A Miserable Mother's Day

For some people, Mother’s Day will be a very cruel day—one that reminds them of the some agonizing pain they bear in their hearts.

Many of the half million foster children in America are in this bracket. And then there are those who’ve lost a child. None could feel worse than those whose child was abducted.

3-year-old Briant Rodriguez was recently abducted from his home. Two men broke into a home in San Bernadino, California, tied up a mother and her four children, stole some trivia--and then grabbed three-year-old baby Briant. It is feared they took him to Mexico where he could be used for porn or who knows what. Please pray for Briant, his siblings who’ve now been left permanently traumatized, Briant’s parents. 

If you need tool to just imagine a wee bit how terrible it must feel for a child to be ripped from his family, scared and alone, wrap your mind around this YouTube of a scared 4-year-old boy, crying because his mom left him. This is really just a commercial but the boys tears are real. It helps us imagine how terrible it must be for little Briant, even younger than the child in the YouTube, and completely separated from his family.


Baby deaths in Benin (Africa)
Recently in the vicinity of our Orphans First ministry in Benin, a mother died giving birth. The baby was given to the family who left it to die. The baby died of willful neglect. This scenario is typical in Benin where, when a woman dies in childbirth in Benin, the baby is then considered to be the cause and is thereby cursed.

In another scenario, a woman was giving birth to twins. Because she was poor, the hospital refused to help her. After our church friends prayed, the hospital finally yielded, but by this time the woman was in a coma. She finally gave birth, but one baby was already dead. The woman survived. Orphans First has since provided a little financial help for this woman and her baby.

What do these stories tell us?

We must not give up praying for a children’s home in Benin, and even for a medical center. The needs are huge but God has already provided some of the elements we need to start another an orphanage. Please continue praying for this. Pray for:
*churches to partner with us on this project,
*the total funding needed,
*for the infrastructure we already have in place to be solid.

To see our children’s ministries and orphanages, visit www.orphansfirst.org.

Janey L. DeMeo
Copyright © May 2009