweet, beautiful boys have already lived.
I want to share a prayer with you that I am taking from my friend Becky’s blog. When I first read this prayer by a woman named Ina J. Hughs, I was struck by the power of the words. When I read it a second time, that time aloud to a friend, I had to clear my throat to tamp down the tears that sprang up on me. The most powerful tool I have in working with and caring for my boys is prayer. Before we go to the children’s homes, we pray. We pray for God to bless the day and the experience with the children. We put on the armor of God, as we are very much going into a spiritual battle. We pray for each and every child individually. We pray for the staff people at the hogars. We pray for the hogars themselves. When we arrive to the hogars, we stand outside them and before entering we ask God to be over the time, over the hogar, that he will reclaim the space as His. When we leave the hogar, we praise God for the experience, whether wonderful or difficult, and pray that it made an impact. When I am at home, I have photos of all of my boys so I can pray for them.
Perhaps not everyone reading this post gives the same importance to prayer, and for them, this seems like a lot of hot air and wasted time. Perhaps for others, prayer is important but this still seems overly much. For some, maybe this has sounded like a bunch of bragging and a holier-than-thou listing of “Christian” accomplishments. Please don’t read it that way. What I have experienced in this ministry, with these boys and girls, is that if I try to accomplish anything on my own power, I am just knocking my head against a wall. We bathe this in prayer not because of some “Christian” pride, but because that self-sufficient pride has been broken down and we’re humbly acknowledging that we can’t do it; He can. These children’s homes are some of the places where I have felt most strongly and clearly the presence of a spiritual battle. It does exist and it rages at the hogar. These children have had their innocence ripped away from them; many have experienced evil on this earth. Satan battles the love and healing that the Lord offers each one of them. Who am I in that fight? What can I possibly do in my own power?
This is why I pray. This is why I pray for my boys. This is why I pray for children. Will you join me?
“We Pray For Children” by Ina J Hughs
We pray for children
who sneak popsicles before supper,
who erase holes in math books
who can never find their shoes.
And we pray for those
who stare at photographers from behind barbed wire
who can’t bound down the street in a new pair of sneakers
who never counted potatoes
who are born in places where we wouldn’t be caught dead
who never go to the circus
who live in an X-rated world.
We pray for children
who bring us sticky kisses and fistfuls of dandilions
who sleep with the cat and bury goldfish
who hug us in a hurry and forget their lunch money
who squeeze toothpaste all over the sink
who slurp their soup.
And we pray for those
who never get dessert
who have no safe blanket to drag behind them
who watch their parents watch them die
who can’t find any bread to steal
who don’t have any rooms to clean up
whose pictures aren’t on anybody’s dresser
whose monsters are real
We pray for children
who spend all of their allowance before Tuesday
who throw tantrums in the grocery store and pick at their food
who like ghost stories
who shove dirty clothes under the bed and never rinse out the tub
who get visits from the tooth fairy
who don’t like to be kissed in front of the carpool
who squirm in church or temple and scream in the phone
whose tears we sometimes laugh at
whose smiles can make us cry.
And we pray for those
whose nightmares comes in the day time
who will eat anything
who have never seen the dentist
who aren’t spoiled by anybody
who go to bed hungry and cry themselves to sleep
who live and move but have no being
We pray for children
who want to be carried
and for those who must
for those we never give up on
and for those who don’t get a second chance
for those we smother
and for those who will grab the hand of anybody kind enough to offer it.
We pray for children. Amen.
 | Pam on Weighing heavily on my he… |
| Pam on Stones of Fear |
| Pam on When the world around me … |
 | Becky Durham on Are You Really Free? |
| Pam on Humbled at the Hogar |
