Ana Ester, a two- year- old at Cleide’s (the orphanage we’ve helped since 2007) died this week. She drowned in the river near the orphanage property. Her sister, Elaine, was right with her when she fell in. Ana was pulled into a deep hole by a very strong current/whirlpool thing that is common here. Her little body was recovered many feet into this hole. She leaves three sisters at the orphanage: Elaine (14), Aline (10), and Alissa (5).
The very next day, I sorrowed for another kind of loss, as I spent the day with a 14- year- old girl. She was rescued during a police raid on the house she was living in. At eight-years-old, her mother sent her to live with a 65-year-old man; he used and abused her. Her mother gave her crack so she could bear it. Her name is Tália. She doesn’t talk.
This kind of sorrow is like an anger that HATES sin and ruin and evil. My tears stay deep inside me and they don’t surface. The Lord Jesus Christ draws very near; He is the Man of Sorrows. My prayer to Him has no words; it’s just a longing for His return, because, then, there will be no more sin, no more sorrow, no more tears, and children like Tália will not remember their suffering.
I love His answer to me, which I heard when I came home and shut the door and opened His Word: Into the hovels of the poor, into the dark streets where the homeless groan, God speaks, “I’ve had enough; I’m on my way to heal the ache in the heart of the wretched.” Psalm 12:5
