All I want for Christmas

“Wow, a new lego Captain Jack Sparrow. It’s what I always wanted,” said Jackson as he opened a gift sent to him from a local toy drive. Another boy sitting next to him whines about his package, “I already have a spider man pencil box at school. This is so lame.” Wrapping paper lines the hallways and dining hall area as young boys ravage the boxes which are given to them while “Jingle Bell Rock” blares through an old PA sound system. Many staff and volunteers have put several hours and hours of effort into filling up boxes for these children, as the boys from the therapeutic facility finish the school work they have before the end of the semester.

Thousands of dollars of merchandise and donations going to shopping center pour into the in box of administration building of the children’s center. The reality for most of these boys is not making a mad dash from school on the 23^rd to celebrate Christmas with their families and friends.
The staff at the home work hard to ease the pain of the children who will not be able to see their family during the holiday season. The best option that can be conceived is to over stimulate the senses of these kids with parties and presents.

The glum picture for them this holiday season is that, for the majority, paid staff of residential facilities will be the only ones that get to eat their Christmas dinner with them. They will crowd into a residential care cafeteria and eat their slices of pie and turkey and go back to their dorms where there will be no lounging around with their siblings on couches while their dad’s take a snooze during the football game. Moreover, they will go back and sit in their rooms and fantasize that they really were with their mom and dad.

Many of the children cannot accept the fact of their current displacements from their families. They will fantasize that they are not spending the holidays in a dingy room with a small shatterproof window that has bars across it. They can’t stop believing-- they won’t bring themselves to believe that all hope is lost. Somehow in their minds, mom and dad are going to be coming back for them any day. Soon they will even be back in school and playing on the basketball team. Before long, mom and dad will make it all better.

A majority of the 9,000 plus children Missouri’s foster care system will not be able to go home to their families this year. Looking closer to my home in KC, MO, there are over a thousand children in Jackson County alone who are in the system with 350 who are currently waiting for a “forever family” to bring them to their table during the holiday feasting. (adoptkckids.org). These numbers dwindle compared to over 100,000 children in the U.S. foster care system that are no longer able to ever go back to their biological families.  These are the U.S.’s modern day orphans in our backyards. How are we to respond to this reality in light of our own redemption as children of God.

Consider our own plight, we were those helpless, confused, directionless wanders who needed a home. Before the Messiah came and sought us out a long way off, we were trying to make ourselves acceptable to everyone around us.

As followers of Jesus, we are committed to responding rightly to the act of redemption which was done completely for us. As we learn about the Son who is the image of the invisible God, the true light of God is seen in how He is a Father to the fatherless and a defender of widows. Jesus is the one who is deeply committed to the children. His ears are open to their cries, and He is near to the broken hearted (Ps 34:18).

My prayer is that our eyes would be open to the needy and afflicted child with Him. May our eyes be opened to the injustice of these children who are stuck in the residential facilities of our own cities. Let our hearts be unsettled until we see justice for every child.