Holding Hands ~ A link up and update

I'm linking up with my friend Ellen Stumbo. She offers a writing prompt every Monday. This week the prompt is; Holding Hands.

Today hands I've never held fill my mind. Hands of scrawny children that reach between the bars of a crib that might as well be a prison. Hands of adults that behave and think more like children. Who need people to have courage to love them and offer them the gift of touch.

I contemplate my reservoirs of courage and compassion and wonder if they are full enough. Certainly not. I'm trusting Jesus for that.

It's so hard for me to imagine vulnerable, needy children laying in bed at night without a mother to dry their tears or chase away bad dreams. Does their whole life stretch out before them as one long nightmare? I can't imagine days without a daddy to pick them up and hug them, without the hand of love to clasp little fingers, without a gentle voice to teach them.

If you've followed my blog for long you know that God has put the need of Serbia's disabled orphans on my mind. It's been a long journey and I still have far to go but I'm getting closer. I have been welcomed to visit an institution in Veternik, near the city of Novi Sad. God has been so faithful to open doors along the way and I'm trusting he will continue to lead!


For those of you who have prayed and encouraged me, thank you! I hope you will continue with me on this journey of love for the least of these.

Here are some ways you can pray:

- For continued open doors and contacts as plans are made. For soft hearts that are open to the love of Jesus, new ideas, and changes in the institutions.

- For resources, financial and otherwise. It will cost several thousand dollars for myself and a companion to travel to Serbia and spend a couple of weeks there. I'm also planning on taking physical resources to the institution; clothes, bedding, diapers, medical supplies, etc, which will need to be shipped.

- For the disabled children and adults we will meet. My prayer is "Lord, you know the hopes of the helpless. Surely you will hear their cries and comfort them. You will bring justice to the orphans and the oppressed, so mere people can no longer terrify them." Psalm 10


- For courage as we go. I've never stepped so far outside my comfort zone, while at the same time been so sure of God's leading. It is easy to feel overwhelmed and fearful even in the excitement of following God.


- For God to raise up people to respond to the needs we find in the institution. People to go on short term mission trips, people to support financially, to support in prayer, and to give other resources the institution may need.


Thank you for praying and stay tuned for updates!