Confused at the grace...

I attended a focus group today studying the marketing campaigns of a certain charity group, "Guatemala Children's Project". It is an interesting project taking kids off the streets, out of bad homes, and out of bad orphanages and placing them into a better orphanage with the goal of finding and rehabilitating their original family (they have programs to teach parents conflict resolution) and put them back into their original (but rebuilt) family. It seemed like a nice project. One of the key weaknesses of their marketing was illustrating the importance of saving these children and the magnitude of the problem with homeless and/or orphaned children in Guatemala. Little known fact, Guatemala ranks among the top in the world for child trafficking (children being sold both to foreign adoption agencies and into worse places than an orphanage), and actually it was said that it ranks second only to China in number of children (not percentage, but number, the population difference should give you an idea of the magnitude of this problem). Needless to say, there is a problem and this program honestly is trying to fix it.

Now as I left the focus group I hurried my way across to my New Testament class and we sung the opening hymn, "I Stand All Amazed." I felt quite amazed as I thought on all that I had just heard about these children in guatemala (not only them but people all across the world who live in poverty and problematic socioeconomic situations) and I thought, "gosh dang... i am blessed. How ever did I get to be so blessed." I mean really, here I sit with my $1,000 laptop, accessing the world through the wireless offered by a large university where I study to gain a first rate education so I can make a difference in the world (and also make money to support my family). It's cold outside but I have a nice sweater, good socks, a warm home to return to.... Maybe life isn't really fair, but I guess that gives me all more reason to do what I can to help out. Someday I hope to really make a difference, I don't know how, but I want to really make a real difference.