Chance seekers

Elizabeth Hollyn Romeyn is a young woman (25ish) I have known for many years -- from church, as a classmate of my boys, and as a volunteer here in Honduras.  Her life has taken her to far flung exotic, and sometimes dangerous places.  She is bright (both intellectually and in appearance,) fearless (to her mother's dismay) and has an endless heart for those she meets, especially children.  She is in South Sudan and Kenya working in the aftermath of war. 

Right now she is in Kakuma, a large refugee camp in Kenya.  This is her most recent post on Facebook:

as i walked into kakuma secondary school here in the camp, i saw a line of 15+ boys in uniforms outside the gate. i asked what they were waiting for. the headteacher told me these same boys come each and every day bc they want to be admitted...they want to learn. they beg to stand in the back, not take food rations, and even bought the uniforms themselves. but there is no room. there is 1000 refugees on the wait list at this school and its one of only 2 secondary schools in the camps. these boys are called "chance seekers"... but they will never get the chance. my heart breaks around every bend in kakuma but children desperately seeking an education and being denied--this is one of the many human rights violations in the world.

Can you read that without weeping?  I can't.  Will you ever be able to forget the image of those boys, ever hopeful surrounded by hopelessness, waiting to go to school?  I won't.

Even more heartbreaking is that there are chance seekers everywhere.  People looking for work, waiting outside a medical brigade clinic, asking for food, hoping for a scholarship to an elementary school, to a vocational school, to university, trying to shake an addiction, praying for rescue from human traffickers... We see them everyday in Honduras.  They are all over the news.  They are in your backyard at home in the US.

What does God call us to do for chance seekers?   

'For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in,  I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’ ...‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’ 

 If you have the chance, give.  Give hope to a chance seeker...in His name.