When Our Eyes Are Open

Sunday we had lunch with Gary and Tammy Webb of OCJ Kids(Opportunity, Comunity and Justice for Kids). They connect churches and businesses to group foster homes here in Arizona. I just sat and listened shocked at what  I heard. These group homes  have children ranging from babies to teenagers that are largely ineligible for foster care or adoption because the parents won't sign off to get them into family units.
 Their living conditions sound very similar to institutionalized orphans in other countries. They have people that rotate through the homes in 8-9 hour shifts to do housework, paperwork, doctor appointments, whatever needs to be done to run the home. These people stay very busy, and God bless them for a very difficult job, but they have little time to interact with the kids. The children go to school and come home. That is the extent of their experience outside of the homes. Once they are back in the homes they stay. They cannot go out without an adult supervisor, which they don't have.
 The group homes have white walls, 4 kids to a bedroom and no doors on the bedrooms for safety reasons. The kids don't really have anything that belongs to them, they share clothes, even underwear because the budget for clothing is so low. There is a budget of $27 for each child to celebrate birthdays, holidays and special occasions.
 There is a 60 percent school drop out rate for these kids. When they turn 18 they are given a gift card with $300 to $400 on it, a trash bag for their few belongings and they are sent out of the house. As the Webbs put it, they know who they are, they know they are not set up to succeed. They drift into the streets. They drop out and sometimes run away right before their 18th birthday rather than face the depressing deadline of the end of shelter and safety for them.
 This should not be.
I don't blame the government, they are doing the best they can with an overwhelmed system and a low budget. But the Church... Church this is our responsiblilty! These kids are desitute and have no one. Some of them literally grow up in this environment never knowing a family, never experiencing normal childhood activities. When Gary and Tammy started getting churches into these group homes, rooms started being painted, houses started looking homey. Kids were taken out of the 4 walls of the homes to go to the zoo, to camps, churches, restaurants, shopping... stuff that our kids get to do all the time. Church people are going in to these homes and developing relationships with these kids, giving them life skills, love and encouragement to succeed. This is a beautiful thing, but there needs to be more. There are over 200 group homes in Arizona, and about 20 churches involved in a few of these homes.
Look in your own state, see what is being done for the kids in your group homes. These kids desperately need light and love in their lives.

Psalm 10:14 “But you have seen, for You observe trouble and grief, to repay it by your hand. The helpless commits himself to You; You are the helper of the fatherless.”



Here is a poem a boy wrote who lives in one of the homes, It's a little hard to read, so here's what it says:

 I Need You

You don't understand

Understand who we are

Understand why we do what we do

Hardly anyone does

You won't ask

You won't say a word

You're scared

Scared to say the wrong thing

We are who we are

We all have problems

Everyone handle them differently

Everyone wants the same thing

We all want to be loves

When things get hard

You shut us out

And we dont' know how to say

How to say, "I really need you"

We're human

We're the same person inside

We just need your love

We just need your help

We just need you.