Intervention needed

I had alot of time the other day to ponder the last seven weeks as I sat in the car, stuck in the mud on a little road in the village.............When children have been abandoned by family, they need help. When a young teenage girl is pregnant and has been abandoned by family, her village, and society, she needs help. When a village widow is left alone with several grandchildren to feed, she needs help. When an abandoned, single mom lives in an 8 x 10 hut with six children (one with pneumonia and one with malaria), she needs help.

They need HOPE and they need intervention. Intervenion: the act of intervening. When I looked up intervene in the dictionary, it says: to arbitrate, to occur or be between two things: to come between disputing people, groups, etc., and to intercede and mediate. That is what these abandoned, hurting people need. Whether they are pregnant and abandoned or elderly trying to make ends meet: they need intervention.

I think about how God has used HEAL Ministries the past few years serving the people we have been called to serve through short term mission trips. Short term mission trips have been the heart of HEAL Ministries and we have seen how God has done a mighty work in short amounts of time in various countries. Now, He is calling us to narrow our focus to one area. To this area in Uganda. While we will probably be here long term, we will continue to send teams short term. As I have researched in this particular area, every ministry that we have served has been launched by a person God called through a short term mission trip. These teams that serve short term relieve workers, give a burst of energy to missionaries, help with children, work on projects and grow in Christ. Because of these short term mission trips, I find myself sitting here in Uganda on a long term mission that I am very excited about. I am seeing how God is shifting HEAL to intervention......orphan intervention........widow intervention......abandoned women and children that need HOPE and intervention.

I visited a village with a little boy named Ashriaf. He has been under the care of Amani Baby Cottage the last year or so. His mother died and his father abandoned him at the age of 5. An elderly couple he calls grandma (Jaja in uganda) cared for him and sent him to the orphanage because they could not afford to care for him. He is now too old for Amani and needs to go to school. Amani intervened for Ashriaf and found him another home. He was very reluctant to look around as we visited the village but smiled brightly as he hugged his Jaja. Ashriaf is quite excited about going to his new school. He is a prime example of a child that needed intervention.

Scripture makes it very clear to fight for and to defend the fatherless and the widows. Uganda is a small place on the map but it has an enormous group of people in this category. If you are reading this, I would kindly ask you to pray that HEAL Ministries will do what is right in defending these oppressed people.

"Learn to do right; seek justice.
Defend the oppressed.
Take up the cause of the fatherless;
plead the case of the widow." Isaiah 1: 17