The massive immigration of minors and children from Central America is all over the news media and social media; emotions
are high and opinions are divided. People are asking me over and over: “What´s up? Why are the children going?”. The answer is complicated: children are going because they are being bought from their parents, literally bought. Someone is paying money to poor families in the northern mayan villages for children. Other children are being lured away with false promises of sure residence and legalization in the United States. Others are just being plain stolen. However one thing is clear, the children and adults are fleeing because they have no choice, no alternative, no hope. They are fleeing because a pair of shoes costs three weeks salary; they are fleeing because their children are going to bed at night with a cup of warm sugar water and a dry tortilla.
They are fleeing because without an education they have no hope of a better future. They are fleeing because the public school teachers only show up to class one or two days a week and when they do show up they have to teach three to four grades in the same classroom. They are fleeing because there are no jobs, because they are tired of being hungry and the only alternative to hungry is to join the gangs, the mafia or the drug cartels. They are fleeing because governments are more interested in personal gain than public good. They are fleeing because they are looking for hope. Hope for a better tomorrow, hope for a job, even if it is picking vegetables under the burning sun. Hope that I can send money home for my little brothers and sisters to be able to eat, hope that more children won´t have to die from hunger and preventable diseases. North Americans will never be able to understand the desperation of a mother who would allow her child to climb aboard “the Beast”, the Mexican freight train, risking life and limb in a last desperate act of survival. The Coyotes tie the children to the roof of the train so they won´t fall of when they fall asleep. Unless you have seen the hopelessness of the eyes of absolute poverty you will never understand. Unless you have held a dying baby in your arms your heart will struggle to comprehend.
As I write this, I sit in my office and look out the window at the happy glowing faces of the Morning Glory children. Are they so far removed from those unfortunate children making the pilgrimage north? They are the same children, from the same type of homes, they live in the same gang infested areas; they face the same challenges of poverty. What makes the difference?
It was not so long ago that I sat
in a second grade classroom and was heart broken with the hopeless answers of the children. Children who expressed no hope for a future, children with out a dream. Now, fourteen years later I look out at over six hundred laughing, playing children, children who are sure about tomorrow, children who dream of the university, children who know where they are going. Yesterday I sat and talked with mothers and fathers who are concerned about their child´s future, mothers and fathers who would never dream of selling their children, parents who would never allow their child to make that perilous journey north. What is the difference?
The difference is hope, the difference is a dream, the difference is CHRIST. The hope in His promise, yes today I am poor, but I am a child of the king and He will provide all my needs in Christ Jesus. Hope of a better tomorrow; yes I am poor; yes I live in a shack on a hill, but if I study really hard, if I work just as hard, if I persist I can build a better future for my family. Hope in the promise, “let the poor say, I am rich, let the weak say I am strong….as a man thinks in his heart so He is…” Hope based on evidence. “I can learn, I can shine, I can win, it doesn’t matter if my family lives in a shack and raises chickens, I can compete with the best. The difference is Morning Glory. Here the children have a chance to hope, an opportunity to make a better life, an opportunity to be what God made them to be, in their own country, in their own families.
The answer to the immigration problem is NOT to build more walls, the answer is not to allow the children
to stay and work, the answer is not to close our eyes to the problems of the world. The answer is to give the children an opportunity for quality education in their own community; the answer is to teach Christian principles of life and responsible parenting to the families of the world. I look out at six hundred children who will never have the need to migrate north. Children who will go to the university, children who will make a difference in their community, build their own businesses, children who will forge their own future. How do I know? Because they are already doing it, my students are graduating, going to the university, building successful businesses. My present students are proactive in their communities, and look for ways to make things better. In fourteen years I have watched the families of Morning Glory prosper and grow, putting into practice Biblical financial principles. God´s word works whether you are in the United States or Guatemala.
And that my friends; is what Morning Glory is all about. Life lessons from the word of God, applied to everyday living and life; that is why Morning Glory makes a difference. Because Morning Glory through Christ centered education gives Guatemalan children a chance to hope.
My question to you is; how much to you believe in that chance? Is the church willing to sacrifice just a bit of stuff and comfort to give a child a chance? Or is the church just going to continue to fuss about all the foreign kids on the border and all the illegal immigrants taking the jobs and invading the comfort zones. What are you doing to give a child the chance to hope? Are you willing to be the hands, feet and heart of Christ to those hurting and lost children? Are you willing to give up time and stuff to minister? Morning Glory needs your help. And yet even though we have the answer and the answer has proven to work every month I struggle to find the funds to pay teachers and keep the doors of MORNING GLORY CHRISTIAN ACADEMY open. While millions are being spent building walls, providing shelter, deporting children, basically just a bandaid on a festering wound.
Every year I turn away hundreds of kids because I don’t have
classrooms or funds to pay more teachers. Every month I rob Peter to pay Paul, I make every penny squeak trying to pay every salary and owe no man. I have graduating secondary students who are failing on purpose because they are terrified to face the world outside Morning Glory and I don´t have funds to go the next level.
I know that most of you who read this have given sacrificially over and over and you don’t have more to give. And I can´t in all conscience ask you to give more. So I ask this of you. Share this with your friends, publish it on your facebook wall, talk about Morning Glory at work. When you hear someone fussing about the kids on the border, challenge them to donate to Morning Glory and put their money where their mouth is. To be part of the solution, not just complain about the problem. Challenge your class to sponsor a child, challenge your office team. Help us get the word out. Tell the church down the road, share with your neighbors. Hold a bakesale, maybe a joint garage sale with all your friends. Bit by bit every penny counts. We have the answer, we have Hope, it works, our education works; we just need the funds to continue to do what we do so well.
It is essential that we build three new classrooms before January of 2015 to be able to take Morning Glory to the next level. We need at least fifty thousand dollars to do that. We need at least two thousand dollars more every month to balance current budget. If we do go to the next level then budget will jump once again. Our next level dream is two hundred thousand dollars to build six classrooms, bathrooms and a multipurpose meeting room that holds at least five hundred people. We can´t do this unless you help us spread the word.
So I ask you, if you believe in the HOPE that Morning Glory provides through Christ, help us spread the word. I challenge you to be part of the change, part of the solution not just fuss about the problem.
